ABSTRACT
'As forest trees get taller, the village gets richer.' I heard this expression from a Japanese forest landowner. It suggests that for Japanese mountain villagers prosperity resides in the trees around them. It expresses the upland ideal of affluence through tree-growing. In Japan mountain villages have long been seen as poor places in contrast to lowland villages with their expanse of farmland. But, properly cultivated, forest land can make up for the shortage of farmland. The art of timber-growing - or yamazukuri (lit. 'mountain-making') - involves raising a tree crop from planting, weeding, pruning, thinning to felling, in a cumulative input of forest labour by different generations of the same family over decades. The condition of growing 'good mountains' (it yama) is the consistent application of such care - te'ire (lit. 'putting a hand in'). Eventually, upon felling the forest and selling the timber for a good price, this wealth will be realized.
