The Historical Study on 'Ohchou Orange'

Katsube, Makoto

I analyzed the cultivation and circulation process of 'Ohchou Orange', the Japanese orange grown in old Ohchou Village in Osaki-Shimo Island, Hiroshima Prefecture. Ohchou Orange has been harvested since the middle of Meiji Era, 1900's, and built up Modern Industry and Lives of people in that Village. Osaki-Shimo Island has almost steep slopes. So the farmers have opened and cultivated orangefields in so steep slopes, and have ascended the mountain paths carrying over 150 pounds fertilyzor, and, everyday in harvest time, have descended carrying over 180 pounds oranges in female case, or over 250 pounds in male. Now they bought the other island slopes and opened orangefields very often, that is called 'de-saku' or 'watari-saku', in other words going out for cultivation. Therefore they ferried to other island pulling the oars before sunrise, and back their home after sunset. I think the reason mention below why they had been able to bear so hard work. In the first half of 1900's, a few rich merchants and farmers introduced orange cultivation, and many peasants did it all together about before 1910. Thinking it was necessary for 5 ~ 7 years that they could get income and outgo balance after introduction of orange cultivation, I guess many peasants introduced it after confirmation of innovators' success. The oranges were sold to Hiroshima-City, Osaka-City, Tokyo-City, and so on, or exported to Korea, 'Ryojun' (旅順) and 'Tairen' (大連) of northeastern China. These were sold at higher prices in the markets than the other crops, and that made them to increase their incomes, and therefore made them to build new and better houses in 1920's. So I think the reason of their perseverance in hard work was in their dreams, that is increase of incomes or improvement of their live levels and so on.

The Historical Study on 'Ohchou Orange'

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