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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

#101

Post by hedgehog »

kriro wrote: post #85
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.…

There's quite a few in Germany. The most famous one is probably Merck (1668). There's a couple of really old banks (Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, 1590) and the industry with the most old companies is probably the glas industry. There's a couple of companies from the 15xx and 16xx. If you're into hiking, you probably heard about Meindl shoes (1683). There's also a lot of breweries, especially small ones in Frankonia. And…

Wikipedia has a list (of course), it's pretty interesting to read:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

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

#103

Post by eloff »

kriro wrote: post #85
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.…

There's quite a few in Germany. The most famous one is probably Merck (1668). There's a couple of really old banks (Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, 1590) and the industry with the most old companies is probably the glas industry. There's a couple of companies from the 15xx and 16xx. If you're into hiking, you probably heard about Meindl shoes (1683). There's also a lot of breweries, especially small ones in Frankonia. And…

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

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

#104

Post by rsynnott »

brigandish wrote: post #62
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.…

It’s worth remembering that adoption is much different to how we’d conceive of it in Europe. If a business wasn’t going to be continued by the offspring then a new business owner could be adopted, as an adult. That’s why there seems to be so many Japanese concerns with incredibly long lineage, but like so much else in Japan to a westerner’s eyes, it’s appearance only. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19505088

> but like so much else in Japan to a westerner’s eyes, it’s appearance only.

Eh. I'm not sure I'd call it appearance only. In some parts of "the West" (notably the Roman Republic and early Empire, but it went on a for a long time after that) adult adoption as a succession/continuity-of-business mechanism was commonplace.

Notable Roman examples include the _first two emperors_ (Augustus/Octavian was adopted by Julius Caesar, Tiberius was adopted by Augustus. Tiberius also had both an adopted and natural son; given that the adopted one was adopted before the natural one was born, he was the heir, giving some indication of how seriously this was taken. (Ultimately they both died)

Even in medieval and early modern Europe, legally adopting apprentices etc wasn't uncommon.

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

#105

Post by rastamutta »

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 sounds a lot like "allmänning", which means common land (obviously)

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

#106

Post by bell-cot »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #50
rob74 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This technique doesn't really offer a solution: as a rule, the harder and better quality the wood, the slower it grows, so the possibility to supply more when demand is high is limited, which makes the wood more expensive, so the temptation of "poaching" it is greater.

Trees don't move; it's perfectly possible to guard them from poachers.

Yes - but if you need trustworthy guards, 24 x 7 x 52 x $YearsUntilHarvest, then the economics of growing trees get vastly worse.

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

#107

Post by trgn »

eloff wrote: post #103
kriro wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a few in Germany. The most famous one is probably Merck (1668). There's a couple of really old banks (Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, 1590) and the industry with the most old companies is probably the glas industry. There's a couple of companies from the 15xx and 16xx. If you're into hiking, you probably heard about Meindl shoes (1683). There's also a lot of breweries, especially small ones in Frankonia. And…

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

At the same time, USA has the oldest constitution, and east coast cities for all intents and purposes are 250 years old. If Europe's imperial capitals are essentially 19th century inventions, so are America's (Paris, NYC, Barcelona, Philadelphia, ... all ballooned to their dominant feel during the same decades). The biggest difference is that the brand that the USA is not old or has little heritage, has been along for so long that Americans and Europeans alike have internalized it. But in 2022, America _is_ an old country, and does have a lineage that stretches way back, all the way to antiquity why not.

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

#108

Post by bluGill »

eloff wrote: post #103
kriro wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a few in Germany. The most famous one is probably Merck (1668). There's a couple of really old banks (Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, 1590) and the industry with the most old companies is probably the glas industry. There's a couple of companies from the 15xx and 16xx. If you're into hiking, you probably heard about Meindl shoes (1683). There's also a lot of breweries, especially small ones in Frankonia. And…

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

There was a lot there 120 years ago. However the natives didn't have access to the types of materials that would last in that climate, and of course Europeans destroyed their culture.

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

#109

Post by inkcapmushroom »

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…

FWIW you can replace the "www" in your links with "solar" to access LTM's solar-powered version of their website. It's off-grid and solar panel powered, so not available 365 days of the year, but I've yet to find it offline when I check. I think it's a neat project. :)

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

#110

Post by brutusborn »

rsynnott wrote: post #104
brigandish wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth remembering that adoption is much different to how we’d conceive of it in Europe. If a business wasn’t going to be continued by the offspring then a new business owner could be adopted, as an adult. That’s why there seems to be so many Japanese concerns with incredibly long lineage, but like so much else in Japan to a westerner’s eyes, it’s appearance only. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19505088

> but like so much else in Japan to a westerner’s eyes, it’s appearance only. Eh. I'm not sure I'd call it appearance only. In some parts of "the West" (notably the Roman Republic and early Empire, but it went on a for a long time after that) adult adoption as a succession/continuity-of-business mechanism was commonplace. Notable Roman examples include the _first two emperors_ (Augustus/Octavian was adopted by Julius…

My memory was that the emperor adoptions were more pragmatic than anything, either because the emperor didn't have a son or as insurance against a power struggle caused by a single son dying. It's been a while so I could be mistaken.

This is the same mechanism that business succession planning reduces risk. Failure to train and groom new talent for leadership roles is a good way to ensure a company dies with its current staff.

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