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walkitoutPeriodically, I run across an assertion about yields that just drives me nuts. No, not stocks and bonds (altho that, too). Usually, it's assertions about wheat yields somewhere else a long time ago and how they were for crap and aren't we oh so much more clever than they were.
Well, Montgomery has committed this sin as well: "English farmers gradually increased per-acre grain yields to well above medieval crop yields of twice the seeded amount". I'll leave off the rest of the sentence about early Egyptian crop yields because it is too painful to even contemplate.
The first time I encountered this wildly improbable "fact", I thought, "Self, would _you_ farm if you got a yield of 2-1 for seed? No," responded Self. "Not a fucking chance." Then I thought, "Self, do you think anyone _else_ is dumb enough to farm for a yield of 2-1?" and Self thought about it for a while and replied, doubtfully, "Someone might be that dumb, but they wouldn't successfully reproduce if they spent all their time that way, so it can't possibly be true."
It was the work of seconds -- not even minutes -- to learn the first time that medieval yields were hella higher than 2-1, and that the source of the 2-1 was a poorly understood church storage document that someone mistranslated, misinterpreted and then a lot of people cited without engaging their brains. Which just goes to show that with all the food we have nowadays, it's possible to be much, much, much stupider than you could get away with as a medieval peasant.
This time, a few more seconds on google and wikipedia not only reiterated to me that medieval wheat yields were hella higher than 2-1, but we've got instances on record of people pulling high 20s in bushels per acre. Given that the US wheat yield average is only in the 40s, well, don't be slamming the medieval manor and acting like people were all so smart in the 17th century. I don't have a solid line on seed yield, but it seems clear it wasn't worse than 4-1, ever.
As for the more complex assertions that Montgomery makes about the timing of yield improvements, well, JSTOR has articles that would argue with him about the "gradual" and which centuries it happened in.
Just to be clear: Montgomery is not wrong when he says that soil will flow downhill if you have bad agricultural practices and that has caused problems all over the world at various times. However, he is remarkably unimaginative and uninformed when it comes to _why_ people engaged in bad agricultural practices and his data does not support what he thinks it supports. He has backwards causation all over the place. He repeatedly misrepresents the implications of historic climate variation. And when it comes to demographics, he is breathtakingly innumerate: a population drop of 50% over a couple centuries is remarkably invisible, contrary to what he is at least trying to help the reader infer.
I _like_ that Montgomery doesn't just blindly accept the "tragedy of the commons" explanation. But wow, his alternatives aren't so hot either.
You would think that University of California Press would have insisted this thing be rewritten. In addition to its numerous other problems, it is highly repetitive and simultaneously lacking in detail in the areas I would expect Montgomery's expertise as a geomorphologist to be strongest.
Well, Montgomery has committed this sin as well: "English farmers gradually increased per-acre grain yields to well above medieval crop yields of twice the seeded amount". I'll leave off the rest of the sentence about early Egyptian crop yields because it is too painful to even contemplate.
The first time I encountered this wildly improbable "fact", I thought, "Self, would _you_ farm if you got a yield of 2-1 for seed? No," responded Self. "Not a fucking chance." Then I thought, "Self, do you think anyone _else_ is dumb enough to farm for a yield of 2-1?" and Self thought about it for a while and replied, doubtfully, "Someone might be that dumb, but they wouldn't successfully reproduce if they spent all their time that way, so it can't possibly be true."
It was the work of seconds -- not even minutes -- to learn the first time that medieval yields were hella higher than 2-1, and that the source of the 2-1 was a poorly understood church storage document that someone mistranslated, misinterpreted and then a lot of people cited without engaging their brains. Which just goes to show that with all the food we have nowadays, it's possible to be much, much, much stupider than you could get away with as a medieval peasant.
This time, a few more seconds on google and wikipedia not only reiterated to me that medieval wheat yields were hella higher than 2-1, but we've got instances on record of people pulling high 20s in bushels per acre. Given that the US wheat yield average is only in the 40s, well, don't be slamming the medieval manor and acting like people were all so smart in the 17th century. I don't have a solid line on seed yield, but it seems clear it wasn't worse than 4-1, ever.
As for the more complex assertions that Montgomery makes about the timing of yield improvements, well, JSTOR has articles that would argue with him about the "gradual" and which centuries it happened in.
Just to be clear: Montgomery is not wrong when he says that soil will flow downhill if you have bad agricultural practices and that has caused problems all over the world at various times. However, he is remarkably unimaginative and uninformed when it comes to _why_ people engaged in bad agricultural practices and his data does not support what he thinks it supports. He has backwards causation all over the place. He repeatedly misrepresents the implications of historic climate variation. And when it comes to demographics, he is breathtakingly innumerate: a population drop of 50% over a couple centuries is remarkably invisible, contrary to what he is at least trying to help the reader infer.
