A Geographical Study of the Cultivation of Barley and Wheat in Hinohara Village, Tokyo Prefecture

Field: Agricultural and Biological Sciences (Life Sciences)

Hinohara village, which lies in the mountaineous region of Kwanto, is drained by the Aki-gawa. The land being steep, generally, no rice fields are to found here. In this locality barley is the most important crop, since it is the chief food of the inhabitants together with rice that is brought in from other regions. Barley and wheat are the only main winter crops, the yield being fairly abundant; sweet potatoes may also be grown in rotation on the same ground, all of which makes their cultivation important. As food, barley occupies the first rank, wheat being only secondary. The distribution of barley is generally on the adret slope, the ubac seeming to be disregarded. A sunny slope is the most important natural factor in the cultivation of barley and wheat. Very rarely they are cultivated in ubac fields, but close investigation showed them to be of secondary adret nature (Figs. 1, 2). In this case seeds are sown a month earlier and mown ten days later than on the adret slope. It is often fatal to sow them at the same time as on the adret slope, which is because of the difference in natural conditinns, the ubac getting but little insolation, while the adret gets much. Thus the shadow of a mountain ridge or forest turns an adret slope into an ubac slope. The chief differences between the two slopes are as follows. (1) The soil or air adjacent to it on an adret is warmed to a greater extent than on the ubac. (2) Soil humidity and frost are less on the, adret. (3) Snow remains upto a later date in spring on the ubac. (4) Insolation directly stimulates crop growth. Whether it is to be an adret or an ubac is determined primarily by slope exposure to the sun (Fig. 3). The writer measured the slope direction in all his field investigations and found it to be S 50° E-S, 40° E (Figs. 2, 4). The inclination of slope is also an important factor. A steep adret slope gets more insolation than level land, for which reason such a slope enables better growth of barley or wheat. The writer found 25°-30° inclination of slope in the lower drainage region and 30°-35° in the upper. Another important factor is soil. Fine weathered soil is best for, the cultivation of barley and wheat, loamy soil distributed in the upper stream being unsuitable. It is also important that the soil be protected from wind, especially from the north-west. For these rea-sons fields on slopes fairly high from the valley bottom, formed of weathered soil and protected from wind, is the best for growth. From the view point of human factors, not a little importance should be attached to the fertilizer; distance between fields and farm houses, and labour. Indeed a large amount of fertilizer is necessary for barley and wheat. In former days the mountain slopes, except the cultivated fields, yielded many kinds of fertilizers, such as green grass, fallen leaves, ash from dry grass, etc., whereas today the area for this purpose has been greatly diminished as the result of marked progress in deforestration. It is not an easy task for the farmer to carry a heavy load of fertilizer on his back from his house to his fields. This requires that the fields shall be as near as possible to his house. The labour problem is no less important. The development of forestry has come to require more than 50% of man labour, and has diminished interest in agriculture. Besides, with the development of the silk-worm industry, some of the barley fields have been turned into mulberry fields. As to the method of cultivation, maintainance of soil shows a spe-cial landscape. The barley and wheat fields in this region are from 300 to 800 metres above, sea level. The higher a field, the longer the necessary duration of time for growth. But there is little difference in the amount of yield per acre, because the plants are suited to a cool climate.