Over the second and third decades of the Meiji period, a great number of rono, or skilled farmers, contributed to the improvement of agriculture. Among them, the farmer who made the greatest contribution to the development of Japanese agriculture and agronomy was Denjibei Funatsu (1832-1898). During his tenure at the Komaba Agricultural School, Funatsu taught Japanese agriculture to such students as Tokiyoshi Yokoi, Tsuneaki Sakou, and Tetsuya Onda, who all went on to become great agriculturists. In addition, Funatsu devoted further efforts to the improvement of agriculture by touring Japan as a traveling agriculture teacher. In his later years, he succeeded in becoming a technician at an agricultural experiment station, a position normally reserved for university graduates. It was Funatsu's affinity to Western agriculture, which he accepted due to its unique views of nature (the Western views of nature), that enable him to achieve success. He viewed man as rulers of nature who had the power to reshape nature as they saw fit. These ideas were supported by the "sossei" theory (「率性」論), which will be investigated herein.
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