Abstract
This paper establishes the use of horse- and ox-drawn plows in the Kazusa area during the late Edo and early Meiji period. An evidence shows that, in the second year of Kaei (1849), farmers were animal-plowing in the village of Iwai (now the City of Sodegaura). Mr. Yoshitoshi Kimitsuka also indicated that animal-pulled plows were developed in the village of Uehara (now the Town of Ootaki) around the fifth year of Ansei (1858). Furthermore, The Tokyo National Museum archive titled "Nougu-Torishirabe- Kakiagecho" or a survey of farm tools, reported that such plows were used in 6 counties and 48 villages of the area around the fifth year of Meiji (1872). There were essentially two types of animal-pulled plows. One was a linear, flat-bottom plow whose body was carved out of a single wood. The other was also a linear wooden plow but had a bottom runner with a shape of a cone cut into two halves. Both types had a wooden shaft that connected the plow to the pulling animal through a strap. The shaft was firmly fixed to the plow body with a support of a pillar. These plows were used to reduce water permeability of paddy fields by mixing the soil while the fields were flooded. Animal plowing greatly improved the efficiency of this highly labor-intensive work and relieved the farmers from some of the hard work of manual plowing. Preventing paddy field water leakage, improving farming efficiency and reducing work load are universal desires of rice farmers of all times. In fact, some of the farmers who could not afford their own animals even sought renting or group ownership of draft animals so that they could use animal plowing.
