SC - Agriculture-more tho'ts

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/31/98 1:00:33 AM Eastern Standard Time,
charlesn at sunrise.srl.rmit.edu.au writes:

<< Except that free-range eggs are more 
 likely to be what happened, as (as I understand it) farming was a pretty 
 free-range activity in the average household. (Not entirely though >>

I agree somewhat but the premise of the SCA is that all are noblemen.  Most
noble households employed the services of a "gardener."  And despite the
general feeling that agriculture was a primitive undertaking in the MA, the
opposite is true.  Extant gardens and pictorial information show that
gardening was undertaken at a level far beyond what is even done today in some
cases.  It was not until 25-30 years ago that the concept of raised beds, use
of animal waste as fertilizer, espalier and other techniques received the
attention they deserved as a far superior way of raising food stuffs compared
with the degenerative commercial practices in use by commercial growers in the
modern world.

A point of fact is that almost the entire gamut of foodstuffs available to the
average person in the modern world is without exception inferior in flavor
when compared with older varieties.  They are produced to withstand high speed
transport and for long keeping qualities without regard to taste and
palatability. 

A perfect example is the apple which is in a recent taste test of the 9
varieties available at my local supermarket, showed them all to be insipid,
flavorless and in all cases but one bitter.  Fortunately, I have a ready
supply of real apples from an old gentlemen that lives near me so I do have to
experience the horrible product sold in the market under the name of "apple."
The deterioration of modern food products has been swift and unstoppable over
the last 2 generations.

Without exception all of the so-called modern improvements in agriculture are
entirely geared toward commercial food production with emphasis on
portability, long shelf life and increased yields.  Any person who studies
medieval agriculture cannot but be amazed at the high level of sophistication
and be reminded that the MA was a society based on agriculture.  In the modern
world, our society is based on technology and industry, with agriculture
receiving only passing notice.

Therefore, I find it both unfactual and not a little misleading to
characterize the praxes of agriculture in the MA as primitive especially when
those observations are based on archeological digs of remote northern
settlements occurring in the Dark Ages.  It even more misleading to
extrapolate the results of these findings unto the agricultural practices of
main centers of civilization during the period extending from 1200 c.e. to
1500 c.e.

Ras
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