Gondorian agriculture

Gondor has a complex and intensive system of agriculture, which allows the Kingdom of maintain a significant population with large urban settlements. For more information, refer to the Gondor Rural Guide document.

Organisation

Peasant agriculture tends to cluster in villages, with fields radiating out from the villages (which in turn, often have their own micro-garden zone and local forests for wood). Farmland within the village is typically not held as large standalone farmsteads but rather held communally, or else each family owns several small plots spread over different ecological zones (the better to be protected from the risk of a year being wet or dry or cold or whatever – if you have a little land everywhere, then probably something will grow somewhere every year).

Much of the arable land in Gondor is owned by the nobility, whose claim may be hereditary, financial, or both. A majority of the kingdom’s rural population tenants in or is employed on these estates; they are required to give a certain percentage of their crop (usually about 10%) to the landowner every year. A few middle-class citizens own tracts of land as well, employing a smaller number of peasant farmers. In other cases, small farms are independently owned by free peasants. The Pelennor Fields are one such case: farms are gifted by the state, some of them are run by retired soldiers.

Pastoralists

Pastoralists tend to live on the very fringes of civilization for two reasons.  First, it is very low density. While the goods it produces (wool, milk, meat) are important, it produces them at a very low density. Agriculture can support massively greater population densities than pastoralism, so high population density tends to push the pastoralists out. Second, pastoralism has very low transportation costs. This is because the goods produced by pastoralists can, by and large, walk themselves to market - either in the towns/cities or to the manors.

Pastoralism can take the form of enclosed ranching, but can also be mobile in various ways. Transhumance – the act of moving livestock between seasonal summer and winter pastures (often up the mountain in summer and down the mountain in winter, for instance – this is ‘vertical’ transhumance) is a common form of limited pastoral mobility. Transhumant pastoralists do tend to have permanent homes at one end of the route (typically the lower winter pastures for vertical transhumance). These may cluster in villages and are likely to connect to the infrastructure network spreading out from the city.

Hamlets and villages

Peasant agriculture tends to cluster in villages, with fields radiating out from the villages (which in turn, often have their own micro-garden zone and local forests for wood). Farmland within the village is typically not held as large standalone farmsteads but rather held communally, or else each family owns several small plots spread over different ecological zones (the better to be protected from the risk of a year being wet or dry or cold or whatever – if you have a little land everywhere, then probably something will grow somewhere every year).

Homesteads

Homesteads are farms owned by the people who farm the land around them. They are mostly reliant upon larger settlements to sell their produce and to purchase items they cannot make themselves. They are also more vulnerable to raids and to crop failure, as it is harder to rely on others when your own crops fail. As such, the poorest do not live in homesteads, as it is too risky. The owners of homesteads might be considered “middle-class farmers” and might employ poorer farmers in nearby villages during the harvest season.

Manors and Estates

Some of the arable land in Gondor is owned by the nobility, whose claim may be hereditary, financial, or both. In terms of land-use patterns, such estates generally exist within a landscape of smaller farmers, not in a vast sea of other large estates. A few middle-class citizens own tracts of land as well, employing a smaller number of peasant farmers. In other cases, small farms are independently owned by free peasants. The Pelennor Fields are one such case: farms are gifted by the state, some of them are run by retired soldiers.

By having more land – typically much more land – than is required to feed a single household, these larger farmers can produce for markets and trade, enabling them to afford to acquire labour, animals, equipment and so on.

The tricky thing for the large landholder is that labour needs throughout the year are not constant. The window for the planting season is generally very narrow and fairly labour intensive: a lot needs to get done in a fairly short time. But harvest is even narrower and more labour intensive. In between those, there is still a fair lot of work to do, but it is not so urgent nor does it require so much labour.

As such, they would often lease out land to tenant farmers for the purpose of creating that ‘flexible’ local labour supply on marginal parts of the estate’s own grounds. Consequently, the large estates of the very wealthy required the impoverished many subsistence farmers in order to function.

