In ,

Frogleg wrote quoting me :

>> Apples don't grow wild all over the place, they only grow wild where
>> they have been abandoned, any modern fruit must be grafted on a
>> parent stalk to grow, and thus any fruit planted is likely to give
>> only crabapples or wild pears etc...
>
> Apples from seed almost never produce edible fruit (see: 'The Botany
> of Desire'). Apple seeds/trees rarely produce pears. :-)

My point exacly, but perhaps badly stated, sorry. Any modern (grafted)
fruit will only revert to it's ancestor species, if it yields anything at
all ; apples give crab-apples and pears give wild pears (better suited for
perry than for eating) and so forth.

> <snip>
>>
>> But then again you need quite a roaming space to get enough, medival
>> peasants were often reduced to grinding and eating acorns despite
>> it's bitterness, after having eaten everything around them.
>
> I wasn't arguing there were were no 'wild' foods available in any
> particular area. My comments followed another on the wisdom (and
> relative labor involved) in changing from a hunter/gatherer lifestyle
> to a fixed location and purposful agriculture and animal husbandry. In
> *that context*, life in the tropics might be the model of maximum
> benefit from minimum labor. "Temperate" climates pretty much shut down
> the production of handy foodstuffs in winter. Hence, an increased need
> for labor to gather and preserve. My hypothetical hammock is slung
> between coconut palms with a jungle of fruits and veg to one side, and
> tidal pools to supply fish and shellfish. I'm hoping for a ship full
> of spices to founder offshore soon...

In olden times of very low density of population you could sling your
hammoc between two elderberry trees, or the walls of a cave, or an igloo,
and just hunt and gather your hearts content up into the polar circle, what
Sami (in lappland) and Inuit (around the polar circle) did until fairly
recently. The change from hunter/gatherer to farmer was in fact initiated
in a very fertile region, mesopotamia, it wasn't the cold of winter, but
the density of population (mostly) who forced the transition.
As I stated before a huter/gatherer need a far greater territory to live
off than a farmer, and when you begin to have lots of border disputes with
increasingly numerous neighbours, it's time to either change your lifestyle
or launch a war to reduce the population around. The bad old 'lebensraum'
theory doesn't begin with NSDAP.
The same holds true of extensive herding/ranching versus intensive farming,
which brought Attila into western europe, and sparked quite some feuds in
the wild west. :-)

--
Salutations, greetings,
Guiraud Belissen, Chteau du Ciel, Drachenwald
Chris CII, Rennes, France