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Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

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Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#91

Post by pgh »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #90
qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #55

The ancient japanese governments restricted the peasants from destroying the allmende. No hunting with weapons, only traps. No chopping down trees. Its the only way a society on a island with limitations can thrive. This is a hack to circumvent the no lumbering rule. As far as im aware, similar rules never were applied in europe, just all things chopped down, and then some state forrests and macchia.

> allmende Can't find this word in any English dictionary I checked, what does it mean?

It’s German meaning “commons" - communal lands.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#93

Post by kriro »

vanderZwan wrote: post #56

Everyone here is mentioning coppicing, so I suspect there will be some interest in the Low Tech Magazine articles on the subject: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/coppicing/ And since we're talking about doing cool things with trees, I just wanted to mention that LTM has more interesting articles slightly "adjacent" to this topic, like this one about a half-forgotten technique for growing citrus trees in climates with…

Wow thanks a lot. I wasn't aware of this website. That's a place to spend hundreds of hours :)

They even have printed books covering all their articles...those will make excellent x-mas gifts for some friends of mine.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#94

Post by [deleted] »

lostlogin wrote: post #64
duped wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the googling for rabbit holes. The joinery in traditional Japanese construction is remarkably impressive in its craftsmanship. I've heard it was born from a combination of expensive and poor quality iron for nails (although the same could be said in European construction - hence the phrase, "dead as a door nail") and the desire to be able to relocate Shinto shrines without damage (which required joints tha…

I thought ‘dead as a door nail’ was a reference to dead nailing. Dead nailing being the bending over of the nail to lock it in place. Is this practice somehow related to poor quality nails? https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead_as_a_doornail

[deleted]

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#95

Post by pineaux »

lostlogin wrote: post #64
duped wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the googling for rabbit holes. The joinery in traditional Japanese construction is remarkably impressive in its craftsmanship. I've heard it was born from a combination of expensive and poor quality iron for nails (although the same could be said in European construction - hence the phrase, "dead as a door nail") and the desire to be able to relocate Shinto shrines without damage (which required joints tha…

I thought ‘dead as a door nail’ was a reference to dead nailing. Dead nailing being the bending over of the nail to lock it in place. Is this practice somehow related to poor quality nails? https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead_as_a_doornail

For an excellent video about the use, history and ethymology of a dead door nails:

https://youtu.be/1JOwfKLdRt8

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#96

Post by throwuwu »

duped wrote: post #16

I wish there was a way to apply this technique to some of the rarer woods that have fantastic uses in production, like teak, rosewood, and grenadilla. If you're into hardwoods like musical instruments or fine furniture there's an appreciation you grow for the character of these woods. And a moral quandary with the sourcing of it. It seems impossible to find a sustainable method to source the material. A lot of what w…

It works with European and North American hardwoods so it could probably be applied to other species as well.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#97

Post by throwuwu »

vanderZwan wrote: post #42
duped wrote: post #16

I wish there was a way to apply this technique to some of the rarer woods that have fantastic uses in production, like teak, rosewood, and grenadilla. If you're into hardwoods like musical instruments or fine furniture there's an appreciation you grow for the character of these woods. And a moral quandary with the sourcing of it. It seems impossible to find a sustainable method to source the material. A lot of what w…

I wouldn't be surprised if it were possible, but nobody has successfully tried. It would require a combination of expert knowledge, the kind of long-term thinking/investment that the market currently is set up against, plus a lot of money over a long period of time to be able to afford experimenting like that in the first place. It will probably take state-sponsored forestry research to figure this out.

Or, you know, a retiree with a penchant for forestry and gardening. All it takes is interest, just look at the community of people obsessed with grafting or other botanical pursuits.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#98

Post by henearkr »

This could be wrongly understood as "Japan wood industry doesn't cut down trees", which is false.

Japanese forests are currently suffering an intense demand and are overexploited.

A large part of the cuts are undeclared or under-declared, and clear cuts are not rare.

Undeclared overexploitation of mountain top forests has been one of the determined causes of some catastrophic landslides a couple of years ago.

@dang would it be possible to update the title in order to convey the meaning that it is one fabulous technique used in Japan, without letting believe that it is the technique used in Japan?

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#99

Post by Retric »

ggm wrote: post #38
eliaspro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you name a European family concern doing the same thing continuously since before 1600? The oldest (family-held) one in Germany is "The Coatinc Company": https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coatinc_Company The oldest non-family owned one is "Staffelter Hof", in operation since 862: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staffelter_Hof

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies says by far the most (56%) are in Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinise

Depending on how you draw the lines you end up with very different lists. Europe’s classification of the oldest hotels generally means parts of the same physical building which would exclude most of the Japanese hotels as Japanese buildings get replaced far more frequently.

The Japanese practice of adopting adults to continue a business also blurs the line here. Is selling off the business to someone else enough to maintain continuity? How about operating at the same location? What if the original structure is rebuilt?

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#100

Post by Alex3917 »

ggm wrote: post #20

Coppicing, Hedge laying, Bocage, drystone walling, wattle-and-daub are all domestic comparable ancient crafts of Europe. The point being that probably only drystone walling is valued in a way comparable to the Japanese version of Coppicing, which really has been transformed into an artform. European coppices are cut close to the rootstock and cut down far younger for use as poles, for wood turning, for hedge laying.…

Espaliering fruit trees is popular even today. Obviously in this case people are just picking fruit off the water sprouts that shoot up each year rather than using the wood for other purposes, but the general idea is the same. The shoots just get trimmed back every year rather than every other year.

E.g. if you look at this pic of a fig tree, you can see that it looks almost identical to the Japanese technique:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/10/realestate/06gard...

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