The theme of this article is to clarify the fact that Japan depended on the foreign countries for food by researching the grain trades between various areas in and around the East Asia. Researching areas are Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria (Northeast China), China (North, Central, and South China), and North America (USA and Canada) and Australia. North America and Australia were the main exporting areas of wheat and wheat flour to the East Asia. The colonies supplied rice for Japan, and the rice trade between Japan and its colonies was a part of the grain trades in the East Asia. Besides, the East Asia such as Japan and China depended on North America and Australia for wheat and wheat flour since 1920's. In 1937 the outbreak of Japan-China War cut off the import of wheat and wheat flour from North America and Australia, and disturbed the grain trades in the East Asia. The fact that Japan depended for rice on the foreign countries changed fundamentally at the wartime, and its food situation fell into a crisis.

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The purpose of this article is to explain the reason of the fixation of the food import in postwar Japan. Japanese government examined to import rice from Korea under the food shortage after the war. But it was not realized. Instead, wheat, barley and foreign rice were imported from America, Canada, Australia, South East Asia and many other countries. It was difficult to import the rice from the same country every year. The world price of rice was higher than domestic price, so that government bore the cost for selling cheap price. Japan had to trade under the shortage of foreign money, especially dollar. The pattern of the food consumption in postwar Japan was in succession to trend of the increase of animal protein and side dish in prewar Japan. But wheat and barley made up rice shortage and animal protein and fat made up the staple food in postwar. Japanese government dicided the change from foreign rice import to wheat import, because it meant to save on foreign money, to go into the black of the food control account, to improve Japanese people's nutrition. When many wheats turned out to be surplus, America attempted to deal with them by Article 550 of Mutual Saving Act and PL480. The negotiation for the surplus agricultural products between Japan and America determined to increase wheat import instead of foreign rice import. But Japanese government and people thought that food, even the stock-breeding products and feeds, had to support themselves at that time. Japan substituted wheat, barley and foreign rice for Korean rice after the war. After that, Japan substituted wheat for foreign rice in the 1950's. That is why Japanese extent of dependence of food supply didn't change from preawar era to postwar era.

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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.

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The Land Tax Law Revision, which was held in the beginning of the Meiji Era, took almost 10 years and was completed with the close of the Land Tax Revision Office in June 1881. However, the land value modification movement occurred after the completion of the Land Tax Law Revision indicates that its result was not satisfactory for farmers. For the analysis of the Land Tax Law Revision, the essential problem on it cannot be solved without the subsequent land value modification. This report examined the actual conditions of the Land Tax Law Revision in Echizen seven counties, which were not always evident hitherto and also analyzed its origin, features, the difference from other areas, and the relationship with other similar movement. As the result of these analysis, the following three facts were defined. The First Fact: The origin of the land value modification movement in Echizen seven counties has already occurred at the completion of the campaign against the Land Tax Law Revision. The Second Fact: The consecutiveness between the land value modification movement in Echizen seven counties and the campaign against the Land Tax Law Revision is very significant. The Third Fact: Nevertheless the land value modification movement in Echizen seven counties did not lead the economic effect, it still kept its freshness in other similar nationwide movements. It was taken into the Movement for Civic Rights and Freedom in the 1880s and finally achieved to the level of participation with the debate in the Diet around 1890.

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