448 Japan. 



edicts, but fear of a timber famine led even to planting 

 in the provinces of Noto. 



A period of internal strife and warfare during the 

 following centuries which left forest interest in the 

 background, led, in 1192, to the establishment of the 

 rule of the shoguns, the hereditary military repre- 

 sentatives of the mikado, who made him a mere 

 figurehead, and exercised all the imperial functions 

 themselves, until the revolution of 1868 restored the 

 mikado to his rights. 



The effort at conservative forest use was renewed 

 with increased harshness when, after a period of 

 warfare and devastation, the great shogun family 

 of Tokugawa (1603) assumed the rule of the empire, 

 enforcing the restrictive edicts with military severity. 

 Even at that early age, the protective influence of 

 forest cover on soil and waterflow was fully recognized, 

 and a distinction of open or supply forest and closed 

 or protection forests seems to have been made, the 

 latter being placed under the ban of the emperor or 

 shogun, and withdrawn from utilization. The ex- 

 tensive forests of the province of Kiso, the best 

 remaining, owe their preservation to these efforts. 

 The daimios, 260 in number, each in his district, en- 

 forced the edicts in their own way, giving rise thereby 

 to great differences in forest administration; yet in 

 the absence of technical knowledge, deterioration con- 

 tinued. The severity of punishments for depredations 

 etc., reminds us of those of the German Markgenossen, 

 a hand or finger being the penalty for theft, death by 

 fire that for incendiaries. 



The idea of protecting or reserving certain species of 



