On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:39:47 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
> wrote:

>In article >, Frogleg
> wrote:
>
>> The idea of lying in a hammock and plucking fruit from
>> surrounding trees, supplemented by trapping a few fish or shellfish
>> sure sounds good. Not many opportunities for same in, say, northern
>> Europe.
>
>Why? Strawberries, mushrooms, apples, blackberries still grow wild all
>over the place. Northern seas are far more fruitful for fish than
>tropical ones, and the rivers run with salmon and trout.

And come October? :-)

In ,
Frogleg wrote :

> On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:39:47 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
> > wrote:
>
>> In article >, Frogleg
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> The idea of lying in a hammock and plucking fruit from
>>> surrounding trees, supplemented by trapping a few fish or shellfish
>>> sure sounds good. Not many opportunities for same in, say, northern
>>> Europe.
>>
>> Why? Strawberries, mushrooms, apples, blackberries still grow wild
>> all over the place. Northern seas are far more fruitful for fish than
>> tropical ones, and the rivers run with salmon and trout.


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...
However there are quite a few nourishing things out there indeed, as in
most any environment, but these can only nourish a sparse population, if
you don't have crop harvests to maximise the yield of restricted land per
capita you need quite a roaming territory.

> And come October? :-)

Chestnuts (poor man's bread)
Walnuts
Beechnuts
Medlar
Various gages 'Prunus' which must be harvested after first frost (otherwise
they are very sour)
Many tubers
Quinces (if you can stew them)
Crab apples (if you can sweeten them)
Fish and crayfish
Birds and small game

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.

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

In article >, Christophe Bachmann
> wrote:

> Crab apples (if you can sweeten them)

Honey
L

--
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On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:14:53 +0100, "Christophe Bachmann"
> wrote:

>Frogleg wrote :
>
>> On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:39:47 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> Frogleg > wrote:
>>>
>>>> The idea of lying in a hammock and plucking fruit from
>>>> surrounding trees, supplemented by trapping a few fish or shellfish
>>>> sure sounds good. Not many opportunities for same in, say, northern
>>>> Europe.
>>>
>>> Why? Strawberries, mushrooms, apples, blackberries still grow wild
>>> all over the place. Northern seas are far more fruitful for fish than
>>> tropical ones, and the rivers run with salmon and trout.
>
>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. :-)

<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 ,

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

"Christophe Bachmann" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> In ,
> Frogleg wrote :
>
> > On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:39:47 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
> > > wrote:
> >
> >> In article >, Frogleg
> >> > wrote:
> >>
> >>> The idea of lying in a hammock and plucking fruit from
> >>> surrounding trees, supplemented by trapping a few fish or shellfish
> >>> sure sounds good. Not many opportunities for same in, say, northern
> >>> Europe.
> >>
> >> Why? Strawberries, mushrooms, apples, blackberries still grow wild
> >> all over the place. Northern seas are far more fruitful for fish than
> >> tropical ones, and the rivers run with salmon and trout.
>
>
> 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,

Where on earth did you get that tidbit? I know of many own-root apple trees
here in Canada. Grafting is used to increase hardiness in the colder zones
but as far as I know you can still grow a productive apple tree from a
seed....

Janet

In article <z4x_b.590078$JQ1.91493@pd7tw1no>,
"JE Anderson" > wrote:

> > 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,
>
> Where on earth did you get that tidbit? I know of many own-root apple trees
> here in Canada. Grafting is used to increase hardiness in the colder zones
> but as far as I know you can still grow a productive apple tree from a
> seed....

You can grow an apple tree from a seed, but the fruit won't be the same
as the fruit of the parent tree and the odds are that it won't be good
for eating out of hand, although you could get lucky.

Grafting root stock is used to change things such as tree size and
hardiness. Grafting the part that will become the bearing tree is
used--has been since at least Roman times--to make sure your new tree
bears about the same fruit as the old. Almost all apple trees in
production are clones of other apple trees--at least the top part.

And essentially all the apples we eat are the result of millenia of
selective breeding.

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Also remove .invalid
www.daviddfriedman.com

"David Friedman" > wrote

> > Where on earth did you get that tidbit? I know of many own-root apple
trees
> > here in Canada. Grafting is used to increase hardiness in the colder
zones
> > but as far as I know you can still grow a productive apple tree from a
> > seed....

> You can grow an apple tree from a seed, but the fruit won't be the same
> as the fruit of the parent tree and the odds are that it won't be good
> for eating out of hand, although you could get lucky.

What did Johnny Appleseed spend 49 year of his life doing then?
http://www.applejuice.org/johnnyappleseed.html

--
Bob
Kanyak's Doghouse
http://kanyak.com

"Opinicus" > wrote in message >...
> "David Friedman" > wrote
>
> > > Where on earth did you get that tidbit? I know of many own-root apple
> trees
> > > here in Canada. Grafting is used to increase hardiness in the colder
> zones
> > > but as far as I know you can still grow a productive apple tree from a
> > > seed....
>
> > You can grow an apple tree from a seed, but the fruit won't be the same
> > as the fruit of the parent tree and the odds are that it won't be good
> > for eating out of hand, although you could get lucky.
>
> What did Johnny Appleseed spend 49 year of his life doing then?
> http://www.applejuice.org/johnnyappleseed.html

Planting trees almost all of which were used to produce cider apples,
not apples to be eaten out of hand.

I believe there's a fairly detailed account in _The Botany of Desire_

This site's rather more clear-eyed and hardnosed about John Chapman (aka
Johnny Appleseed) and what he was doing.

http://www.jappleseed.org/history.html

--
Bob
Kanyak's Doghouse
http://kanyak.com

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:36:04 +0200, "Opinicus" >
wrote:

>This site's rather more clear-eyed and hardnosed about John Chapman (aka
>Johnny Appleseed) and what he was doing.
>
>http://www.jappleseed.org/history.html

Check out 'The Botany of Desire' (recent best-seller) in your local
library. A quarter of the book is devoted to apple history and
cultivation, as well as considerable material on John Chapman.

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 00:41:03 GMT, "JE Anderson" >
wrote:

>but as far as I know you can still grow a productive apple tree from a
>seed....

Wrong. That is, you *can* grow a tree from an apple seed, but there is
virtually no chance it will be identical to its parent tree, nor
anything even close.

In article >, Frogleg
> wrote:


>
> And come October? :-)

People come from around the world to see the ducks and geese that
winter in my part of N. Europe.

L

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