抄録
The author intends to explain the reason why the shifting cultivation has been maintained at the mountain village, from the viewpoints of land ownership in this article.
The shifting cultivation has been carried out at Nakakubo most acti-vely in Ehime prefecfure. The shifting cultivation is considered to be in a close relation to the mode of land ownership or the other customs in uncivilized villages. In consequence of the isolate conditions in which the village had been kept until recently, the traditional customs of vi-llage community has been preserved. Therefore, this village may be said to be one of the most typical examples of the special agriculture; the lands (arable lands, shifting fields, ranching lands and woodlands) in the village are divided almost equally to 18 farmers, who have had ho-mogeneous characterristics on every side of their ways of livings.
There is a relation between the land division of afforestation (Fig. 1), and the land utilization (Fig. 2), and it seems the method of cultiva-tion which is similar, to the “Gewann system” is yet carried out in this village. The localization of cultivated land is influenced by topo-graphical facfors; distance from the village, altitude and direction of slopes of lands.
The cultivation of “Mitsumata” (Edgeworthia papyriera, raw mate-rials of paper) is especially concerned with shifting cultivation. Mitsu-mata was introduced in this district about 70 years ago. Owing to the recent afforestation, Mitsumata fields resulting from shifting cultivation tend to decrease in the area. Such changing tendency of land utilization corresponds with that of village organization.
The lands as above mentioned are all divided as private lands and according to the principle of equality the allotment of common lands had been finished by the middle of 1920's (Table).
Such elements deculiar to village community as recognized in land ownership have been maintained through the combination pattern of “ko-so” (flat combination of individuality), which is influenced by blood relation (table 6).
Thanks to the developement of traffic, the village has been released from isolate conditions and with the introduction of profitable Mitsumata, the economic condition of the farmers has beeen improved, and economic-individualism has rapidly advanced.
Under such circumstances afforestation is now carried out and conseque-ntly the area of shifting cultivation tends to decrease. The succession of land utilization in this village appears as follows ; wooddands→shifting fields (Corns, beans, wheat, barley)→ Mitsumata (Edgeworthia papyrifera) fieds→reforesttaion areas.
