[Part 2] Aizu samurai cultivated apples! How were Western varieties introduced?

Domestic apple cultivation up to the Meiji period

As mentioned earlier, the "Hi no Koromo" and "Kunimitsu" apples grown in Yoichi, Hokkaido by a group of Aizu samurai immigrants are considered to be the first successful examples of commercial apple cultivation by a private individual in Japan

So, did apples not exist in Japan until then?

As "private commercial apple cultivation ," apples have been grown and eaten since before the Scarlet Robe era.

However, it is a small variety called a "Japanese apple,"

So, let's take a look at some apple-related topics that appear in Japanese history and get an overview of the history that led to Yoichi's scarlet robe

Riukou as an ornamental plant in the Heian period

in the mid-Heian period "Wamyo Ruijusho," where they are recorded as "Riukou."

It had already been brought from China during this period, but the original species was small and had a strong sour taste, and it is thought to have been used more as an ornamental plant than as food

In addition to containing ingredients that can be used as herbal medicines, apples, which belong to the rose family, may have been popular among Heian aristocrats because they bloom with flowers that resemble cherry blossoms

Apples were also given as gifts during the Sengoku period

Apple cultivation continued after the Heian period, and although they were small, they eventually began to be distributed for consumption

Mogami Yoshiaki, a Sengoku daimyo who became the first lord of the Dewa Yamagata domain and was also Date Masamune's uncle , wrote a letter of thanks when he received salmon and apples as gifts from his vassal, Kitadate Toshinaga.

Azai Nagamasa , a warlord in northern Omi and brother-in-law of Oda Nobunaga , received apples as tributes, and a small, sour Japanese variety has been re-cultivated in the area.

Even during the Warring States period, the exchange of gifts not only confirmed the bond between master and servant, but also carried very important political implications

These gifts included various fruits according to the season, and it is an interesting fact that apples were one of the options

Apples distributed by the Imperial Palace during a famine in the mid-Edo period

The following story about apples was told in 1787, during the mid-Edo period

After a famine occurred at the time, "Gosho Sendo Mairi" (a thousand visits to the Imperial began, in which people flocked to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto and circled the area.

The people were requesting relief, food and drink, and it is said that influential nobles also worked hard to respond to this demand

In the midst of this, the then Emperor Gosakuramachi is said to have distributed to the people as many as 30,000 apples that were stored in the Imperial Palace

Incidentally, Empress Gosakuramachi was the last female emperor in history as of 2025

If the Aizu samurai of the late Edo period and Matsudaira Katamori had known about this story, they would probably have felt even more emotional about the apple cultivation business that came to fruition in Yoichi, where they moved

Apple jam made at the Kaga clan residence at the end of the Edo period

As mentioned earlier, up until the Edo period, apples were of the Japanese variety, smaller and more sour than the apples of today, but at the end of the Edo period, there were finally movements to try cultivating Western apples

There is a record of apples being harvested by the Kaga Domain in 1854 at their lower residence in Itabashi, Edo, and in 1862, Matsudaira Shungaku of the Echizen Fukui Domain cultivated apples at their lower residence in Sugamo, Edo

It is said that at the Kaga domain's lower residence, the harvested apples were processed into a jam-like substance, which was then spread on small rice cakes and eaten

"private" as Japan's first commercial apple cultivation , and it can be said that the industrial potential of Western apple cultivation was already being recognized by the end of the Edo period.

The first modern farming methods were introduced in Japan by foreigners

Yoichi apples were the first commercially cultivated in Japan by Japanese people, but in fact, there was an earlier example of this being started by foreigners in what is now Nanae Town near Hakodate

It is well known that from the end of the Edo period through the Meiji era, many foreigners began to visit Japan, bringing with them new Western technology

In Hokkaido, it was the Prussian trader Reinold Gaertner who first introduced modern farming methods to apples and other agricultural products

Just before the Edo Shogunate was dissolved, Gaertner received permission from the Hakodate magistrate to cultivate land in Nanae Town, and in 1869 (Meiji 2), he negotiated with Enomoto Takeaki's Ezo Island government and concluded a treaty for a 99-year lease of the land

As a result, the contract was terminated the following year when the Meiji government paid a penalty, but due to the large-scale modern agricultural techniques that Gaertner brought with him, such as apple cultivation and dairy farming, Nanae Town is also known as the "birthplace of Western agriculture."

