SC - Agriculture

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hello all from Anne-Marie
(on one of my favorite topics!! :))
 
Ras says, re my comment that bantam chickens back them may not have been
the same size as the ones now...
> 
> Although I agree in principle here.  There are in fact extant breeds and
> varieties of agricultural plants and animals that have not been
"improved" and
> or changed in anyway.  Even given natural selection the time frame we are
> talking here is much too short for evolutionary effects and when
varieties and
> breeds undergo major changes they are ALWAYS without exception renamed.
> 
> I maintain that the last 100 years of technological advancement has had
very
> little impact on agriculture other than the acquisition of NEW varieties
and
> breeds, COMMERCIAL farming techniques and the horrendous use of
pesticides and
> artificial fertilizers.  Any cursory study of agriculture will show that
this
> is true. 
> 
I would disagree. I can look at the herd of dairy goats I raised and see
changes occuring in breed type over a few years. Even now, a mere 10 years
later, the breeds such as the Oberhasli and LaMancha have changed so as to
almost unrecognizable, excpet for some key breed characteristics like
color, etc. The LaMancha back when I was raising goats was universally
small, thin chested with very little dairy character. Now, the animals at
the county fair have beautiflly deep chests, good bone and are producing
gallons more of milk a day. No genetic manipulation was required, other
than good breeding techniques.

I would question as well the concept that special interest groups/breeders
would have been so concerned about remaining true to type in the Middle
Ages. The Gentleman Farmer of the 1700-1800 period was the source of all
that breed type information (you know, all those goofy paintings of so and
so, the famous cow/horse/whatever?) And even IF the medieval farmer was
concerned with staying with some specific breed type for some reason,
what's to say that size was one of those breed characteristics they found
important? 

>From a practical standpoint, the object of raising livestock is to produce
food. Universally, the bigger the animal, the more food. Occasionally an
animal will be bred/developed for smaller size for some reason, but this is
the exception, not the rule. The general trend to a bigger fatter
pig/chicken/cow is not a big enough change to merit a re-classification in
terms of genus, family, species or even breed. Egads and little fishies,
the amount of work it takes to get a "new" breed recognized! You should
have seen the fur fly when we started accepting Oberhaslis as a breed, as
opposed to a funny colored Alpine goat. And as for re-naming a breed, one
must establish that the breed had a name to start with. Do we know that
medieval man recognised breeds of livestock, with specific breed
characteristics? Or, as I think is more likely, did the animals of a
certain region tend to have certain characteristics (the cows in Hereford
tend to be black and white spotty, like that bull that old Eoin has), which
later, became associated with the breed?

A vague
> notion that we are somehow more "advanced" than our medieval counterparts
in
> all areas of life is, IMHO, somewhat presumptuous and smacks not a little
of
> misplaced self-importance.  If there is factual information refuting my
> theory, I would like to peruse it.  Since the agricultural society that
> dominated the earth for 10,000 yrs.  Is of particularly interest to me, I
am
> always looking for documents to expand my knowledge in this field.

Oh dear! I NEVER intended to make that point??!!!! Who says medieval people
were stupid/lazy/unsophisticated/ignorant/whatever? Thems fighting
words!!!! No, but seriously. I never said that the modner chicken would be
more advanced, or even better, I'm just saying that there's every
likelihood that just because we have a pippin apple now, and we find
citations about a pippin apple then, thats' not definative proof that they
are the exact same size/flavor/color/what have you. 

Remember the original question...how do medieval eggs differ from modner
ones? And my point was that many many things go into deciding how big an
egg is. Including hundreds of years of selective breeding (in addition to
different diet, age at laying, etc). Selective breeding is very different
from evolution, and effects changes over a much shorter period of time. Its
rather spooky, actually, how fast it can work.

Seriously, medieval agriculture is one of my favorite topics...I think its
scandalous the way most people in the SCA have NO idea where their food
comes from, and even less idea how thier personas food would have gotten to
the table. I wonder just how much genetics Mr Joe-Average-Medieval Farm Guy
knew? Hmmm...



- --Anne-Marie, ex-goat farmer, chicken raiser, sheep shearer, and all around
farm girl. Plus being an immunobiologist, for what that's worth...though
after a day like today, I'd rather be out mucking out the pig stalls.

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