This is my very first visit to the Agricultural and Forestry Research Center. Before that, all Iheard about ichinoya is “kowai”. Bizarre trees, bumpy roads, bugs, crows..
. Completely dark atnight, easy to get lost. However, after went there by my own, it is “kawaii” for me rather than”kowai”. I have seen so many small, cubic, both space-saving and fuel-saving cars after I came to japan.But it still surprised me when I saw those small agricultural machineries in a small garage. As theguiding teacher said, Japanese farmlands do not have that much space to hold the machines as bigas those in other countries. The way they grow apple trees interested me. Instead of let each tree grow independently, theyconnected the trees by inserting one’s trunk top to the next, and tied the joint on an iron wire hungalong the tree row with specific height.
This method allows those trees to grow horizontally ratherthan vertically. Since the trees are lowered to a reachable height, it is easier for the workers to pickthe apples. It is not only a smart way to save labors, on the other hand, these lowered apple trees canbe more protected by the higher trees planted around the orchard, which functioned as shieldskeeping out the cold wind come from the top of Mt. Tsukuba in the winter. Except for plant farming, they also breed animals such as cows, chickens…
However, the cowsare not for milking anymore. There are basically two different ways to feed the cows: In order tomake them strong, the farmers feed them with large amount of dry grass; and they feed the calveswith fresh food which have more calories and vitamins to make the them grow. The professor saidthat animals do not care about the taste of their food. It is a little bit doubtful, because pigs haveeven better sense of taste than human because they got more taste buds than we do. And about thechickens, unfortunately, because of the bird flu, they are now for experimental use only. So thechicken houses is isolated from the rest parts of the research center, and that was why we could notgo and see the chickens. Refer to the Central Library, to be honest, I have never been to a library which is as big as thisone.
And it amazed me that all the facilities in the library are so well-considered. Self-helpcirculation machine, different kinds of computers for different purpose… What impressed me themost are the automatic bookshelves: after push the button on a certain shelf, the others start to moveand form an aisle, where you can reach the books you wanted to read. It is a both space-saving andpower-saving method, since there are no aisles between every two shelves and the lights can be turnon only after the aisle formed. There are so many so many bookshelves which contain hundreds of thousands of books: fromJapanese to English, art to science, old to new. It surprised me that they have newspaper collectedform all over the world covered a long time period: Asahi, the Chosun Ilbo, People’s daily and soon.
Our guide also took us to a little book gallery, where there the precious ancient books andscrolls are all under glass covers. There is a book which have only four originals in the wholeworld, although the one on exhibition is duplicate, one of the original is kept somewhere in ourschool. Except for the bookshelves, the public areas on each floor are well-designed as well. Chat areaswhere you can discuss with your friends while studying, rest rooms to drink water and enjoy yourlunch, and small cubic study rooms for only one person each! This is so amazing, but unfortunatelywe undergraduate students cannot use them. There even has mini call-box for us to answer thephone.
So many people are here in the library to help us. Not only the library staff, but also volunteerswho can help us in finding books. During certain time period, a senior student would be sittingbeside the computer area to solve our problems about using the computers. It was happy to see the”English is ok!” Sign in front of the support desk.
