Agriculture--Japan--Okinawa-ken;Okinawa Island (Japan)

Scope and Contents

A hillside with partially burned trees and vegetation north of Ada, Okinawa. Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "Lithosols from sandstones and phyllites with slopes of approximately 40% being cleared and in various stages of cultivation; the stump patch in lower right is now in sweet potatoes, the patch to the left was burned earlier, and the one above is now on fire. This is in the hilly to mountainous section immediately north of Ada."

Scope and Contents Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "The pattern of land use on the alluvium and mountain slopes of northern Okinawa. Ripening rice occupies most of the poorly drained Alluvial soils in the foreground and is also growing on some of the terraces up the slope to a point about a third of the way up. The poorly drained soils are comparable to the Wehadkee series, whereas the shallow soils of the mountains are like the Chandler, Muskingum, and Coeburn series. The crops over...

Scope and Contents

Mountain slopes of northern Okinawa, with rice paddies in the foreground and crops of sweet potatoes, millet, and taro on the terraces. Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "View to the right from the same point as H5. Rice paddies go up the slope to the clump of bananas, and dry-land crops cover terraces above that point. The forest on the crest is on shallow soils from cherty limestone, clay slates, and cherts."

Scope and Contents

Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "Brown Forest soil from limestone, wet after heavy rain of last night, with new slips of sweet potatoes set out in foreground and older ones beyond. There are a few volunteer stalks of sorghum and some of the houses beyond the sweet potatoes."

Scope and Contents

Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "A patch of cassava, tapioca, or manioc—as the plant is variously known—on local alluvium adjacent to the mountain slopes near the village of Sate, northern part of west coast of Okinawa. The plant is grown for its starchy root. Sweet potatoes to left and bananas in the rear."

Scope and Contents

Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "Small tilled patches of ledgy Brown Forest soil from limestone that will soon be planted to sweet potatoes on Hedo Misaki; rocks are mainly outcrops with a few loose ones. Small pines and cycads lie beyond the tilled patches, and the mountainous coast of Okinawa shows faintly in the distance."

Scope and Contents

A small valley of various crops a few miles south of Ishikawa, Okinawa. Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "A small valley across road from sinkhole in G148 with sugarcane, bananas, sweet potatoes, and rice on the Alluvial soil. Upland slopes are in Okinawa pine, poor stand."

Scope and Contents

Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "Grain sorghum growing on Shioya loamy sand near the village of Ibu, Okinawa, with a grass shelter for a cow beyond the grain. Pandanus leaves show in the left foreground and there is forest on the mountain slopes in the background."

Scope and Contents

Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "A 55-gallon steel drum used for storage of night soil, leaves, etc. which forms a thick liquid or slurry and is applied after a period of fermentation with the little can on the end of the stick. This is near the village of Hamamoto, west-central Motobu peninsula."

Scope and Contents A sweet potato patch near the village of Hamamoto, west-central Motobu peninsula. The 55-gallon steel drum on the right is used for storing soil and leaves that are left to ferment. The can tied with a stick leaning against the drum is used to apply the fermented slurry. Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "Cultivated patches, mostly used for sweet potatoes, among the outcrops of rock on an area of Brown Forest soils and Lithosols from limestone with storage drum (B39)...