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permaculture - [permaculture] Re: permaculture Digest, Vol 2, Issue 35

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  • From: Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Re: permaculture Digest, Vol 2, Issue 35
  • Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 08:21:39 -0700

I wonder Toby if some of this lopsidedness has to do with immigration policy? I would think that immigrants to the New World versus immigrants to Europe would almost match the plant immigrants. Since most immigrants were looking for a better life, or a life free from tyranny I would suspect there were a lot of rural people coming to the U.S. and Canada with cuffs, pockets, woolens, etc. stuffed with seed and bugs.

I am always amazed to think of the presence of mind of the African slave when he/she grabbed seed for the new world. I realize some of the seed was brought in the form of slave food by the slavers, but a lot of the African plants in the deep south were brought by the slaves themselves, at least that is what my great grandpa from Georgia told me.

Scott

At 02:06 PM 3/26/03 -0500, you wrote:
Thus the (mostly) one-way weed establishment is a fact. One reason for
this, in addition to those I cited in my last post, is that
counter-directional species usually travel alone, separate from their
guilds, while European weeds travel with their guilds: We bring cattle,
sheep, and all the other animals that have adapted with Euro-weeds
(which have burrs adapted for our livestock, pass through their guts
unharmed, etc); we bring pollinators by the millions (European
honey-bees love Euro-weeds), and we bring many of the other insect and
plant associates that are allies of the weeds. That broad-band traffic
doesn't go the other way, and thus non-Euro-weeds don't thrive. You
could say they die of loneliness.

Toby
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