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further inhibited their diffusion. The spectacular growth in demand for
onions, cabbage and potatoes coincided with the rising popularity of
yōshoku. Once these vegetables became widely available and inexpensive,
they began to be used in Japanese cooking as well and their consumption
increased considerably. For example, the acreage occupied by the white
potato crop expanded more than tenfold between 1880 and 1930. 7
During the first twenty years of the Meiji period, the Japanese
government was very actively involved in the popularization of Western
vegetables. The Agricultural Experiment Stations set up throughout the
country became responsible for cultivating seeds of new vegetables and
developing new varieties of already known ones. They were to encourage
agricultural innovation, distributed the seeds to the prospective producers
and provided them with help in starting up businesses. 8 It was at such a
station that Kanie Ichitarō (1875–1971) learned how to grow Western vegetables.
Kanie was born into a peasant family settled near the city of Nagoya,
approximately halfway between Tokyo and Kyoto. Like other peasant
boys in late nineteenth-century Japan, he experienced the hardships of the
farming existence, but his life was already affected by the early reforms of
58
Kanie Ichitarō
shortly before
his departure
to the front
in 1904.