Typically tenant labour (also sometimes called sharecropping) meant dividing up some portion of the estate into subsistence-style small farmers (although with the labour perhaps more evenly distributed); while the largest share of the crop would go to the tenant or sharecropper, some of it was extracted by the landlord as rent. How much went each way could vary a lot, depending on which party was providing seed, labour, animals and so on, but 50/50 splits are not uncommon in the Roman period.

For subsistence farmers, they want access to the plow teams, manure, or other infrastructure (storage, processing) that the large landholder has control over. While in some cases a group of households or a village might share something like a single plow team, in many cases the only way was through the local large landholder. So even non-tenant farmers would sometimes work on the manor’s land in return for access to these things.

Important note: Although we plan projects according to these distinctions, you should see a spectrum of settlements in Gondor - for example, there is a blurred line between a homestead, hamlet and village. A manor is likely to have a hamlet or village nearby/attached where the tenant farmers live.

Types of agricultural production

Crops

Most of Gondor uses a two-field system due to the lack of summer rains.

The people of Anórien use a three-year crop rotation to maintain soil fertility. One field was planted in the autumn after harvest with wheat or rye (to be harvested in the late summer next year); the second field was planted with legumes or barley in the spring (to be harvested in the late summer of that year); and the third was left fallow to regenerate (and was often used to graze animals). The legumes (beans, lentils, lupins, chickpeas) strengthened the soil by their nitrogen-fixing ability and at the same time improved the human diet.

Among the grains, wheat and barley are the primary crops, with rye (represented by immature wheat), and two species of millet (setaria represented by corn and panicum represented by meadow fescue) grown as well. Legumes are a staple of the Gondorian diet, especially among the poor. As such, they should be cultivated in all peasant gardens as well as in main fields. However, they would already have been harvested some time in July.

More extensive use of fertilisation is made in the Pelennor as lands closer to cities are more valuable. As such there are fewer fields under fallow in this area.

It is important to note that the legume crop needed summer rain to succeed, and so the three-field system was less successful around the Mediterranean (a two-field system would have been used instead in the rest of Gondor)

In-game agricultural fields should be slabbed. The server is set in early September, so the crops in-game are represented like this:

Anórien:

• Setaria millet - maize (mostly harvested)
• Panicum millet - meadow fescue (mostly harvested)
• Barley - barley (harvested back in July, yellow-ish grass and moss with meadow grass)
• Wheat - conquest:wheat (harvested back in July, yellow-ish grass and moss with meadow grass)
• Fallow fields - grass, starting to be ploughed (ONE THIRD of grain fields)
• Beans - youngest stage of common beans (being sown/early growth)
• Peas - youngest stage of the pea plant (being sown/early growth)
• Lentils - (sweet woodruff) (mostly harvested, left to dry out in rows)
• Flax - tied up bundles in the fields to dry out (was harvested in July)
• Lupins - purple wolf’s bane (being sown/early growth)
• Meadows - being mowed

Rest of Gondor:

• Wheat/barley - yellow-ish grass and moss with meadow grass that is being re-ploughed (will be left fallow for the next year)
• Millet - has been harvested, being ploughed (also will be left fallow)
• Fallow fields - grass, starting to be ploughed (ONE HALF of grain fields)
• Lentils – already collected, the field would be ploughed for grain sowing
• Flax – already collected, the field would be ploughed
• Peas – not sown yet, fields being ploughed
• Beans – not sown yet, fields being ploughed
• Lupins – not sown yet, fields being ploughed
• Vines – grapes on
• Meadows – being mowed

(footnote)https://www.legumehub.eu/is_article/irrigation-of-lupin/

(footnote)https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2134/agronj2000.922200x

Livestock

The people of Gondor keep sheep, cattle, pigs, goats and chickens for food and produce. Dairy production is a major industry in the north, providing both cheese and butter. The raising of cattle is practiced in varying degrees on fertile meadows as well as on untilled waste land. Oak, poplar and elm leaves are stored as fodder, in addition to dried grasses.

