Homestead mailing list

[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 11/15/2006, you wrote:
> Example: the Irish potato
> famine, once the variety that grew so well, stopped
> growing so well, there was starvation.

Take another step or two back and see what was going on.  At the time 
Ireland was producing a surplus of wheat.  England had stiff import duties 
on wheat called the "Corn laws" (wheat is called corn).  Farmers still held 
political power and stiff import duties meant that wheat was very high 
priced.  Irish farmers produced wheat for the English market while the 
peasants had only the potato.  Millions either starved or migrated while 
land owners became wealthy.

In England the industrialists were starting to gain political power and the 
wittings of the economist Ricardo (if I remember correctly) were becoming 
popular.  One of his points was that the cost of labor was based on the 
cost of food for the laborer.  The industrialists were pushing for the 
repeal of the corn laws while the politically powerful land owners 
resisted.  The repeal of the corn laws signaled a change in the power 
structure that took to the end of the century to complete.



Don Bowen              Awl Knotted Up                       KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com
My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

I am omnivagant.  
> From knat AT sprintmail.com  Wed Nov 15 19:52:05 2006
Return-Path: <knat AT sprintmail.com>
X-Original-To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from pop-sarus.atl.sa.earthlink.net (pop-sarus.atl.sa.earthlink.net
        [207.69.195.72])
        by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2B0A24C00D
        for <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:52:01 -0500 
(EST)
Received: from dialup-4.250.186.214.dial1.weehawken1.level3.net
        ([4.250.186.214] helo=[192.168.0.167])
        by pop-sarus.atl.sa.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.36 #1)
        id 1GkVU0-0002Oo-00
        for homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:52:01 -0500
Message-ID: <455BC424.5070807 AT sprintmail.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:51:32 -0600
From: KNat <knat AT sprintmail.com>
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 (Windows/20061025)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
References: <7.0.1.0.0.20061114184635.03800268 AT comcast.net>       
<18c9df6e0611142004u6d1768fdr9f0698108e8d5e0b AT mail.gmail.com>
        <a37e31f0611151414r6eb69a18tf93f19219efce33c AT mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <a37e31f0611151414r6eb69a18tf93f19219efce33c AT mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Technology
X-BeenThere: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.8
Precedence: list
Reply-To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
List-Id: <homestead.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead>,
        <mailto:homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead>
List-Post: <mailto:homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead>,
        <mailto:homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:52:05 -0000

Lisa K.V. Perry wrote:
>  He always thought soup
> in a can--and being able to buy ice cream!--was the neatest thing.
>   
LOL My grandmother too was very impressed with cans in a store. She and 
her friends were my son's homeschool history. He learned to write and 
interview and wrote up their memoirs for their children. Almost each one 
started speaking to him with, "Now I know this will be hard for you to 
imagine because life is so different for you."
Grandma was 2 weeks shy of 100 when she decided she'd had enough, in 
November 1998. Cresting 2 millenia was more than she wanted. I would 
have loved to met her father. With no sons he invented ways to manage a 
farm without heavy lifting and only help w digging 2 times a year. All 
without power engines. One article she kept was a newspaper interviewing 
him about his farm's success without chemical pesticides. He attributed 
it to the fact he hadn't fallen for that newfangled idea of fences. 
Continuing to use hedgerows allowed a healthy flock of prairie chickens 
who darted out and ate the bugs off his crops. She often described how 
he had a windmill pump water thru the kitchen, then the barn, then the 
fields for irrigation, so they didn't have to draw water. I hope I have 
some of those genes.

Kathyann