David Holmgren, which takes many of its primary principles from traditional Japanese agricultural and gardening practice. Many other aspects of traditional Japanese culture have been singled out for praise and have influenced design in the West. Its wooden architecture has long been held up as a standard of environmentally sensitive use of materials and space, and the compact and economical design of household goods such as boxes, trays, cabinets, and other furnishings has been a strong influence on the things we use today. From the garden to the dinner table, Japanese ways of doing things have been hailed and emulated, but rarely does anyone look at the overall conditions and systemic responses that made these achievements possible, even necessary, in the first place. We should recognize that almost everything we have learned to value from traditional Japan emerged during the Edo period in response to scarcity.
That the carefully nurtured sustainable systems that had been so painstakingly put together during the Edo period broke apart so completely later under the impact of industrialization should strike us all as tragic, for it represented the sudden evaporation of generations of know-how of the sort we desperately need now. The Edo solutions were inherently local ones, arrived at with almost no input from beyond Japan other than what the ocean and atmosphere brought directly. After the country opened its doors to trade and industrialization in the 1860s, the self-sufficiency imperative gave way to an import-export economy tied to the production and surpluses of the world at large, which soon affected every aspect of life.
Though the conservation ethic persisted well into the twentieth century, perhaps even until the beginning of the postwar period, and though the nation still strives to maintain its self-sufficiency in rice, for over a century it has basically shared the production and consumption patterns of the developed West, and to revert to Edo ways on a significant scale now would be impossible.
But just as in retrospect it is possible to outline scenarios in which Japan might have developed globally competitive industries while maintaining its overall sustainability one hundred years ago, it is possible for us to profit, perhaps vastly, from the experience of Edo even at this late date. The challenge that faces us now is to redesign our production and our consumption so that they share the virtues of their Edo-period counterparts, to link our sophisticated technical systems to the kind of mentality that those prescient forebears displayed.
We will need to learn again what it means to use “just enough,” and to allow our choices to be guided by a deeper appreciation of the limits of the world we have been bequeathed as well as a determination to leave future generations with better possibilities than what we have given ourselves.
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field and forest the farmer from kai province |
The year is 1798, Kansei 9 by the Japanese calendar—the eleventh year of the reign of Shogun Tokugawa Ienari. It is high summer, and the hillsides of the Kai province of central Japan are at their most verdant, alive with the flowering climbers and shoots that flourish during these brief months, only to seed and die as fall approaches. The ground cover is speckled with tiny parti-colored blossoms, and the air shrieks with the deafening call of cicadas.
We have walked for several days from Edo, mostly along the Koshu-kaido, one of the five great roads that link the capital with the rest of the country. Our journey has taken us nearly due west, the first day through the flat, monotonous belt of farmland that surrounds the city, followed by two days of steep mountain passes, narrow river gorges, breathtaking views, and gravity-defying bridges.
Though the main road was wide enough for a military detachment, we met no carriages or draft wagons along the way, and only an occasional mounted rider—although idle palanquin bearers milling about at every stopping point badgered us for business. Even those have not been seen since we took a narrow side road heading north, deeper into the mountains. Though this road is narrow and dusty, the walk has not been overly strenuous, and we are rarely more than a half-day walk from a farmhouse or settlement where we could obtain a night’s lodging on an informal basis.
After one last winding, uphill trudge, we crest the hill and sigh with relief to see our destination, the village of Aoyagi*, spread in welcome across the valley below. Wispy tendrils of hearth smoke drift skyward from its thatched rooftops, and the gentle breeze brings the comforting smells of domestic life. From our present vantage point one might be forgiven for assuming that the village below endures an isolated and independent existence.
The forest seems to have hiked its skirts to make room for the village. Conifers like cryptomeria predominate but are healthily interspersed with copses of chestnut, zelkova, oak, and other towering deciduous hardwood trees, as well as large stands of bamboo. The understory teems with variety: shrubs and seedlings, ferns and vines, moss and fungi.
Along the journey, we have passed entire hillsides covered in white birch, all growing naturally, as well as lanes and fields bordered with ornamental cherry trees intentionally planted by human residents. And from time to time we have encountered vast plantations of Japanese cypress and cryptomeria growing in straight lines, prominently posted with notices reading, “Do not enter under strict penalty, by the authority of the Shogunal Forest Warden.” The forests themselves have begun to be cultivated.
Though we are still a half hour or more away from the village proper, the nearby hillsides are alive with human activity this morning. Household teams of villagers, mainly women and children bearing woven bamboo baskets and wooden carrying frames fitted with large sacks of woven rush straw, work their way methodically through the undergrowth, gathering essentials. As the seasons change, so do the objects of their gathering, particularly in the case of food that resists cultivation but can be found growing wild in significant amounts.
Late spring brings bamboo shoots, which must actually be dug rather than gathered, as well as many kinds of “mountain greens” like mustard flower and various ferns. Autumn is a particularly rich time, since the ground is liberally littered with chestnuts, walnuts, acorns, and other edible nuts and seeds, and many of the most desirable mushrooms can be found in abundance, as well as burdock root and other tubers. Even the winter months present several desirable foodstuffs, like shepherd’s purse, chickweed, and the other herbs that go into nanakusa, a special dish eaten on January 7.
But it is summer now, and the food-gathering teams are hunting for water chestnuts, mugwort, butterbur, and other edible greens. Although the villagers don’t realize it, their stone-age forebears foraged for the same items on the same slopes; these hills are capable of supporting small populations through foraging alone, and in times of famine they still provide significant sustenance.
On other days during the warm months of the growing season, the villagers gather fallen leaves and other organic matter to use as “green” fertilizer and mulch. That part destined for fertilizer is mixed with human waste in the compost pit—where the naturally occurring high temperatures caused by bacterial decomposition kill most pathogens—and is then applied to the fields at specified intervals.
