Abstract
IN a paper read recently before the Royal Geographical Society, Miss E. C. Semple discussed, largely on the basis of personal observation, a number of interesting features in the influence of geographical conditions upon Japanese agriculture. Premising that islands, with climates rendered equable by marine influence, and with the further advantage of supplying “the double larder of land and sea,” offer specially favourable conditions for the early development of civilisation, she showed that agriculture in such circumstances quickly becomes intensive owing to the demand of an expanding population upon a cultivable area which, being insular, is not capable of expansion. This condition is particularly marked in Japan, because to its insular character are added other contributing causes. Cultivation and settlement are rare above about 2300 ft. of elevation. Forests and barren highlands above this height clearly segregate the densely populated valley-settlements, which cling closely to the rivers and streams, where rice, the staple crop, may receive the necessary irrigation.
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Influence of Geographical Conditions Upon Japanese Agriculture. . Nature 90, 318 (1912). https://doi.org/10.1038/090318a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/090318a0