中國農業技術史上の若干の問題

Abstract

The Ch'un-ch'iu period is said to mark a great change in the social and political history of China. This view holds good also in the history of agricultural technique. In the same period iron implements and the ox-driven plough made their appearance, leading to the enlargement of cultivated land and development of agricultural productivity, and finally bringing a change in the productive relations. In the present article are examined various theories hitherto proposed upon two of such important changes in agricultural technique, ou-keng (耦耕) and niu-li-keng (牛犁耕), and the author comes to the conclusion that the former meant mere co-operative cultivation in the wet-field area of north China, while the latter word suggests the employment of the ox in agriculture as early as in the Ch'un-ch'iu period. In this connection the author rejects the view held by some specialists on the oracles bones that niu-li-keng was already in use in the Yin period. He says that, though it is traceable only to the Period of the Warring States so far as documentary evidence is concerned, niu-li-keng was in practice as early as in the Ch'un-ch'iu period. The development in the make of the li (plough) is also described.