The technical connection between Yoichi and apple cultivation is unclear, but it is an interesting fact that agricultural engineers from Western countries at least had their eye on Hokkaido as a suitable place for growing apples from an early stage

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Aizu samurai who historically guarded the north

As mentioned earlier, the group of immigrants made up of former Aizu samurai who had made a historic success of apple cultivation moved to Yoichi, Hokkaido, with the pretense that they would settle in Sakhalin, but this northern location was not chosen out of nowhere

Throughout history, the Aizu clan was often tasked with guarding the north and was deployed in various parts of Hokkaido, which was then known as Ezo

Although this is a bit of a departure from the topic of apple cultivation itself, since settling in Hokkaido can be considered a natural route in some ways, let's take a look at the relationship between the Aizu samurai and the northern region

Defense of Soya, Okushiri, and Sakhalin

In 1799, the Edo Shogunate ordered the Hirosaki and Morioka domains to guard eastern Hokkaido, a measure taken in response to the international situation in which many foreign ships were visiting the north

This was a very tense situation for the shogunate, which was in a closed-door policy at the time, and there were frequent collisions with foreign ships in the area

In response to this, the shogunate placed the entire Hokkaido under its direct control in 1807, and dispatched 230 Tsugaru clan soldiers to Soya, the northernmost part of Hokkaido

However, because fresh food was not readily available during the winter, many people developed edema caused by a lack of vitamins, resulting in many deaths

The following spring, 587 Aizu soldiers were deployed to replace the Tsugaru soldiers. Of these, 241 were stationed on Rishiri Island, west of Wakkanai, to guard the area. A further 706 men from a separate unit traveled directly to Sakhalin, where they built a jin'ya (camp) as their garrison headquarters

The Aizu clan soldiers withdrew from Sakhalin from October 1808 to the following year, so their stay was short, but it is said that the information they brought back during this time contributed to the achievements of Mamiya Rinzo and others who investigated the north in the same period

After that, due to factors such as a decrease in the number of foreign ships arriving, Hokkaido was transferred from direct control of the shogunate back to the control of the Matsumae Domain in 1821

Defense of Eastern Ezo

The shogunate regained direct control over Hokkaido in 1855, two years after the arrival of Perry's fleet

At that time, the four Tohoku domains of Hirosaki, Akita, Sendai, and Morioka were ordered to send troops to guard Hokkaido. In 1859, Hokkaido was divided and governed by the various domains, and in addition to the four domains mentioned above, the Tsuruoka and Aizu domains were also given land in Hokkaido

The Aizu domain's territory included Monbetsu, Shari, and Shibetsu, which were part of eastern Hokkaido, and it also served as guard for the Abashiri domain, which was overseen by the Hakodate Magistrate

the Notsuke Peninsula, Japan's largest sandbar, stretching 26 km in length and located in Shibetsu. The graves of three Aizu clan samurai, including Inamura Kanehisa, who died there in 1863, remain here.

In this way, the Aizu clan has a history of working hard to defend Hokkaido throughout the Edo period, and gained the trust of the shogunate and the Imperial Court, which led to them taking on the important role of Kyoto Shugoshoku (protector of Kyoto) at the end of the Edo period

Regarding northern security, not only was the geographical condition of Aizu being far from Hokkaido a major factor, but the fact that the domain's soldiers, trained in the northern regions, were expected to be able to adapt to operating in cold climates was also a major factor

However, it is easy to imagine that surviving the winter with insufficient knowledge and equipment, and especially facing issues related to survival such as vitamin supplementation and low temperature countermeasures, was an extremely tough task

The initial plan to have former Aizu samurai settle in Sakhalin after the Meiji Restoration was thought to be based on the rationale of their experience in the north, and the move to Yoichi could be said to have been an extension of this background

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