D. S. Donaldson catches echoes from the past at the Oxford Real Farming Conference
Professor Martin Wolfe’s account of ‘polyculture’ and ‘agroforestry’ at this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference, not least at his unique and extremely successful Wakelyn’s farm in Suffolk, reminded me of a very different kind of polyculture in what is now North Carolina – one developed entirely independently of Euro-Asian husbandry, from plants native to the Americas and bred over millenia. It was described in the 1580s by one of the most important (but less widely recognised) British scientists, Thomas Harriot (alumnus of Oxford coincidentally, with an annual lecture named after him at Oriel College). He records in precise detail how the Algonquians interplanted their crops, with beans climbing up the corn (ie maize) and contributing nitrogen to the other crops (though of course even a boffin-ahead-of-his-time like Harriot couldn’t know about nitrogen fixing bacteria back then…):
‘All the aforesaid commodities for victuall are set or sowed, sometimes in groundes apart and severally by themselves, but for the most part together in one ground mixtly: the manner thereof with the dressing and preparing of the ground, because I will note unto you the fertility of the soile; I thinke good briefly to describe.
‘The ground they never fatten with mucke, doong or any other thing, neither plow nor digge it as we in England, but onely prepare it in sort as followeth. A fewe dayes before they sowe or set, the men with wooden instruments, made almost in forme of mattocks or hoes with long handles; the women with short peckers or parers, because they use them sitting, of a foot long and about five inches in breadth: doe onely breake the upper part of the ground to rayse up the weedes, grasse, & old stubbes of corne stalkes with their rootes. The which after a day or twoes drying in the Sunne, being scrapte up into many small heapes, to save them labour for carrying them away; they burne into ashes. (And whereas some may thinke that they use the ashes for to better the grounde; I say that then they would either disperse the ashes abroad, which we observed they do not, except the heapes bee too great: or els would take speciall care to set their corne where the ashes lie, which also wee finde they are carelesse of.) And this is all the husbanding of their ground that they use.
‘Then their setting or sowing is after this maner. First for their corne, beginning in one corner of the plot, with a pecker they make a hole, wherein they put foure graines with that care they touch not one another, (about an inch asunder) and cover them with the moulde againe : and so throughout the whole plot, making such holes and using them after such maner: but with this regard that they bee made in ranks, every ranke differing from other halfe a fadome or a yard, and the holes also in every ranke as much. By this meanes there is a yarde spare ground betwene every hole: where according to discretion here and there, they set as many Beanes and Peaze: in divers places also among the seeds of Macocquer [Squash], Melden [Atriplex/Saltbush/Orache] and Planta Solis [Sunflower].
‘The ground being thus set according to the rate by us experimented, an English Acre conteining fourtie pearches in length, and foure in breadth, doeth there yeeld in croppe or ofcome of corne, beanes, and peaze, at the least two hundred London bushels: besides the Macocquer, Melden, and Planta Solis: when as in England fortie bushels of our wheat yeelded out of such an acre is thought to be much.’
Some of the crops were captured in the beautiful paintings and drawings of John White, who accompanied Harriot on the reconnaissance; these were later engraved by Theodor de Bry. In the composite, idealised village of Secoton/Secota, the settlement, its fields and trees are in close proximity; look out too for the raised little hut on stilts (top right) for the bird scarer. See:
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/white35.html
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/debry35.html
But of course this wasn’t just about science and art. It was the first English attempt to colonise North America, and White and Harriot had been commissioned by Sir Walter Ralegh to go to ‘Virginia’ to see what was there of economic and strategic interest, for his Queen Elizabeth, and for himself and others seeking new opportunities:
‘A brief and true report of the new found land of Virginia: of the commodities there found and to be raised, as well merchantable as others… and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants.
‘…you may know, how that they in respect of troubling our inhabiting and planting, are not to be feared; but that they shall have cause both to fear and love us, that shall inhabit with them.
‘…there is good hope they may be brought through discreet dealing and government to the embracing of the truth, and consequently to honor, obey, fear and love us.’
