Mounds of Farming.

To continue on a on the farming theme I thought I'd share some more about the history of Agriculture in Georgia. This idea was helped along by a recent field trip to the Etowah Mounds State Historic Site in Cartersville, Georgia. The video at right is of one of the rangers on site giving information regarding the Three Sisters of Mississippian Era agriculture. 

Corn. Squash. Beans. With these three crops, these people developed a broad menu of foods. 

Agriculture was a way of life in the South long before the arrival of European settlers. This particular community was populated by farmers as early as 1000 A.D. (over 50 years before the Norman Conquest of England) and perhaps even earlier. These "primitive" farmers had learned the value of crop rotation, or at least the benefits one crop can have for another. It would be centuries before the settlers learned some of these ideas. 

So this culture domesticated dogs and turkeys in addition to their three sisters. They gathered nuts and berries from the fields and forests nearby. They caught fish from the river and hunted the wildlife that lived in the area. They wasted nothing, having a use for everything they killed, grew and gathered.

At left you'll find a demonstration of the weapons advances they made in order to feed themselves and their families. With the use of fishing, hunting, gathering, and agriculture, these people formed a civilization that survived for about 500 years at this location. To this day, their artifacts are still being found in the ground. To this day, their mounds and fish traps still remain as visible remnants of their society. Structures that date back ten centuries. 

That's not bad when you figure practically no structure in Atlanta is over 150 years old.

Long story short, this is our heritage. A wise and diverse use of the land. A sustainable and interactive form of agriculture that we can still learn from today.

It's our past. But it's about our future. And with so many other troubles mounting against farmers, they're not getting any younger. You can't eat a legal writ. You can't eat a bank note. And, as important as health care may seem, if you don't have food to eat, a doctor can't help you.

Educate yourselves about farming. Ask a farmer about the challenges of the job and life in general. Make this an election year issue. Let's put emphasis back on the agrarian heritage of our region. 

No more canned peaches from China.