As one of the research-method of historical geography, I will treat the relation of man's historical activities to natural environment. We have many cases in which a complete explanation of a certain human activity can not be achieved within the scope of only one Kind of science or of only one branch of any science. Thus, for the study of colonial settlement, problems such as the political, social situations etc. in the mother-land should be carefully considered. If so I say, the reader will understand that the present paper, though treated only from environmental point of view, is never written in the meaning of environmental determinism. It is solely important for us to study to which degree a certain human activity has relation to natural environment.
Now the present paper considers the problem of the Anglo-Saxon's settlement developed along the Atlantic coast of North America since the beginning of the seventeenth century in its relation to natural environment. Thus, we discuss the settlement problems of New-England, New York district, the Delaware district, the Chesapeake Bay district and Carolinas.
If we can name the colonization pattern of the Anglo-Saxons “tidal settlement”, we may call the early Spanish colonization in America “trade-wind settlement”, and also the French colonization “glacier trace settlement”.

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There are two areas in this region-rice-area and rice-and-vegetable area. Acknowledging these two areas interrelated through agricultural employment, I carried out an investigation into this problem, dividing it into two stages of 1938 and 1947.
In 1938 (an ordinary period) temporary employees were supplied from the rice-area. And they were employed by farmers of the rice-and-vegetable area, costing an amount of labour three times that of the rice-area but had more favourable economic condition.
The reasons for which employees were supplied from the rice-area are:
1) in general rice producing farmers were poor (annual income per each farmer was 400 yen)
2) agricultural season of the two areas was not in concord.
A shortage of labour at the farmers' busy season caused a mutual exchange of labour in the rice-area, as employees from the rice-and-vegetable area were not found.
In the basin of the Old-Tone, agricultural labour was exchanged making the best of discordance of rise-producing seasons (They call it legae). This was practiced on the largest scale possible.
In 1947 (an inflation period) the price of rice jumped and rice producing farmers got well off economically due to the land improvement, consequently no labour was supplied to the vegetable-area and mutual exchange of labour also diminished.
So farmers of the rice-and-vegetable area had to grow vegetables by less labour and were compelled to obtain neccesary labour from local cities to supplement a shottage of it.
These tell us that exhange of agricultural labour had been served the purpose to combine the two different areas and that the relation of demand and supply of labour indicates which area was more favoured economically.

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Place names are so closely connected with topography that it is very interesting to investigate them by means of the maps.
Place name of “Tsuru” …… Many of them are found in Kyushu especially. There are 258 names on the topographical map of 1/50, 000. Originally it means an alluvial plain on the river. When number of settlements was a few, simple name of “Tsuru” can be distinguished from each other. But as the plain has developed, other words were added to “Tsuru” to distinguish itself from others. These surfaced-words were “ue” (upper) “naka” (middle) and “shimo” (lower) (18% of the whole added word), “higashi” (east) “minami” (south), “nishi” (west) and “kita” (north) (3%), “dai” (greater) “ko” (smaller) (6%), name of plantation (12%), name of animal (rare), those words referring to topography (slope, between the rivers, river, cape, hill). They are found mainly in Oita and Miyazaki Prefecture and also in Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Kagoshima Prefecture. That is, they are found in the central part of Kyushu especially on the eastern side of it, facing to the Bungo Straight.
Place name of “Koba” …… It means the cultivated land in the forest. There are 147 names on the topographical map of 1/50, 000. In Tsushima Isl, the mountain agriculture is called “Kobazukuri” (burning cultivation) and it makes us infer that this place name is related to the mountain agriculture in Kyushu before Meiji Era. Like the place name of “Tsuru”, in general, an additional word was connected with “Koba” to make a compound word. They are distributed in a group in eastern Kyushu. But its predominant area is differrent from that of “Tsuru”. The place name of “Tsurukoba” is found also in the southern Kumamoto prefecture, connecting with the area of “Tsuru”.
Place name of “Muta” …… 125 names on the 1/50, 000 topographical map. They are distributed in Saga Prefecture, the Tsukushi Plain, the Kumamoto Plain and southern part of Kyushu, that is, between the “Tsuru” area and the “Koba” area in both districts. It means a marshland originally, but at present time those places do not always keep the original characteristic of this name. Additional words are “upper”, “middle” and “lower” and “east”, “south”, “west” and “north”, which are found at the same percent (9%) of the total. Here the place name of “Tsuru” and “Koba” are also mixed, but they scarecely added “east”, “south”, “west” and “north” as the additional words. This is because the place name of “Muta” is much found on the largest plains in Kyushu stretching eastwards from north of the Ariake Bay where water ways are diversed and formed net -like landscape.

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