著者

千葉 徳爾

出版者

The Association of Japanese Geographers

雑誌

地理学評論 (ISSN:00167444)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.27, no.6, pp.255-262, 1954-06-25 (Released:2008-12-24)

参考文献数

31

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In the documents which have been studied, it was noted, that there are more bare hills in the rural common forest than in the other lands of the Okayama district. There were two types of rural common forest, one was used by the families of only one village and the other was used by the people of two or more villages. The former is not such a big problem, but the latter is the very subject of this study. In this study the word “common forest” means this type. The common forest is usually located between settlements, on ridges of hills or on the borders of villages. Forestry experts say that the soils of the rounded ridges are clay which are eroded easily for morphological reasons. However, the soil of the ridges. are.not always naturally eroded but also have been devastated by man's activities. In the documents we see that many of the common forests have been in dispute between some of the villages. Soil erosion has been noted, because the use of the forest were so wasteful by digging of roots, or by the use of the moss surface. Some people says that the cutting of wood for fuel and timber is the reason for erosion. In fact the requirement for fuel for urban and rural settlement increased due to the growing population and the development of industry. However, the fuel sold commercially was obtained from the private forest, because the products of the common forest. could not be sold without compensation to the villages and such cases were very rarely mentioned in the documents. Thus the author concludes that as the poor class who have no private forest grew with the development of an exchange economy, the common forest were used for fuel by the poor class and much waste took place. Thus the forests are denuded and have not been replanted. The rain weathered the granite hills and the eroded soils made the stream beds higher and higher. This process began from the. 19th century near the salt farms and margins of the Setouchi lowland.