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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

#111

Post by bluGill »

duped wrote: post #25
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.…

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…

Iron was expensive in Europe, before mass production a nail had to be made individually by hand which took a long time. Which is why until around 200 years ago nails were used only when nothing else would do.

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

#112

Post by highwaylights »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #14
asplake wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the champagne of pollarding

Unless your pollarded lumber came from a mutant cedar in a specific location in Kyoto, it's just sparkling timber.

I want this t-shirt.

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

#113

Post by relaxing »

trgn wrote: post #107
eloff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

Just because the US happened to be founded in the Age of Enlightenment that doesn't magically grant us heritage back to antiquity.

And the argument isn't about the size of cities or political organization. But for reference, Philadelphia in 1790 had population 28k. That's on par with Paris around year 0 in the Roman era, or roughly year 1100 as the city recovered in the middle ages.

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

#114

Post by boringg »

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.

You should probably head to the cradles of civilization if you are looking for ancient civ.

Pithy german comment sounds like your friend has a bit of an inferiority thing going on.

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

#115

Post by bilekas »

ekianjo wrote: post #87

Clickbait title. Japanese do cut trees. This technique is just used in very minor situations.

Given I was asked for my location, popup permission and signup before I could even read the article, the title is the least of it's problems.

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

#116

Post by hulahoof »

hedgehog wrote: post #101
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…

Wikipedia has a list (of course), it's pretty interesting to read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

It’s somewhat sad to read that after 1430 years being family run the oldest company on this list went into liquidation in 2006 and was acquired

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

#117

Post by hattmall »

relaxing wrote: post #113
trgn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

Just because the US happened to be founded in the Age of Enlightenment that doesn't magically grant us heritage back to antiquity. And the argument isn't about the size of cities or political organization. But for reference, Philadelphia in 1790 had population 28k. That's on par with Paris around year 0 in the Roman era, or roughly year 1100 as the city recovered in the middle ages.

Would any of these have been the same people? Like is it conceivable the same family lineage in Paris 0-1100, or even 2k years to now or would the war, conquest, etc have changed the demographics considerably?

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

#118

Post by laputan_machine »

inkcapmushroom wrote: post #109
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. :)

It's a very cool project, and I really like the aesthetic of beige-ish background and reduced-bit, dithered images, almost feels like an old school magazine

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

#119

Post by thechao »

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.

The largest city in the "middle ages" was in the US. Europeans trot that "no history" story out because saying "... and then Europeans engaged in the largest genocide in human history" doesn't feel as good, I guess? There was definitely an interruption and a regime change — Europe's got a lot more of those a lot more recently than the US — but the history is there, if you care to look.

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

#120

Post by creaturemachine »

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.

Europeans have no awareness of aboriginal history since they simply didn't have anything like it, so of course their version of history and culture is assumed to be the standard.
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