Vertical transhumance would be practiced in the mountains (bringing livestock to higher pastures in the summer and bringing them into the valleys in covered housing in the winter).

Dairy animals (which, up close to a large city, will be stall-fed rather than grazed or else transported in ‘on the hoof’ and grazed much further out) and pigs (fed by trough) don’t require much space and offer a high economic yield. Both also produce manure which is in demand near the city.

Horses can be found in Gondor as well, though husbandry would be practiced to a lesser degree owing to neighbouring Rohan (the people of Minas Tirith in particular do not see many horses). These horses are kept for transportation, for drawing of carts, and for the relay rider messenger system. In addition, oxen and donkeys are used for ploughing and transport; every hamlet and village needs at least a few of each.

Woodland

Managed woodland is key for both firewood and building materials. Wood is heavy and difficult to transport, so settlements should have coppices and pollards nearby.

Resin is systematically extracted.

Horticulture

Horticulture – the intensive growing of fruits and vegetables, often in small ‘market gardens’ – is labour-intensive and offers a high economic yield for the space. Land used for horticulture can be kept under almost continual cultivation (if manured, but see above), but gardens can be fussy and demand quite a lot of labour, compared to hardier plants (like millet or wheat).

Autumn (September, and the early part of October in the northern regions) is the start of the best gardening season in Mediterranean climate areas. Winters are better for growing many crops because winters are the time when people can garden using just the natural rainfall. Most of the leafy vegetables grow much better in mild winter climate areas during the winter. Best planted in September and early October are the cool-weather lovers: the leafy vegetables and the root vegetables (cabbages, carrots, turnips, radishes etc.). Therefore these should be in their earliest growth stage in Gondorian allotments - with the exception of Anórien, which is cooler and more humid.

Kitchen gardens should be well-fed with manure and water, cistern and irrigation channel are probable options.

There can be several orchards, especially in the Pelennor Fields, where such fruits as apples, pears, plums, cherries and apricots are grown, as well as walnuts, chestnuts, and almonds.

There will be only one beer brewery in Anórien, located in the Pelennor Fields. Pelennor should include a cider production as well.

Therefore, there should be a few fields of hops, and oast-houses for drying the grains. There are no vineyards in the area.

A few final points of interest: some citizens of Minas Tirith grow athelas in their gardens, using them for herbal tea. Also, in Concerning Pipe-weed, Merry Brandybuck mentions that a variety of tobacco called “sweet galenas” is found in Gondor, both cultivated and in the wild. However, unlike the denizens of the Shire and Bree, Gondorians grow it only for the sake of its flowers, which are larger and more beautiful than other cultivars.

Vegetables

Onion / Shallot / Scallion / Leek / Chives / Garlic / Lettuce / Cabbage / Broccoli / Kale / Collard / Turnip / Radish / Beetroot / Chard / Carrot / Parsnip / Cucumber / Celery / Chicory / Spinach / Gourd / Artichoke / Asparagus

Herbs (some of these are gathered rather than cultivated)

Parsley / Dill / Fennel / Caraway / Chervil / Cumin / Coriander / Lovage / Silphium / Anize / Basil / Sage / Thyme / Oregano / Rosemary / Savory / Marjoram / Mentha / Lesser Calamint / Lavender / Hyssop / Horseradish / Arugula / Rue / Dooryard Dock / Caper / Laurel / Liquorice / Poppy / Parsley / Mugwort / Wormwood / St John’s Wort / White Lily / Galenas / Athelas

Fruit

Apple / Quince / Pear / Peach / Apricot / Plum / Cherry / Orange / Lemon / Lime / Olive / Fig / Pomegranate / Grape / Melon / Strawberry / Raspberry / Blackberry / Mullberry / Cranberry /  Bilberry / Gooseberry

Nut

Chestnut / Hazelnut / Walnut / Almond / Pistachio / Pine Nut

Rural Professions

• Farmer

• Herder

• Beekeeper

• Hunter

• Gatherer

• Fisher

• Fish & Mollusk collecting/farming

Note: the following professions may also be found in small towns, especially in their immediate outskirts.

