Thought of Enri Hayasi, Rono (an excellent farmer)

Abstract

Enri Hayashi is one of ronos who had great influences to agriculture in Meiji Era.
Although there have been manay researches who have done researches about Enri Hayashi, very few have examined on his thought itself. In this paer I tried to analyse his thought. Enri emphasised that modernizasion was necessary for Japan, because Japan was confronted with difficulties in the period of imperialism. He stated that Japan could be modernised by increasing its agricultural productivity, because the nature and climate of Japan was especially suitable for farming. He then pointed out the follownig three means for increasing agricultural productivity:
(1) the diffusion of double cropping;
(2) the land reclamations for farming and the discontinuation of Toshi-nawashiro (a rice nursery through the year); and
(3) the diffusion of Enri's farming method.
Among the above three, the diffusion of Enri's farming method was considered to be the central one. He emphasised the importance of agriculture among all industries. His thought belongs to the “agriculture-first” principle. His thought is not necessarily ideal but more practical, and this is the point in which his thought could be differentiated from the others who have similar thought like Enri.