ABSTRACT
The Tokugawa period saw remarkable developments in agriculture that fueled economic growth. This chapter highlights general trends, starting with the conditions that first made economic growth possible in the seventeenth century. The vicissitudes of the eighteenth century led to innovations in a number of areas from crop specialization to banking. At the same time, the demands of silk production fostered regional specialization, with villages in northern Japan producing silkworm eggs while villages in milder climates hatched and fed the worms, tending them assiduously until they spun cocoons. Then women hurried to spin the silk before the pupa turned into moths. Once spun, silk floss could easily be transported long distances to weaving centers in western and eastern Japan. Although Japan had long maintained a silk industry—again, in the Kyoto-Osaka region—only after the shogunate banned silk imports from China in 1685 did sericulture spread more widely.
