A Year in the Life of Ancient Greece by Philip Matyszak

Author:Philip Matyszak [Matyszak, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael O'Mara
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

APTEMIΣIOΣ

ΔϒΣKOΛIEΣ

(April – Setbacks)

The Farmer

Winter wheat is a perilous crop, for humans are but the last in a long line of creatures that want to eat it. The problems start as soon as the seed is sown, for birds follow the sower, and grain that is meant to find a home in the autumnal soil often instead finds a home in a partridge, grouse or other avian crop predator. Even when the seed grain is in the ground it is certainly not safe. Fungi, worms and rot can ruin a crop unseen, even as the farmer surveys his fields unaware that nothing but weeds are going to sprout. Then, should the first tender shoots appear, starving deer emerge from the woods in February ready to devastate the crop once again. As the crop grows and strengthens, grubs chew up the roots, and bruchid beetles drop their larvae into the developing ears of grain. It is every farmer’s nightmare that just as a crop is ready for harvest the wind will bring a cloud of locusts that settle on the field in their countless numbers and reduce a season’s work to naught in the space of an afternoon.

Let us say, however, that a farmer has avoided these disasters through good luck or careful preparation (and usually the farmer needs both of these things). Then there is only the problem of a slow, wet spring turning too soon into a halcyon fortnight of warm, sunny weather before the drizzle closes in again. This is certain to hit the developing crop with white, powdery patches of mildew, and the earlier the mildew hits, the higher it moves up the plant and the more the crop will be damaged.

Yet mildew results only in fewer and smaller kernels of wheat. What every farmer dreads is finding that the crop is infested with tiny drumstick-shaped spores of ergot, and again the wetter the spring the more likely the chances of an ergot outbreak. Ergot occurs more frequently with open-flowering crops, such as rye, but it is just as devastating when it takes hold in winter wheat.

Ergot does not prevent a full crop from being harvested, but only in the most desperate of times would any sane human consider eating such a crop – partly because he will not remain sane for long afterwards. Eating ergot-contaminated food causes wild hallucinations, skull-splitting headaches and delirium often followed by gangrene and death. Unsurprisingly, the local authorities get somewhat bitter with a farmer who allows a contaminated crop to reach market, and as ergot spores survive in the soil for up to a year, it is not unusual for that field to compulsorily lay fallow for the next two years or so – even if anyone can be persuaded to eat that farmer’s crops ever again.

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