The present inquiry centres round Shimonita-machi which has grown in the the basin of the river Kabura flowing through the south-western part of Gumma prefecture.
The results of the inquiry may be summarized as follows:-
(1) Shimonita-machi, a typical Settlement at valley mouth in the north-western Kanto, has developed as a marke-town, its hinterland being the basin of the river Kabura.
(2) Shimonita-machi is a narrow “Strassendorf” formed on the terraces of the river Kabura.
(3) The market was held nine times a month, and dealings were had between the mountain villagers in the upper basin and the farm villagers in the lower basin.
(4) In the basin of the Kabura and its tributaries, central settlements such as Motojiku, Iwado, Tozawa &c. have developed besides Shimonita and served as the commercial centres in the neighbourhood of the border between Gumma and Nagano prefectures.
(5) At Shimonita were sold “Konnyaku” (the starch of the devil's tongue), lime, &c. which are the specialities of the neighbouring mountain villages, and were bought from the farm villages on the plain rice and other miscellaneous goods.
(6) Shimonita is at present the terminus of the Joshin Electric Railway and the starting-point of the omnibus lines running upwards to the mountain villages and prospers as the economic centre of the neighbourhood.

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Recently in Japan, reclamation has suddenly come to be taken seriously. Especially, the reclamation of the coasts of Ariake Bay and Shiranubi Bay helds an important position in this field from the point of view of both quality and quantity.
At present, on the coasts of the said two bays, tidal lands are being brought under cultivation in twenty-three districts with an area of 6, 500 hectares in the total. It is reported that the possible reclamation lands there covers an area of nearly 200, 000 hectares.
The agricultural geographical characteristics of the reclaimed lands in the lands in the region are observed throngh the land form, the soil, the weather, the watersupply and others. These natural conditions combine a favorable side with an unfavorable one toward the reclamation works of tidal land and the farm management after clearing. Accordingly, it is basically important that the favorable side should be made the most of and the unfavorable one should be subdued.
In the concrete, however, attention must be paid to the following two points.
(1) Although “reclamation” means “drainage”, water for irrigation is also needful for the lmprovement of the cultivated land. It is difficult, however, to insure water for irrigation. And, to make matters worse, the problem of irrigation is neglected despite of its indispensability. Therefore, it should be expected that it costs a great deal to facilitate irrigation for rice-croping which is the primary object.
(2) Including expenditure for the irrigation works, dearing expense per acre becomes huge. Probably, it will exceed ¥3, 000, 000 per acre. Consequently, lowering of dearing expense per acre is absolutely necessary. As a means to this end, it becomes a matter of urgent necessity especially and to improve the technics of reclamation and to shorten the period of the works.

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The characteristis of the market area are: (1) the large one includes the smaller in it, (2) They are connected with each other. As for interior of the city, the market area of the central shopping streets covers the whole eity, in which we find many market areas of the peripheral shopping streets.
Central shopping streets means its market area stretching not only to the whole city, but to the outside of the city. Their characteristics are: (1) shops are closed, (2) all shops are specialized, (3) many cinemas and theatres are found in or near the streets. Thus the market area is so wide that many purchasers come to the streets by car and bus.
Peripheral shopping street means its market area stretching only to its peripheral area. Shops detail in the daily necessaries. The purchasers are required to come to the street so often that they select the nearest shopping street as their shopping place. Thus the distance between the purchasers and the shopping street must be small. In Kyoto, average distance between them is 7.5 minutes distance on foot.

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The actual circumstances of the utilization of the stone are to be studied here in this thesis, as a clue to understand people's adaptability to nature in an agricultural village. At the east foot of Onsendake, a stone wall made of natural stones is a most remarkable landscade showing the utilization of the stone.
(1) In the volcanic region extending to the south-eastern base of Onsendake, pyroxene-hornblende andesite, which is produced in the region, is used for building up stone walls of farm-houses and those in the cultivated fields.
(2) The stone wall built around a country seat has already drawn attention as a specific feature of farm-houses in Kyushu District. Also in the region now in question, the original purpose of building a wall stone was “to fence round” a country seat, in other words, “to circumscribe”. As to the scale of these walls, they vary in height from two or three feet to ten feet or so. The height of them is regarded as a kind of index of evaluating the standing of farm-houses and the extent of wealth and poverty of farmers.
(3) The stone wall of an outhouse is important for a cout and a place for vegetable and droppings manure heap. About ninety per cent of the outhouses in the region have a stone wall; and eighty per cent of these walls are built in the north-east of the outhouses. Thus, the situation of the former is largely decided by the aspect of the latter. The height of the walls is mostly six feet or so, like the stone wall of a hovel for compost.
(4) The stone wall in a cultivated field is a landscape observed in Terrassenkultur. In the inclined cultivated lands of the region, however, stone walls are seen both in the paddy-fields and the farms. Especially, has been fully developed the stepping-stone wall in the paddy-fields which are filled with water during the season of cultivation. From the end of the fan-shaped land, extend along dissected valleys the areas where the density of the stone wall in a cultivated field is very thick. In the farms, too, people build stone walls at borderlands so long as there are stones.
(5) Characteristics of the stone walls are well brought out in the style of their structure as well as well as in the condition and form of using the stone. Although the stone walls, generally built up on a trifling capital, and through the unflagging labour and crude technique of farmers, are rather of low-class, they may as well be called a cultural landscape brought forth by people's abaptability to nature. It reveals a phase of economy of farmers that the stone walls have been much improved in recent times, as is seen in the stone wall of an outhouse, with large funds as farmers go and expert technics. This is a phenomeon no research workers in the particular field of the stone wall should overlook.

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