Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais
1084 NOTES TO CHAPTER 9
- Hoon K. Lee, Land Utilization and Rural Economy in Korea (Shanghai, Hong Kong,
Singapore: Kelly and Walsh, Ltd., 1936), p. 56, table 19. For Hishimoto's figures, I made
conversions based on the formula of 1 koku = 4.96 bushels. See Appendix E, "Tables of
Measures,"in James I. Nakamura, Agricultural Production and the Economic Develop-
ment of Japan, 1873-1922 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 220.
Thus, 7.7 to x 1.984 pecks = 15.28 pecks/4 pecks = 3.81 bushels per 0.10 hectare, or
- I bushels/ha, or 15.55 bushels/acre. 7.7 koku = 39-4 bushels/ha, or 1.16 metric tonslha.
Hishimoto Chaji, Chosen-mai no kenkyu [A study of Korean rice] (Tokyo: Sensa shobo,
1938), p. 7. See table I, n."a" in Yujiru Hayami and Sabura Yamada, "Agricultural Pro-
ductivity at the Beginning of Industrialization," in Kazushi Ohkawa, Bruce F. Johnston,
Hiromitsu Kaneda, eds., Agriculture and Economic Growth: Japan's Experience (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 108, equates 0.15 metric tons with I koku
or 4.96 bushels of brown rice. Thus the weight of brown rice per bushel would be 0.03
metric tons or 60 pounds. R. H. Tawney also equates I bushel of rice with 60 pounds, in
Land and Labor in China (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), p. 49.
- 9.88 koku x 4.96 bushels/ha = 49.0 bushels of rice per hectare. Hishimoto Chaji,
Chosen-mai no kenkyi/, p. 7: Hoon K. Lee, Land Utilization and Rural Economy in Korea,
p. 56, table 19.
- Nakamura, Agricultural Production and the Economic Developmnent of Japan,
pp. 90-92, estimates the average yield for around 1880 at 1.6 kokultan, but I will use
the 1.64 kokultan presented in table I in Yujiru Hayami and Saburo Yamada, "Agricul-
tural Productivity at the Beginning of Industrialization," p. 108. To convert metric tons
to bushels I converted kokultan shown in table I to bushelslha by multiplying by TO to
find kokulhectare, and by 5. I 2 to convert koku to bushels.
- See Yujiru Hayami and Saburo Yamada, "Agricultural Productivity at the Begin-
ning ofIndustrialization," p. lO8.
- Nakamura, Agricultural Production and the Economic Development of Japan, tables
4-6, p. 103·
33.1,000 to 7,000 kglha, or 7.6-53 bushelslha.
- Francesca Bray [Joseph Needham], Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 6, Biol-
ogy and Biological Technology, pI. 2: Agriculture (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1984):508, table 13.
- Dwight H. Perkins, Agricultural Development in China, 1368-1968 (Chicago:
Aldine Publishing Co., 1969), p. 17. I converted Perkins's estimates of 139 catties/shih
mou for 1400, 203 catties/shih mou, and 243 cattieslshih mou to kilograms per acre by
multiplying catties by 1. 1 (to convert to pounds) and by 6 (to convert mou to acres), and
then dividing by 60 to convert pounds to bushels.
- Perkins, Agricultural Development in China, 1368-1968, p. 17. For the early twen-
tieth century, Tawney calculated the average rice yield per acre in China at lO.8 bushels
for 1916-I 8. Tawney, Land and Labor in China, p. 49. According to John Lossing Buck,
Owen L. Dawson, and Yuan-Ii Wu, Food and Agriculture in Communist China (New York:
Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), p. 22, the yield was 2,972 kilograms (1,351 pounds) per
hectare, which at the rate of 60 pounds per bushel yields 22.51 bushels per hectare, or
9.19 bushels/acre, for the period 1929-33.
