Japan had been making "Wadokei",the Japanese traditional clocks during the Edo Era until 1872 when the time system changed from seasonal time system to fixed time system. With this new time system applied, watch and clock industry in Japan has changed dramatically. Even though watchmaking skills in Japan were first behind the western countries, we made efforts to release the Japan's first mechanical wrist watch called "Laurel" in 1913. In late 1950s, we caught up with Switzerland and "Grand Seiko" released in 1960 already reached the similar level as Switzerland in watchmaking technologies. Furthermore, we launched the World's first Quartz watch, "Seiko Quartz Astron" in 1969. Not only we provided the innovation in the watch industry but also opened the door to electronization and computerization in the whole industry.

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I published articles concerning Maeda Tomekichi’s dairy at Yokohama in the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate in the first and fourth issues of the Journal of Dairy History, and in those articles doubted the existence of the dairy. But I did not forget to state that I would reconsider that conclusion, if a new document about Maeda Tomekichi’s dairy was found. In the late issue of the Journal of Dairy History, a new article entitled Great Dairy Merchant Maeda Tomekichi was published, therefore I needed to revisit my study of Maeda Tomekichi’s dairy. Subsequently I formed my opinion as summarised below. 1. The new document provided information that was not of a different kind to that already known, for example the information found in ‘Biography of Maeda Tomekichi’ written by Kaneda Kohei in The Series of Biographies on Stock Farmers of Pasturing Cattle in Japan. 2. The westerners in the foreign settlement at Yokohama by whom Maeda had been employed on a dairy as a dairyman, for example Beroh the Dutch, Bohro the English and Suneru the Dutch were not found at that time in Yokohama. 3. The existence of the dairy founded by Maeda at Otamachi 8 chome was not supported by the documents written at that time. Consequently, I must say again that the existence of Maeda Tomekichi’s dairy in Yokohama during the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate is doubtful.

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