Bronze Plows

The first wheels that we see are on toys, which is proof that the idea of wheels existed. Slash-and-burn agriculture was not a matter of planting in rows, so the digging-stick worked fine, still does; when you're planting around stumps you plant in hills. I've read a lot of numbers about the ratios, but an average might be that an acre of slash-and-burn could feed 13 people. The numbers jump when you plant in rows on a delta, ten-fold at least, 130 people per acre. Deltas allow for larger groups of people, which is a good thing, in terms of defense or having a dance on Saturday night. The very idea that a seed could produce a plant, the very idea that you could smash a seed and boil a gruel. Taming fire was a big deal, the whole idea of vessels. Wood and rush vessels, then pottery. Fire, at first, for a long time, was a matter of keeping a live ember or keeping a fire going all the time. I assume we've had control of fire for a long time, and we were cooking things early on, because we'd eaten animals caught in wildfires and realized they were good. A roasted squirrel, and pretty soon you're roasting everything. Bread seems to be about 6,000 years old, roasted dry gruel. When you start planting rows, you need a plow. The plow changes things, even a harnessed man, pulling an ironwood crotch, can plant several acres in a day, the squash-bean-corn system works very well, or raising rice, eating the rodents that infect the fields. Copper melts at a low temperature, but it's soft, bronze is better, but still doesn't do well against hard rocks. Still, bronze plows did very well in alluvial flood-plains. Jude also sent a copy of an article "Ox And Plow In The Early Bronze Age Aegean". About 3400 BC is the earliest date there, some interesting small figurines depicting yoked oxen. Found in burial chambers, and the authors make the point, well founded, that having a team of oxen, for plowing and cartage, was a sure road to relative wealth. Not many could afford the purchase or upkeep, but those that could probably rented them out for a share of product. The first wheat barons. Wooden plows were still used in the highlands of Greece, on small acreage, with a donkey as the 'traction' animal. I love that use of traction. I can write in the middle of the day now, so I essentially don't have a schedule. On Saturday the Farmer's Market closes at noon, so I like to get there early and get fresh produce, then run my errands and get home, cook something from the shopping bag. This week it was baby okra. Heat corn oil (with some bacon fat) in a large skillet, dip the babies in beaten egg, then roll them in corn meal, two minutes on one side, flip with chopsticks, a minute or two on the other. Okra almost always snaps off the plant with a little handle where it attached. Perfect for dipping. An aioli is very good. The Atlanta newspaper, 1862-63, experimented with an okra newsprint. The cooperage book is fantastic, written by a cooper, and it's answered a great many questions I'd had about how to make a barrel. Right at the beginning, the author states that there are no amateur barrel makers. The real thing, a cooper, feels even a finish carpenter is a wood-butcher. Try making a milk bucket, out of wooden staves, that doesn't leak. I could probably make one, given six months and modern tools. Making the hoops would be difficult but not impossible. It might take me a year, but for a medieval cooper, it was the work of a day, less than that, two a day for a margin of profit. Hard to imagine. What I'd had the most trouble imagining was how they formed the barrel. But now it made sense, using a temporary hoop, soaking them in salted water, then pounding on the hoops. It's way more complex than that, you have to be very precise, and bevel the staves just so. And the hoops are pounded down until the barrel bands are fitted. They always mention that the barrel rings when the hoops are pounded tight. It is the hoops that give a finished barrel it's shape, you soften the wood, with steam or water, then pound it into form, if it doesn't crack, you have a barrel, salted herring in brine, burgundy, whatever you're shipping.