A dominant rural landscape in the Vendée region called “bocage” is an expression of common characteristic culture and agricultural economics in Western France. The “bocage” is usually considered in contrast with the “plaine” or “campagne”. But for some 20 years, French geographers have remarked a small open field, named gagnerie or méjou in the “bocage” zone. This phenomenon contains problems difficult to solve for the scholars in this country. The writer, who had surveyed practically “Esch” at the Moraine Zone in Northern Germany, and Akker at the Campine region in Belgium, is in a position where he is able to try to compare it with gagnerie. In August 1958, the writer visited the Vendée's village and was concerened directly in practical investigation of the field. In writing this report, the author is sincerely grateful to Prof. G. Chabot, Prof. A. Perpillou, of the Sorbonne, and Mr. F. Verger, of Poitier Univ.
The commune of St. Hilaire de Talmont and the castle town of Talmont, whose field was surveyed by the writer, is located at the south-western margin of “bocage vendéen”. On the south side of this, there are dominant regions of “plaine” and “marais” landscape zone. Accordingly, affected by the village-settlement's type from the south, at the commune investigated, the hamlets which are dotted with several groups of farms are remarkable. Farmers call them villages.
Such “villages” have “gagneries” making a narrow strip among the “bocage”.
These “villages” have exsisted from at least 14 centuries. In one of these “villages”, a church was built, and the village grew up to bourg. On the other hand, castle town was built before that time. In the 19th century, vast waste lands were cultivated and the farms spread all over. Thus in these communes the systematical structure of farms-villages-bourg-castle town are organized. From the historical point of view, the “village” is the older type and may be considered as the original form of the rural settlement in this region. There are the same hamlets and field's landscape as gagnerie∼village in the case of Akker and Esch, but their regions of distribution as well as the time of establishment are different, so a simple comparison is not advisable. Likewise, from the “village” with “gagnerie”, it is also difficult to guess similarly the original form of villages in the northeastern parts of France.
As a result of the development of traffic, the growth of local cities and the recent agricultural evolution, the present farms and villages are fairly well connected with bourg; moreover, these are related to castle town Talmont and equally Les Sables-d'Olonne. In short, the farms, villages, bourg hold the fundamental unit in the urban net of Talmont-Les Sables d'Olonne or La Roche sur Yon-Nantes-Paris.

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A gigantic reclamation plan is now being carried on the northeastern coast of the Tokyo Bay (Fig. 2). It is assumed concerning this matter that a huge amount of goods transportation will be needed when all the heavy-chemical factories on the newly reclaimed land begin to work in full (after the plan is completed). The greater part of goods will be dependent upon marine transportation (Tab. 7). However, the writer's recent research on the details of freight traffic of raw materials and products concludes as follows; there will be needed transportation by trucks on a large scale, and therefore early consolidation of road network planning is indispensable.

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The lower Shinano basin in Niigata prefecture is one of the main rice-producing regions in Japan, with the highest rice productivity, which results mostly from the remarkable development of water control and farm improvement. The present writer aims at the geographical study of farm improvement, mainly on the western Kanbara plain in this basin.
Before the development of water control and farm improvement, rice production was unstable in wet paddy field under the frequent flood damages and the incomplete drainage conditions (Fig. 1). This plain was newly reclaimed from the alluvial plain with many lagoons and paddy-fields had been only partly developed till modern times. As a new region for the arable land, there was the characteristic social relationship between landowners and tenants; the rich owned high, good-conditioned paddy fields and the poor possessed remote, bad-conditioned paddy field (Table 2, Fig. 2). Land-allotment was carried out for the constant farm rent and for the equal share of the flood damage. After the allotment system disappeared in Meji Era, dispersed fields were rarely re-adjusted, as the case in Europe after the disolution of open field system (Fig. 3). The final aim of the farm improvement began since 1900's in this region is to stabilze such unstable land condition and to consolidate holdings towards rationalization in agriculture.
The improvement process is seen geographically and historically as follow; along the Nishi river in Meiji and Taisho Eras, and a long the Shin river (in Shimogo section) and the Odori river (in Kamigo section) in Showa Era especially after the agricultural reformation, with the financial aid from the government in parallel with drainage and irrigation projects. Some areas remains unimproved in Kamigo section because of the sectional struggle for the water interest between Kamigo and Shimogo sections and because of the delay in the drainage and irrigation projects. The farm improvement in this region depends upon the condition of irrigation and drainage, and the investment from the government, owners and/or cultivators (Fig. 4, 5).
From the point of farm improvement, the following four types of areas are pointed out; (a) Unimproved area, with horiage-den fields, remarkably dispersed, inconveniently irrigated and drained (Fig. 6, Photo. 1). (b) Improved area in Meiji Era, re-arranged rhombic-shaped, with the result of inconvenient agricultural working (Fig. 7). (c) Re-improved area for the modernization of agriculture, such as the rationalization of water use and the improvement of farm road (Fig. 8, 9). (d) Rationally improved area, upon the basis of 20a division adjustment, for the consolidation of holding, with the introduction of tractors (i.e. Lanz) (Fig. 10, Photo. 2). The future farm improvement will be developed into two directions from (a) to (d), and from (b) to (c).

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