46 FORESTRY OF J A TAX. 



Those forests which stand outside the three conditions 

 above named and which are found within the sphere of the 

 regular farming lands or those necessary for the collection of 

 agricultural manures and for the keeping of live stock will be, 

 it is proposed, transferred to the private ownership. 



Comparatively speaking, the State forests of Japan possess 

 large areas while their position being distributed in various 

 directions, a great deal of inconvenience is felt both in the 

 management and supervision of the work, and some of the 

 forests are regarded as being probably more profitable if 

 utilized as agricultural land. The investigation of the actual 

 condition was started in the year 1890 at the beginning of the 

 first exploitation of the State forests, and was completed in 

 1894 after the elapse of 5 years. According to the results of 

 the investigation of the State forests covering an area of 

 5,095,016 cho, the forests which need to be preserved are 

 7,354,343 clto, and those which do not require preservation are 

 741,573 cho. Proceeds obtained from the disposal of the 

 forests covering an area of 741,573 cho, form the funds for the 

 work of the second exploitation of State forests. 



The work of adjustment of State forests in the first exploi- 

 tation was necessarily imperfect. Beside this, the progress of 

 the times since then, led to changes of the conditions requiring 

 more or less consideration in regard to the work. It was in the 

 1899 that the Regulations for the disposal of the S 



Sts were drawn up which enabled the authorities to start 

 the reinvestigation of the work, SO as to avoid as much as 

 sible any shorteomin 



The disposal of these forests was to be completed in ten 



