River sediment at the foot of mountains makes rolling terrace with thick gravel beds and poor soil. These areas were neglected by farmers as waste land or were used as common forests. But when reclamation became active in the late Shogunate, such poor land also was expected to be reclaimed. The following example shows the process of reclamation of such areas.
Kikyogahara, located on the south side of Matsumoto Basin, Nagano Prefecture, is a big compound fan made of sediments of two rivers. Nine villges are distributed on the terminal of this alluvial terrace, along the rivers and at the foot of the mountain. In the Shogunate Era, most parts of the fan were covered with common forest kept by these nine villages.
Reclamation of the area began early in the Shogunate. The feudal authorities of Matsumoto ordered reclamation but farmers who used Kikyogahara as hay and grass fertilizer source rejected the order. The authorities at that time perceived that farmers reclaimed secretly the areas adjoing village settlements. The authorities ordered that reclamation was to be carried out openly and offered land tax reduction as an inducement. But such secret reclamation was just temporary cultivation by farmers in order to alleviate food shortages, because fertility was too poor to permit cultivation as permanent fields. Such fields were returned frequently to grassland. Howevere, when developed, the authorities would not allow them to exist as no tax fields. Farmers were always afraid of tax on such poor unstable fields. From the early to the middle past of the Shogunate, tactical negotiation between the authorities and farmers continued.
After the Meiji Restoration the reclamation was obliged to be planned again under the new circumstances. The feudal restrictions were abolished and viewpoints toward reclamation of common forests were revised, village farmers began to consider use of the common forest for mulberry fields or orchards rather than for paddy fields. Thus the forest was divided and distributed to each village concerned, and central parts of the forest, wilder areas, also were given to imigrants from other districts. About the same time mixed fertilizer was introduced and the value of the common forest was not the same as before except forests for house-fuel.
The dissolution of common forests in the Shogunate Era took the form of reclamation, although it was always restrained by grass fertilizer shortages. Another big obstacle which made reclamation difficult were feudal restrictions on land use and choice of occupation. In any case of dissolution, forestry was out of consideration. Even if fish and other mixed fertilizers bccame gradually popular, it was difficult for poor farmers to purchase them. So grass fertilizer was still important.
Such a process was a conspicuous characteristic in the dissolution of common forest in the Shogunate Era.

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The writer has investigated the distribution of bicycle manufacturing works and geographical significance of thier location in Osaka area. The following facts were disclosed.
1) There are 473 of bicycle manufacturing works in Osaka area which correspond to 30% of all those of Japan, forming one of the 2 major centers of the industry in Japan.
Some 60% of them are closely distributed in the northern district of Sakai City, forming the major core in this area. The works are small in scale, having 30 or less persons engaged mainly in the manufacturing of such parts as brakes, handle bars and the frames, etc.
About 35% of the works lies in the eastern part of Osaka City, Namba, the center of which coincides with such commercial districts Tennoji, Ikuno and Fuse. The scale of works in these districts is very small, too; 75% of the works has 30 or less persons engaged.
The rest of the works lies dispersed in the surrounding areas of Osaka City as in Nishiyodo and Kuroyama, etc., forming a small group of works or isolated comparably larger-scaled works, manufacturing free-wheels or spokes, etc.
2) The following factors are considered to play an important role in locating the bicycle manufacturing industry in the area.
a) Historically, the local reservoirs of traditional skilled labor of processing metals, which had originated from the gun-smith, the dominant manufacturing industry of Sakai in the Edo Era, constituted the main factor in locating many works in Sakai City in the earlier stages of development of the industry.
b) One of the location factors which exerts a conspicuous influence upon the present pattern of distribution of the industry, is the localities of the wholesale dealers which are situated in Sakai City and the southeastern parts of Osaka City, to which many works tend to be attracted so as to be near the source of capital.
3) The superiority of Sakai to Osaka City in maintaining the largest core district of the industry is due to the abundance of cheaper labor and subcontractors of many sorts combined with the source of capital and traditional skills.

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Four periods of labor migration are found in connection with farming in Okayama Prefecture, that is, wheat seeding in fall, rice planting in early summer, igusa harvest in early July and rice harvest in midfall. In 1957, the number of laborers flowing into the labor market of the southern part of Okayama Plain numbered 15, 861. Among them, the igusa harvest laborers made up 54% of the total number. This paper is concerned with the movement of igusa harvest laborers. the main items taken up are as folows: history of igusa cultivattion, igusa producing areas, labor structure of igusa cultivation, labor demand and supply areas.
The writer reached the following conclusions.
1) Igusa cultivation in this district became popular during the Edo Era and has been commercialized under the name of Hayashima Omote (mat coverings).
2) Areas of labor demand show a definite concentric circle structure, the core of which is Fukuda village and Hayashima town of Tukubo county in the southern part of Okayama Plain. That area is the predominant igusa producing area, and coincides with Kamogata valley which was reclaimed between 1500 and 1866.
3) Labor suppying areas in Okayama Prefecture, from which 4, 360 laborers (52% of the total number of migrating laborers) come, spread from the north-eastern part to the south-eastern part of Okayama Prefecture. Katuta, Oda and Chuo Town and Kurashiki City are the core of those areas.
4) The main factors creating such labor supplying are as follows:
a) Distance is the basic factor. The relationship between the distance and the number of migratory laborers is shown in the equation of y=30, 900x^-1.45 (y=number of migratory laborers. x=moving distance). 72.5% of laborers live within 60km of the labor demanding center.
b) Labor supplying areas appear to be the areas where rice planting is finished by the end of June, and labor is superabundant in the first and second ten days in July, because 52.9% of igusa cultivation labor (290.29 hours per tan) concentrate in so short time as ten days in the first half of July.
c) Considering the age structure of migratory laborers, surplus labor as above mentioned is pooled in the male youth who are very energetic and are less restricted by their family status.
d) The migratory labores are not necessarily from the low-class farming families, but are the young members of middle-class farming farmilies (5 to 10 tan farmers).

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