Here again is another recurring theme of the Real Farming conference: taking other people’s commodities for ourselves. Whether they like it or not. Meanwhile, at exactly the same time that Harriot was writing his report on ‘Virginia’, his older countryman William Harrison was preparing a revised edition (1587) of his Description of England. In it he aimed to present a picture of all aspects of English life, economy and society – including many aspects of food and husbandry:
- Of the Air, Soil and Commodities of This Island (Book 1/Ch 18)
- Of The Food and Diet of the English (2/6)
- Of Fairs and Markets (2/18)
- Of Parks and Warrens (2/19)
- Of Gardens and Orchards (2/20)
- Of Waters Generally (2/21)
- Of Woods and Marshes (2/22)
- Of Cattle Kept for Profit (3/1)
- Of Wild and Tame Fowls (3/2)
- Of Fish Usually Taken upon Our Coasts (3/3)
- Of Our Saffron and the Dressing Thereof (3/8)
As so often in this kind of writing, a nostalgia for what is lost pervades Harrison’s work:
‘It should seem by ancient records, and the testimony of sundry authors, that the whole countries of… England and Wales have sometimes been very well replenished with great woods and groves, although at this time the said commodity be not a little decayed in both, and in such wise that a man shall oft ride ten or twenty miles in each of them and find very little, or rather none at all, except it be near unto towns, gentlemen’s houses, and villages, where the inhabitants have planted a few elms, oaks, hazels, or ashes about their dwellings, for their defence from the rough winds and keeping of the stormy weather from annoyance of the same…
‘In times past men were contented to dwell in houses built of sallow, willow, plum tree, hardbeam, and elm, so that the use of oak was in manner dedicated wholly unto churches, religious houses, princes’ palaces, noblemen’s lodgings, and navigation; but now all these are rejected, and nothing but oak any whit regarded. And yet see the change! For, when our houses were built of willow, then had we oaken men; but, now that our houses are come to be made of oak, our men are not only become willow, but a great many through Persian delicacy crept in among us altogether of straw: which is a sore alteration.’
Notwithstanding Harrison’s doubts about a decayed present, still he records with pride and pleasure a great many features in which England excels and is blessed:
‘And even as it fareth with our gardens, so doth it with our orchards, which were never furnished with so good fruit nor with such variety as at this present. For, beside that we have most delicate apples, plums, pears, walnuts, filberts, etc., and those of sundry sorts, planted within forty years past, in comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth, so have we no less store of strange fruit, as apricots, almonds, peaches, figs, corn-trees [cornelian cherry] in noblemen’s orchards. I have seen capers, oranges, and lemons, and heard of wild olives growing here, beside other strange trees, brought from far, whose names I know not. So that England for these commodities was never better furnished, neither any nation under their clime more plentifully endued with these and other blessings from the most high God, who grant us grace withal to use the same to his honour and glory! And not as instruments and provocations into further excess and vanity, wherewith his displeasure may be kindled, lest these his benefits do turn unto thorns and briers unto us for our annoyance and punishment, which he hath bestowed upon us for our consolation and comfort.
‘We have in like sort such workmen as are not only excellent in grafting the natural fruits, but their artificial mixtures, whereby one tree bringeth forth sundry fruits, and one and the same fruit of divers colours and tastes, dallying as it were with nature and her course, as if her whole trade were perfectly known unto them: of hard fruits they will make tender, of sour sweet, of sweet yet more delicate, bereaving also some of their kernels, other of their cores, and finally enduing them with the savour of musk, amber, or sweet spices, at their pleasures. Divers also have written at large of these several practices, and some of them how to convert the kernels of peaches into almonds, of small fruit to make far greater, and to remove or add superfluous or necessary moisture to the trees, with other things belonging to their preservation, and with no less diligence than our physicians do commonly show upon our own diseased bodies.’
When it comes to animal husbandry in England, Harrison is equally enthusiastic, though less complimentary about some of the professionals involved:
‘Where are oxen commonly made more large of bone, horses more decent and pleasant in pace, kine more commodious for the pale [enclosure], sheep more profitable for wool, swine more wholesome of flesh, and goats more gainful to their keepers than here with us in England?…
‘Our oxen are such as the like are not to be found in any country of Europe, both for greatness of body and sweetness of flesh…
‘Our horses, moreover, are high, and, although not commonly of such huge greatness as in other places of the main, yet, if you respect the easiness of their pace, it is hard to say where their like are to be had…
‘Our cart or plough horses (for we use them indifferently) are commonly so strong that five or six of them (at the most) will draw three thousand weight of the greatest tale with ease for a long journey…
‘Yet is there no greater deceit used anywhere than among our horsekeepers, horsecoursers, and hostlers, for such is the subtle knavery of a great sort of them (without exception of any of them, be it spoken, which deal for private gain) that an honest-meaning man shall have very good luck among them if he be not deceived by some false trick or other…
‘Our sheep are very excellent, sith for sweetness of flesh they pass all other. And so much are our wools to be preferred before those of Milesia and other places that if Jason had known the value of them that are bred and to be had in Britain he would never have gone to Colchis to look for any there…
‘As for swine, there is no place that hath greater store, nor more wholesome in eating, than are these here in England, which nevertheless do never any good till they come to the table.’
