8
Agriculture.
The area of land under cultivation in 1870 was about 2,000 acres, which, by 1912 had increased to 1,512,144 acres. It is farmed by 892,000 people, of whom 392,000 are farming their own holdings. The average size of a farm is about 12 acres, whereas on the mainland one household usually cultivates an area of one or two acres. Draught animals are freely used for ploughing, &c., as well as simple agricultural machinery. The methods of agriculture, in fact, are based on the American methods introduced by the Kaitakushi, and this is one of the difficulties of newly-arrived immigrants. The farm produce, similarly, consists largely of crops which are little grown in other parts of Japan, but are, for climatic and other reasons, suited to the Hokkaido.
It is stated that at least a further 1,500,000 acres suitable for cultivation remain undeveloped.
The chief crops grown are shown in the table which follows.
Rice Barley
Rye
Wheat
Osts
Beans-
Soya
Other
Sorgham
Maize
Buckwheat
Potatoes
Rapeseed
Peppermint
Greet peas
Crop.
CHIEF Crops of the Hokkaido, 1912.
Acreage.
Amount.
Value.
190,101
1,287,900
111,969 3,038,655 bushels
16,945 428,245 76.008 1,604,265 55,791 1,172,800 114.980 5,320,000
2,804,000
43,781 1,049,000 52,317 1,689,000 40,525 839,645
Yen. 10,268,353 595.583 2,843,811
#1
31
2,224,975 $,254,827
15
4,532,611 9,027,143
17
1,469,585
1,840,896
11
21
1,086,930
76,658
$19,000 tona
3,503,037
88,120
1,086,000 bushels
2,848,098
12,804
1,190,382
42,968
914,000 bushels
1,854,720
CC
It
The
Rice. It will be noticed that rice is by far the most valuable single crop, amounting to over 1,000,000. Moreover, the area of land under rice cultivation is increasing yearly, and this under the auspices of the authorities, who assist in the digging of irrigation canals, &c., from local funds. It is now over 120,000 acres, as against 60,000 acres in 1907, while the acreage under barley has decreased. is easy to object that Hokkaido is not a rice country; but the fact remains that a farmer with so little capital as the Japanese farmer must have a
money crop," and that rice is the only money crop "in Japan and neighbouring countries. Hokkaido is in every sense too near to Japan to be independent of the rice market. For the future of agriculture in the Hokkaido this is, perhaps, to be regretted. It certainly is the cause of distress, for the rice-farmer must gamble every year against the climate, and when the first frosts come a week or two early, the result is a poor harvest, or even, at the worst, such a famine as was suffered by the Hokkaido in 1913– a famine which, beside causing great distress, brought the immigration for 1914 down to 17,000, instead of a normal 50,000.
Wheat and Barley. These are used by farmers, &c., as food, mixed with rice, and there are also large breweries which use them for beer and other liquors. Some wheat is sent to the mainland, and the remainder ground locally by small mills.
Oats. The area under oats is increasing, the demand for fodder for army horses having grown considerably since the Russo-Japanese war. A small quantity is exported to Vladivostok.
Apples, Potatoes, and Onions are also exported to Asiatic Russia in small quantities. The total value of all agricultural food produce, however, does not exceed 60,000. per
annum.
Flax is cultivated primarily for the fibre, and not for the seed-coat. The pro- duction of linseed oil is so far only experimental.
Peppermint is grown in the Kitami and Ishikari districts. Though at one time a promising crop, it has caused growers losses in recent years, through violent fluctua- tions on the European market,
9
Leguminous Plants are very successful. Beans are grown in large quantities and sent to the mainland, while there has been a small export of green peas and beans in the last few years.
The Faculty of Agriculture of the North-Eastern University is situated at Sapporo, and there are agricultural experimental stations at various points in the island.
Stockfarming.
Horses have been bred in the Hokkaido since very early days, and one of the first tasks of the Kaitakushi was to import a good strain of cattle and to introduce stock- farming as an industry appropriate to the Hokkaido, with its wide expauses of pasture land. Though no remarkable success has been achieved, the Hokkaido is in these respects well ahead of the rest of Japan. There are now about 200,000 horses and 20,000 head of cattle in the island, and the improvement in quantity has been very marked in late years. Horses take the first place, partly because there are several important breeding stations in the island for army remounts, and also because the consumption of beef, milk, and milk products being small among Japanese-the number of cattle that can be profitably kept is limited. This, again, is another curious result of the colonisation of a wheat- and beef-producing country by a popula- tion which does not consume those articles as staples.
None of the horse-breeding farms is on a large scale. The army remount depôts at Kushiro and Kwakami keep each about 600 head, and the Imperial household's farm at Niikappu about 1,200. Racing (without betting) is encouraged, and meetings are held in spring and autumn at most centres, where some very sound, good-looking horses may be seen, often with a strain of imported thoroughbred. Of 181,920 horses
1912 there were:-
Japanicae
Halfbred
Imported, and imported strain
04,800
$4.816 2,804
The cattle are almost entirely of imported stock, or native stock improved by foreign strains, the principal of these being Holstein, Ayrshire, and Shorthorn. There is an output of about 100,000 lbs. of butter and 10,000 lbs. of cheese; while it is impossible to get good beef in the ilokkaido, unless it is brought from the mainland. In most districts the heavy winter snowfall makes winter-feeding necessary; but alfalfa and similar fodder crops are easily ground. The table-land of Hidaka is well suited for grazing, whilst its climate is comparatively mild. Iburi, Tokachi, Nemuro, and Kushiro, together with the eastern part of the Kitami, offer large tracts of suitable pasture land.
Forestry.
The forests form one of the most valuable resources of the Hokkaido; they are estimated to cover nearly one-half of the total area of the island, and the total value of timber felled each year is reckoned at about 1,100,000. In the early years of Meiji there was much random cutting, and frequent heavy losses from forest fires, so that much irreparable damage was done to valuable forests. There is now established (rather tardily, it is to be feared) an elaborate system of forest control and administration, which comprises a programme of survey, felling, replanting, &c., calculated to conserve indefinitely the timber resources. Like most forestry schemes of the sort, it is turning out in practice very much less satisfactory than it appears on paper. It is an undisputed fact that there is no planting to replace the lumber trees now being exported. The only afforestation being done on
an extensive scale is of larch and Norway spruce. No broad-leaved trees are being put down to replace oak, &c., which is now being cut at a rate which, it is generally estimated, will exhaust the available supply in ten years. This estimate, it is true, does not take into account the large areas of Government-owned forests still untouched; and it has actually been stated by some forestry officials that these contain a hundred years' supply of timber. This is a patent exaggeration. The amount of oak in these forests is unascertained; snch good oak as there is would be quickly got out as soon as transport facilities made it practicable (there is no present prospect of this, for the largest virgin forests are away from zones of projected railway extension), and the calculation neglects such casualties as forest fires, which are frequent and destructive. Soliemes of afforestation based on such optimistic forecasts do not work out in practice. European and American experts who have
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