tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8285843041945560892.post440204667786526934..comments2023-08-31T16:47:41.588-05:00Comments on for h in hexes:: Detail XV: Farms in the HinterlandShelbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01934167527605261647noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8285843041945560892.post-52411469693391223142022-11-10T22:18:54.443-05:002022-11-10T22:18:54.443-05:00Not correcting you, just throwing in data that'...Not correcting you, just throwing in data that's prescient. Present day ratio of seed to yield is 40:1, with a hectare producing an average of 4,079 kg. of wheat. Medieval yields were regularly reported as 3:1, sometimes 4:1. If we take the bottom end, that's 305 kg of wheat per hectare. A poor man's fields were 15 acres; 30 was more common. In feudal times, half this was given to the local lord as tax; if a farmer only had 15 acres, it usually meant squatting on land that had no lord, which was a fairly large part of Europe. 15 acres = 6.07028 hectares.<br /><br />In wheat, then, a farmer produced about 1,857 kg. that his family was allowed to keep (assuming the farmer either started with 30 acres and was taxed, or had 15 acres without a tax). 1 kg. of wheat provides 3,640 calories. We can quibble or not on whether wheat in medieval times was as rich as it is presently; we'll never actually know. Arguably, medieval wheat was MORE rich, as it was raised in a world without nearly so much toxins in the atmosphere. Using the 3,640 number, then ...<br /><br />15 acres without tax, at the low end, produces 6,759,663 calories annually. At 2,500 calories per day, this is enough to feed 7.4 less-than-plump adults; it's enough to give them energy to work. At 640 acres per square mile, this means that a square mile of grown wheat will feed 158 persons. At yields of 4:1, 210. Divide this number in half and you get 180 persons per square mile.<br /><br />I honestly did not know that was the result I'd get.<br /><br />Of course, this ignores that every farmer grew a vegetable patch in the lee of their lawn, owned one goat and chickens, shared with others the occasional slaughter of pigs, hunted, gathered mushrooms and other wild fare, fished and so on, as Shelby rightly points out. So the number, based purely on staple farming, is purely wrong. Chances are, at least 40% of a farmer's diet was not provided by the actual wheat in the field.<br /><br />Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8285843041945560892.post-15705422676948913762022-11-05T15:34:24.177-05:002022-11-05T15:34:24.177-05:00Yeah so much is dependent on the quality of the so...Yeah so much is dependent on the quality of the soil, what crops exactly are cultivated, techniques used to till and fertilize, etc etc <br /><br />It's best to find an average that can accommodate for differences on a wide scaleLance Duncanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13817319325489613672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8285843041945560892.post-88681240887683971042022-11-05T15:00:01.411-05:002022-11-05T15:00:01.411-05:00That matches well with my own calculations. 4 acre...That matches well with my own calculations. 4 acres/person for 6000 people would be 37.5 sq mi (43 1-hexes).<br /><br />As mentioned above, I want to be consistent and believable, but I'm also not sure how much benefit is to be gained by nitpicking the perfect number. I know that I would *enjoy* finding that number, but there are many other things to occupy my attention for now.Shelbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01934167527605261647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8285843041945560892.post-61930018314944482332022-10-19T16:56:40.270-05:002022-10-19T16:56:40.270-05:00I've done a bit of research into this as I fou...I've done a bit of research into this as I found the popular "medieval demographics made easy" to be highly suspect where the actual numbers are concerned. I have yet to form an actual generation system out this yet, but here's some numbers to consider:<br /><br />A town of 3000 people requires the land of 10 villages or 8.5 square Km.<br /><br />3 acres of good land, or 4 acres of average land will support 1 person <br /><br />Land cultivated for agriculture will feed 10 to 20 times as many people as land cultivated for livestock<br /><br />In a survey of England with undulating land unmarred by natural barriers, settlements (villages) were about a mile apart, and the location of settlements from the time of the domesday book to present was relatively stableLance Duncanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13817319325489613672noreply@blogger.com