Since the latter half of the middle age, lands covered with volcanic ashes in Japan were gradually turned to habitable areas by the progressive exploitation. A general tendency was such, however, a vast tract of wild land extensively remained untouched, where water facility condition was extremely bad, or common right to forest or land was complicatedly mixed or anything else. On the southwestern foot of Mt. Fuji, we see an example of these cases.
The author intends not to study individual ‘shinden’ settlements situated on the foothills but to approach the problem in view of comparing them with exploitation done on the alluvial plain to the south. Distribution of ‘shinden’ settlements and process of their development were mainly considered.
A result shows that four patterns of distribution are distinguished; a) foothill sloping ground of sparse water holding, b) the Fuji delta and its neighbours, c) the northern Ukishima-ga-hara damp ground, and d) the coastal banks along the bay of Suruga. However, most of the newly reclamation works of rice field was carried on in the alluvial plains. In the Fuji delta region it was needed to change the stream course to the right bank of the Fuji river and organize a flood control and irrigation system. In the Ukishima-ga-hara it was of utmost necessity to construct tidewater controling banks and draining channels, and only a limited reclamation was put into practice near Ukishima-numa as the work at that time was hard and difficult. On the volcanic ash tracts of Fuji foothills exploitation of new settlements was dependent upon the possibility of drinking water security, cultivation there was mainly of upland crops.
Construction works were done on a large scale by the order of ‘daikan’ (local governor) in the delta plains, while reclamatin on the damp Ukishima-ga-hara was mostly small in size, such as ‘Murauke shinden’ and ‘Mitate shinden’, and these were relatively early of their origins. Exploitation works on the Fuji foothill slope were mostly of ‘Murauke’, small in general size and carried on later, the Enpo era (1673∼80) to the end of the Shogunate government.
The reason why exploitation was late on the hilly tracts was not only that the land was of volcanic ash soil reserving little water in it, but such other factors should be taken account of, as the direct control over forest lands by the central government, or common right of fodder gathering owned by neighbouring villages.

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Between the borders of Kawachi and Izumi Provinces, there is Haze (or Ono) Reclaimed Land covering a diluvial fan-elevation. Originally reclaimed in the 4th year of Kambun (1664) by ten contractor's joint work, this is the first of the Ono-ga-hara Reclamation Projects.
Through maps and document found in the Yumyoji Temple, Branch of the Honkakuji Temple which was a reclamation partner and an owner of Haze Land by 37% until Meiji Period, the writer tried from viewpoint of historical geography to analize the nature of the land allotments and the partners in this project.
In this small treatise, the writer attest that a big difference is seen between the ordinary reclaimed land and the Haze, both of which are on the diluvial plateau. In the former case in which Musashino is most typical, a tract of farm land is seen streching at the back of a farmer's house, namely, farm land and residence site of a farm family are adjacent to each other.
In the latter, however, there is no such regularity. This is attributed by the writer not so much to topographical factors as to the social order then in existence in this part of the country.
Prior to land allotment, of course, they made combinations of parts of the land, and paid special attention to see that such a combination be equal in value to each of the rest. They attached importance to each sharing the the same conditions. Thus the writer went into further investigation of the fundamental nature of reclamation partners.

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