FORESTRY OF JAPAN'. 99 



clans to keep up the policy of secrecy regarding geographical 

 and topographical conditions, left many bad effects upon the 

 forest exploitation. The methods of timber transportation 

 peculiar to various districts were adopted and these were hid 

 from others. There was no felling of trees on a large scale, 

 nor was the work continuative, so that there were not 

 forest roads or the rivers opened for the purpose of effecting 

 conveyance. The transportation by natural rivers and roads 

 was however effected everywhere, and there were provisions 

 for transportation, adapted to the topography of the land, and 

 species of trees and kinds of timber. But owing to the 

 development of the forest management in recent years, the 

 forest owned by the State and the Imperial Household came to 

 be regulated by the continuative policy and subjected to the 

 felling of trees; roads were built, the rivers were opened, 

 railways were constructed and the timber depot provided in 

 all places. 



The forest roads are generally found along mountain 

 slopes. There are a large number of bridges spanning valleys, 

 which owing to the shallowness of the water and to the 

 precipitous descent is liable to destruction through sudden 

 floods so that their construction must be made more durable, 

 but which will involve comparatively a large amount of 

 - expense. The progress of the work under these circumstances 

 had been very slow . For the space of ten years from 1896 to 

 1907, the extention of forest roads which newly built in the 

 State forests of Honshu is 1,197,271 metres, requiring an 

 expense of 1, 490,600 yen. The forest roads built in the Imperial 

 .forests during this period have an extention of 71,593 nietres 



