ABSTRACT
Not the least remarkable feature of Japan’s economic development in the nineteenth century is the way in which the growth of industry was matched by an increase in the productive capacity of agriculture. If industrial investment was largely financed out of the surplus produced by agriculture, this was not, at least, a process of mere spoliation. Agriculture was not entirely starved of capital, nor did the policy emphasis on industrial development mean that the task of increasing the productivity of agriculture was neglected. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the mechanisms by which this improvement was achieved; the way in which new methods, tools and crop strains were evolved and diffused; the agents of, and the motives for, research and experiment; the channels of communication and the incentives for application. Following the general theme of these papers one concern will be to assess how far the improvement was self-generated within agriculture, and how far the stimulus came from the urban centres of commerce, industry and governmental authority.
