Abstract
In the Oku-Chichibu mountainland, each tributary of the upper stream of the Arakawa runs nearly from west to east and there are great differences between adret slopes facing south and ubac slopes facing north. The writer, in order to grasp the character of the mountain village from a standpoint of the arable land utilization, observed the differences of their land utilizations and natural environments and examined some problems in reference to the adret and the ubac.
Consequently the following facts are proved in this article.
(1) Natural environments which are differed by adret and ubac have various effects on the arable land utilization. But the ratio of the area of adret to ubac within cultivated land of farmers causes different aspects in the land utilization as well as the natural environments do.
(2) The farmers under the circumstances in which they are unable to manage the adret arable land in their neighbourhood have a remarkable tendency to desire to win it even in the far distant places. For the farmers in mountain villages, the desires of obtaining adret arable lands are so strong that they do not mind the disadvantages from the viewpoint of distance, time and labour in reaching their adret arable lands from their residences.
