Terrace Culivation in Japan. A Geographical Study of Cultural Terraces as an Element of Cultural Landscape

Abstract

As the result of geographical researches on the distribution of terrace cultivation in Japan, the authors conclude that cultivation of this kind in Japan could be classified into three types. I. The first type, which is purely ethnographical, is cultivation by particular races in special districts, e. g. the millet-fields of the natives in the high mountain districts of Taiwan (Formosa). II. The second type is the terraces of rice-paddies, which is the most important in Japan where rice, being the food, is the chief crop. During the long period of feudalism in Japan, the labour of farmers practically counted for nothing, while the farmers were heavily taxed by their landlords, which fact inevitably forced them to cultivate such lands. Thus many slopes were changed into rice-paddies, which naturally took the form of terraces. But obviously, this saturation in the distribution of fields was unnatural. As the result of the result of the great economic revolution that swept over Japan, this unnatural tension had to be eliminated, the direct impetus of which came was the general estimation of the value of labour, and the increased cultivation of crops. This type of terraces is now decreasing in area of distribution. III. The third type is rather new. This is the terraces of such crops as are convenient for planting on slopes, examples of which are the orchards of peaches, oranges, etc, along the coast of the Inland-Sea, or that of mandarin-oranges on the Pacific coast of Sizuoka Prefecture. This type of land-utilization certainly increasing, and is likely to continue to do so in the future.