g from one hundred to three hundred mulberry trees
(for purposes of sericulture) and from forty to one hundred
lacquer trees, according to the grade of the tenant family.
Ownership of building-land (takuchi) was equally in perpetuity,
though its transfer required official approval, but dwellings or
warehouses--which in Japan have always been regarded as distinct from
the land on which they stand--might be disposed of at pleasure. It
is not to be inferred from the above that all the land throughout
the Empire was divided among the people. Considerable tracts
were reserved for special purposes. Thus, in five home provinces
(Go-Kinai) two tracts of seventy-five acres each were kept for the
Court in Yamato and Settsu, and two tracts of thirty acres each in
Kawachi and Yamashiro, such land being known as kwanden (official
fields), and being under the direct control of the Imperial Household
Department.

*Called also yenchi--These uplands were regarded as of little value
compared with rice-fields.

There were also three other kinds of special estates, namely, iden,
or lands granted to mark official ranks; shokubunden, or lands given
as salary to office-holders; and koden, or lands bestowed in
recognition of merit. As to the iden, persons of the four Imperial
ranks received from one hundred to two hundred acres, and persons
belonging to any of the five official grades--in each of which there
were two classes--were given from twenty to two hundred, females
receiving two-thirds of a male's allotment. Coming to salary lands,
we find a distinction between officials serving in the capital
(zaikyo) and those serving in the provinces (zaige). Among the
former, the principal were the prime minister (one hundred acres),
the ministers of the Left and Right (seventy-five acres each) and the
great councillor (fifty acres). As for provincial officials, the
highest, namely, the governor of Kyushu (who had his seat at the
Dazai-fu), received twenty-five acres, and the lowest, one and a half
acres. Governors of provinces--which were divided into four classes
(great, superior, medium, and inferior)--received from four acres to
six and a half acres; an official (dai-hanji), corresponding to a
chief-justice, had five acres; a puisne justice (sho-hanji), four
acres; an officer in command of an army corps, four acres, and a
literary professor (hakushi), four acres. Grants of land as salaries
for official duties were made even to post-towns for