"Tricia 9" wrote : > > I am not sure the conclusion drawn that European farmers did not know to
use > fish to fertilize because the Native Americans taught them so is valid.
I agree. But my contention was that it was not -widely used- or else the
settlers would not need to be taught. Surely some one had noticed that the
old pile of fish scraps had a ring of increased growth around it.
> I > believe the first immigrants were townspeople who probably were woefully > ignorant about a lot of survival skills.
You might want to check on this.
> And I'm not so sure the forest floor is an especially furtile soil.
Much more fertile than previously over-used fields, those over used
fields turning into the towns or hopefully the forests of tomorrow. That is
what Nomadicism and Expansionism are all about.
> Then again the "honey pots" of China have been in use for thousands of
years.
This is one of the things that makes "Organic" methods seem
unsanitary.
While I agree that there are some methods and concepts that we need to
revive from the honored past, I just wanted to point out to the starry-eyed
that all was not as rosey and enlightened as we often like to think. Life
before about 75-150 years ago was more labor intensive than we can imagine
and superstitions were a common refuge from ignorance and did little to
acutally put potatoes on the table.
(Note to those also growing much older, I almost sent this with the
phrase "Life before about 50 to 100 years ago"... then I remembered that
this was not the 70's anymore...)