Toinvestigate areal differentiation of agricultural regions, various distribution maps were constructed and the results of the agricultural census of 1947 were taken into consideration. Between the upland field section (β) on one hand the upland field section (α) and the paddy field section (ρ) on the other, remarkable areal contrasts were observed as follows:
Ratio of tobacco area to area of all crops:
β section: 0 per cent, no tobacco except in a few enumeration districts.
α section: generally more than 5 per cent; several districts exceed 10 per cent.
ρ section: some peripheral districts range between 5 and 10per cent; some central ones range between 1 and 5 per cent.
Ratio of mulberry area to area of all crops:
β section : over 5 per cent except in southern districts where values less than 2 per cent occur.
α and p section: under 1 per cent with few exceptions.
Ratio of mulberry-growing farms to all farms:
β section: over 20 per cent except for southern districts.
α and p section: under 10 per cent in general.
Average mulberry area per mulberry-growing fauns:
β section: over 3 tanbu (1 tanbu=0.25 acre) except in southern districts.
α and p section: generally less than 2 tanbu.
Ratio of farms engaged in sericulture to all farms:
β section: except for southern districts, generally more than 20per cent.
α and p section: generally under 5 per cent.
Ratio of corn area to area of all crops:
β section: more than 4 per cent with the exception of a few districts.
α and p section : under 4 per cent in general.
Ratio of corn growing farms to all farms:
No remarkable contrast exists: corn is grown by almost every farm as a subsistence crop.
Average corn area per growing farm:
β section: over 0.8 tanbu except southeastern districts.
α and p section: generally less than 0.8 tanbu.
As stated above, the upland field section (β), except for the southern dis-tricts, is characterized as a region with sericulture and corn growing, but almost without tobacco, thus clearly distinguished from the other two sections in which tobacco is planted as a staple crop, sericulture is almost lacking, and corn is also insignificant. Sericulture and tabacco growing are two branches of agricultural operation, which usually stand in contradiction because: (1) Both require a considerable amount of labor at about the same season of the year, resulting in extreme labor concentration if they are planted side by side on the same farm. (2) Mulberry leaves grown in the nieghbourhood of tabacco field are believed to be harmful to silkworms. Moreover, because tabacco-planting, now under the control of the Public Monopoly Bureau, is usually permitted each year to the former growers in preference to new applicants, chances for its spreading into new areas are strictly limited. Accord-ingly, even in 1947 when sericulture was in a depression, the β section re-mained as the sericulture region with no tabacco growing.
Corn in the a section is mostly white dent corn, its seed being exported to Hokkido, where large amounts are required for livestock as ensilage, but where summers are too short to mature its seed properly. In the β section, where the leading sources of cash income such as tabacco in the a and paddy rice in the p section are lacking, dent corn is planted as an auxiliary cash crop utilizing more or less extensive dry fields especially when sericultrue is not profitable. In 1947, dent corn and sericulture contended with each other for fourth and fifth place as sources of cash income next to paddy rice, wheat and sweet-potatoes. In the southern part of the a section, however, where the average area of paddy field per farm is comparatively large and that of dry field small, the corn area per farm remains below that of the main division mentioned above.
抄録全体を表示