Forest Policy. 385 



bureau, organized bv Matsuno, who had studied forestry 

 in Germany (Eberswalde) for five years. But it was 

 not academic knowledge that was needed in the situa- 

 tion; it was necessary first to mould public opinion in 

 order to secure means for administrative measures. 



This he set himself to do through public addresses and 

 pamphlets, and by organizing a society of friends of for- 

 est culture, and finally, in 1882, by establishing an ex- 

 periment station at Xishigahara, and, a year later, a 

 dendrological school, which four years later was com- 

 bined with the agricultural school at Komaba ; five years 

 later both were joined to the University of Tokyo. 



With the transfer of the forestry bureau to the De- 

 partment of Agriculture and Commerce in 1881, and a 

 reorganization in 1886, a new era seemed to be promised, 

 yet a substantial progress in organized forest manage- 

 ment of the State property does not seem to have been 

 made for another decade at least, the slow progress being 

 largely due to lack of personnel and the continuance of 

 mixed property conditions, which involved not only un- 

 certainty of boundaries, but also mixed ownerships. 



Although this last trouble, namely of mixed owner- 

 ship by State and private individuals, had been recog- 

 nized as inimical to good management, it was deliber- 

 ately increased by the law of 1878 in a curious way, re- 

 viving an old custom, namely, by permitting private in- 

 Tiduals to plant up clearings in the State forests; in this 

 way, these individuals secured a certain percentage, 

 usually 20 per cent., of the eventual profits arising from 

 the results. Some 200,000 acres were planted under 

 this arrangement. 



To remove the boundary difficulty, a survey of the 



