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Date: | Thu, 8 Oct 2009 18:04:56 EDT |
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In a message dated 08/10/2009 02:16:03 GMT Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Europe was one solid forest before our ancestors invented axes
and farming. You and I wouldn't even be here if they hadn't cleared the
woods. And they only had wheat to plant. Monoculture is nothing new.
There are areas that are suited best for one crop; use them. What's sad
about it?
Our ancestors used fire and the plough, but they had fields of only a few
acres at most and no chemical weedkillers so there would have been a
continual cover of a wide variety plants to create and stabilise topsoil even
though the farmer may have planted beans, peas, rye, wheat, spelt, oats or
root crops. By neolithic times they also had livestock grazing and manuring
the land and, as soon as crop rotation became commonly organised, they also
had fallow periods during which flowering plants would flourish. More
recently, in my Great Grandfather's time before the Inclosure the commoners
would meet annually to decide which of the great fields would be put down to
seeds, hay, pigs, cows etc leaving the holders of field strips to raise their
arable crops on them.
Chris
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