I _like_ that Montgomery doesn't just blindly accept the "tragedy of the commons" explanation. But wow, his alternatives aren't so hot either.
You would think that University of California Press would have insisted this thing be rewritten. In addition to its numerous other problems, it is highly repetitive and simultaneously lacking in detail in the areas I would expect Montgomery's expertise as a geomorphologist to be strongest.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-01 09:44 pm (UTC)http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1091&chapter=90949&layout=html&Itemid=27
"A similarly haphazard system of fallowing prevailed in the North of Scotland, at least up to the beginning of last century. Here is a description by the Hon. John Johnston (in an address to the Wisconsin Farmers’ Institute, Illinois, in 1897) of the system of agriculture which obtained in Aberdeenshire in the days of his grandfather, who farmed from 1782-1832: ‘The farms in our neighbourhood in my grandfather’s time were divided into the “intown” and the “outfields”. The former was about a third of the farm around the houses. All the manure was placed upon it, and it, of course, was the richest land, but that is not saying much, for the manure amounted to but little. They would always plough the land in the same direction, and in time the ridges became like small hills with valleys between them. There was no such thing as rotation of crops, and turnips, clover, and potatoes were unknown. Oats, peas, and barley were the chief crops; and after the “intown” had been cropped for years and would not produce more than about twice the seed, part of it was given a rest—that is, was not ploughed. Thereupon, it produced a bountiful crop of wild grasses, thistles, “skellochs,” sorrel, rushes, and tansies. If this was the treatment of the “intown”, you can imagine how the “outfields” looked. I remember that our “outfields” on the hill were largely covered with heather, and on the low and wet ground with rushes, for drains were not thought of. I need hardly say that the use of artificial manure was wholly unknown, although they did treat the soil once in a while to a little taste of lime.’"
So yeah, some people were dumb enough to get *down* that far, but even these apparently unskilled farmers knew that was too little.
I don't think I would have realized that 2:1 was such an inadequate yield, but I sure don't think about farming much.
words fail
Date: 2010-07-01 11:24 pm (UTC)*shrug*
That is a helluva story, and I'm always a little suspicious of people saying how dumb people used to be in the way they committed agriculture.
Re: words fail
Date: 2010-07-02 03:31 pm (UTC)Did you ever read any William Cobbett? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cobbett
I have an abridged edition of his _Rural Rides_ that I've read fairly often, but more for his style, his acerbic personality (I love the way he refers to London as "the Great Wen," meaning it's like an abnormal growth on the face of England) and the descriptions of the countryside than with any attention to whether his facts are correct. He did at least *try* to get good data on things like how many bushels of flour you could get from a certain amount of ground, things like that. (After living in America for some time, he became a great advocate of maize.) http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/rural-rides-by-william-cobbett/ will give you a bit of a feel for him.
On a completely different subject, did you see this? http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/phys-ed-what-exercise-science-doesnt-know-about-women/?src=me&ref=general
Re: words fail
Date: 2010-07-02 08:44 pm (UTC)I did indeed read that blog article and contemplated posting about it, as I frequently do post links to her stuff, and the study was interesting. It is in line with my personal experience, as well. But I got really hung up on her use of the word "distaff" as an adjective, which for complicated reasons having to do with embedded metaphors and women's work and so forth and I just didn't have the energy to formulate an opinion that didn't involve a largely irrelevant diatribe about word use. That the author didn't actually deserve.
What did you think?
Oh, and about the Irish farming issue. That all made a lot more sense after reading Pearce's book about population. Basically, the Irish didn't have the time, energy or other resources to write about what was going on, and the English were hugely unreliable on the subject of the Irish. It would be like asking the governor of Arizona to describe what immigrants are like. Would you trust her?
Distaff? *clutch head*
Date: 2010-07-02 11:53 pm (UTC)Re: Distaff? *clutch head*
Date: 2010-07-03 01:20 am (UTC)And that, right there, is why I have so many problems with words like "distaff". To me, "distaff" is _still_ the device held by women for thousands of years, whenever they weren't completely occupied doing something else. All the time. All women. We got out from under that job. I don't care to be reminded of it. "Distaff" is an embedded, invisible metaphor to most people that just means "female". But to me, it is as vivid and lively as the siren, the red lights, the throat grab that I invoked above.
Re: Distaff? *clutch head*
Date: 2010-07-03 04:51 pm (UTC)Re: Distaff? *clutch head*
Date: 2010-07-03 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-05 01:42 pm (UTC)Now there's an image.
spinning horses?
Date: 2010-07-05 05:13 pm (UTC)