_Forestry of Japan_, 1904, published by the Imperial Bureau of
Forestry in connection with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and a
reprint with additions in 1910, contains most of the information
utilized above.
_Aus den Waldungen Japans_, by Dr. Heinrich Mayr, 1891, gives a full
account of the forest geography, which is also to be found in J. J.
Rein, _Japan_, 1886.
_Der Wald in Japan_, an article by Dr. Hefele in
Forstwissenschaftliches Centralblatt, 1903, gives an insight into
forest conditions from the point of view of a forester.
A very clear analysis of the development of property rights is to be
found in an article by Dr. Zentaro Kawase in Allgemeine Forst- und
Jagdzeitung, 1894.
An article in Zeitschrift für Forst- und Jagdwesen from the pen of
Prof. H. Matsuno, the first professional forester of Japan, gives a
brief account of the development of forestry, especially in earlier
times.
A report by Special Canadian Trade Commissioner W. T. R. Preston,
1908, contains valuable statistics on the lumber trade.
The modernization of this remarkable island empire of Niphon (the native
name), which began in 1868, included the organization of a forest
department after German models. Curiously enough, there are other
noteworthy points of similarity to be found in the historic development
of forestry in Germany and Japan.
The empire comprises four larger islands--Kiushiu, Shikoku, Hondo or
Honshiu, and Hokkaido or Yesso--and a host of smaller ones, stretching
in a chain of nearly 3,000 miles north and south along the Asiatic
shore, the width of land being nowhere over 200 miles. It comprises an
area of nearly 150,000 square miles, with a population approximating 50
million, largely engaged in fisheries and other sea industries.
The islands are of volcanic origin--part of the “girdle of fire” which
reaches from the Alaska peninsula through the Philippines to the
Antilles--with many active craters, subject to frequent disastrous
earthquakes and tidal waves; mountainous, with numerous ranges of high
hills and with lofty central ridges, with numerous short rivers, apt to
turn into treacherous torrents, while hurricanes and waterspouts,
typhoons and equinoctial gales sweep the surrounding seas frequently.
The soil is nowhere particularly fertile, but the patient and
painstaking labor of the Japanese has brought every available foot of
it--little more than 10% is arable--into producing condition, wherever
the climate compensates for the infertility, especially in the most
densely populated part, the southern half of Hondo.
Extending through 30 degrees of latitude, the climate naturally varies
from the tropical one of Formosa, through all variations of the
temperate, to the alpine one of the high mountains and the nearly arctic
one of the Kurile islands. The Japan current skirting the eastern coast,
and the mountain ranges, with elevations generally not exceeding 6,000
feet, occasionally up to over 13,000 feet, which cut off the dry
continental west winds, also produce great climatic variations between
east and west coasts. In general, however, the climate of the whole
empire is characterized by a high percentage of relative humidity and
ample rainfall, especially during the hot season, producing luxuriant
growth.