• Salter

• Oil production

- Anórien: castor beans, flax seeds and rapeseed. Everywhere else: olive oil and those above.

- 1. The seeds or fruits are ground with a millstone, driven either by a person or an animal. The resulting pulp is placed in wide, flat baskets.

2. The baskets are placed in a stack and crushed with a press. The juices run off and are collected in a vat below.

3. The juices are kept in a jug, long enough for the oil and water to separate

• Garum production

• Along the coastal regions. Factories must be a certain distance from settlements

• Murri production

• Wine production

- 1. Grapes pressed by foot, usually sometime in September

2. Crushed juice (must) stored in large round earthenware jars called dolia, often partially buried in the floor of a barn or warehouse, fermented there for 2-4 weeks) Some must consumed as-is (basically grape juice)

3. Afterwards kept in amphorae for storage

- Cheaper wines served directly from amphorae; finer wines drawn into smaller jars and modified/improved, labelled with year of production and wine type

- Wine is often stored in the upper story of homes, where warm air continues to age it

• Cider production

• Beer / Ale brewing

(footnote)Those 3 are basic lamp oils. Well-off people prefer olive oil and beeswax candles as they smell better, while the poor use tallow candles.

Mills

In Roman Gaul there were various types of mills for flour. One of them was the domestic type of mill, powered by mules, oxen, etc. This technique was especially common in urban centres and towns. Water mills were introduced into Gaul by the Romans early in the first century and were especially common in the countryside. This would be an important innovation, and they would have become common near villas. There is one example of an industrial mill on the edge of  “vallée des Baux,”  where an artificial waterfall fed by an aqueduct powered two parallel rows of eight mills.  This mill dated to the late second century and would have supplied the nearby town of Arles with flour. The mill itself was supported by a local estate.  

Most mills in Gondor are domestic, powered by mules, oxen or other beasts.

Building a Gondorian farm

WorldEdit Commands

Wheat fields:

• Detail with slabs first!

Ground textures

• /brush sphere conquest:grass_block_layer[layers=8],conquest:brown_sphagnum_moss_block_layer[layers=8],conquest:green_sphagnum_moss_layer[layers=8]
• /mask (placeholder)
• Manually replace a few blocks here and there with mossy/rocky soil

Vegetation

• /brush sphere conquest:small_fescue
• /mask >conquest:grass_block_layer,conquest:brown_sphagnum_moss_block_layer,conquest:green_sphagnum_moss_block_layer
• /gmask 0
• Then add patches of the following in a mix of 70% small fescue and 30% other plants:
  • Wavy hair grass
  • Common meadow grass
  • Green meadow fescue
  • Wild wheat
  • Kentucky bluegrass
• Add a few shrubs and weeds

Biomes

Barley Fields:

• Same basic process as wheat, with some minor changes
• /brush sphere 65%conquest:grass_block_layer[layers=8],35%conquest:brown_sphagnum_moss_block_layer[layers=8],10%conquest:green_sphagnum_moss_layer[layers=8]

Fallow Fields:

Flax field:

//replace [placeholder block] conquest:dried_fodder,conquest:brown_sphagnum_moss_block

You can then grab a new tool and do:

/mask conquest:brown_sphagnum_moss_block,conquest:dried_fodder

/material conquest:dried_fodder

/size 2

And draw rough lines of dried fodder down the furrows.

Vegetation cover:

/mask >conquest:brown_sphagnum_moss_block,conquest:dried_fodder,minecraft:grass_block

/material conquest:grass,5%minecraft:air,conquest:common_meadow_grass,conquest:dead_grass

Then place dried flax bundles in neat rows.

Example: /tp 17880 24 14501