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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