The images of fecundity, plenty, and good eating are immensely seductive, and Harrison is a great read and a prime source for anyone interested in the Elizabethan period and Elizabethan husbandry – though not always to be taken at face value.
Another, much darker side of the period emerges if you study what was going in Ireland at the same time. Rebellions there had been met with ferocious reprisals, including the use of famine as a weapon of suppression. The English poet Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queen) fought in the campaigns, supported the scorched earth policy (not all the poets are on the right side…), and described what he had seen in 1582, just five years before Harrison described the plenty of England and Harriot saw the polycultures of Virginia.
…being kept from manurance and their cattle from running abroad, by this hard restraint they would quickly consume themselves and devour one another. The proof whereof I saw sufficiently exampled in these late wars of Munster, for, notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they should have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them. They looked anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them; yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves. And if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast. Yet sure, in all that war there perished not many by the sword, but all by the extremity of famine.
In his opening remarks at the Real Farming Conference, Colin Tudge drew some parallels between Stalin’s central planning of agriculture and current agribusiness approaches. Modern agribusiness may not be deliberately using mass starvation in the same way that Stalin did, to force compliance by killing millions, but, as was noted repeatedly during the conference, people are starving nonetheless, even though there is enough land to feed everyone: around a billion are chronically undernourished. In his last novel, the great Vasily Grossman gives an extraordinary account of the starvation in the Ukraine, which killed many millions in 1932-33. Grossman (1905-64) was a journalist with the Red Army during the War, providing accounts of the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin, and of the liberation of the Treblinka and Majdenek concentration camps. His magnum opus about Stalingrad, Life and Fate (recently dramatised with much fanfare on BBC Radio 4), was confiscated and suppressed by the Soviets, emerging only in the 1980s from copies smuggled to the West. His last novel Everything Flows (aka Forever Flowing) was also suppressed, detailing as it did the famine in the Ukraine and Soviet culpability for it. The description (see Chapter 14) is deeply distressing, so I will not transcribe it all here, just a brief excerpt:
The village moaned as it foresaw its approaching death. The whole village moaned – not out of logic, but from the soul, as leaves moan in the wind or straw crackles… And this is what I came to understand. In the beginning, starvation drives a person out of his house. In its first stage, he is tormented and driven as though by fire and torn both in the guts and in the soul. And so he tries to escape his home. People dig up worms, collect grass, and even make the effort to break through and get to the city. Away from home, away from home! And then a day comes when the starving person crawls back into his house. And the meaning of this is that famine, starvation, has won. The human being cannot be saved. He lies down on his bed and stays there. Not just because he has no strength, but because he has no interest in life and no longer cares about living. He lies there quietly and does not want to be touched. And he does not even want to eat… All he wants is to be left alone, and for things to be quiet.
Were any reminder needed of what is at stake when it comes to food supply, here it is. More recently, Cormac McCarthy imagines in The Road the aftermath of a complete biosphere collapse, when there is no food at all. Anywhere. Except… George Monbiot called it ‘the most important environmental book ever written’ (Guardian 30.10.07). It’s also the most horrifying and troubling book I have ever read. No excerpts here, read it if you dare, in one sitting.
To repeat: perhaps agribusiness corporations and shareholders have no wish to starve the poorer people of this earth, nor to make sick the obese and diabetic through poor diet, nor to mine and exhaust the world’s soils, nor to restrict access to seed and other genetic resources; perhaps they really believe that GM and other technofixes, patented and owned by themselves, will deliver good food for all. But what if Santa doesn’t arrive and the third horseman comes instead? Will agribusiness be held accountable? Or will the allocation of responsibility be an irrelevant luxury?
