Nakamura Naozo (中村直三)
Naozo NAKAMURA (1819 - 1882) was an exemplary farmer and agricultural advisor, who was born in Nara Prefecture. Along with Denjibei FUNATSU in Gunma Prefecture and Senji NARA in Kagawa Prefecture, he is known as one of the "three best exemplary farmers of Meiji Period," who developed and established the agricultural methods in Japan. He actively tried to pass his agricultural methods to many farmers by utilizing easily understandable form of information rather than a traditional agricultural method book, such as the formats of sumo wrestling ranking list, single-sheet block print, small booklet, etc..
Brief Personal History
NAKAMURA was born in 1819, in a poor farming family lived in Nagahara Village, Yamabe District, Yamato Province (present-day Tenri City); he came to conclude that the increase of rice production and the income of farmers would be the basis of solving the problems on farmers, after seeing those riots of farmers throughout Japan at the end of Edo Period; throughout his life from 1863, he engaged in the production of new varieties of rice by comparing and selecting various kinds of rice produced in the regions of Japan.
He steadily achieved fruitful results, and he was officially commended from each domain of Yamato Province in 1868 for his great achievements, such as his agricultural land survey of 11 villages including Nagahara Village, his participation in the improvement of agricultural methods, and the successful production of new varieties of rice through the comparison and selection of various kinds of rice.
He submitted a note, "Jizo Wase," (Guardian deity of children watching over an early-ripening variety of rice) in 1872, and also the list of 76 high-quality rice kinds in 1877 to the Department of Encouragement of Industry founded in Meiji Government, (current Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) while he also participated in passing on his rice growing methods to those farmers in Akita, Miyagi, Ishikawa and Oita Prefectures.
In 1881, he submitted nearly 740 different kinds of rice species at the Second National Industrial Exhibition, and he was recognized and known as the most prominent producer of new varieties of rice throughout Japan; unfortunately he died of an illness in the next year of his participation in this exhibition, on August 13, 1882.
His writing works
"Kanno Bishi" (Little will of myself for the encouragement of agriculture)
"Ise Nishiki" (Glory of Ise Province, the name of a rice)
"The Story of a Rice Growing Farmer Named Fudematsu"
"Hatake Ine" (Dry land rice)
"Chiwara Wase" (Thousands straws of an early-ripening variety of rice)
"The Method of Selecting and Producing New Varieties of Rice"
"The Experiment Chart on the Rice Crop in Rice Field"