... You do realize that this never happened, right?
I dunno where this myth came from, but it's plain false. People drank water.
Try googling about it, any article you'll find will be saying "This myth is false. People drank water. They did not just drink beer or whatever."
Googling? Sure here you go:
https://www.winespectator.com/articles/why-did-the-ancient-greeks-and-romans-drink-their-wine-mixed-with-water-5063#:~:text=Back then, wine was seen,(often stagnant) water source.
Did everyone not drink water? No of course not, but people did notice that if you drank the wrong water in an area you got the trots or had other issues. If the water was known to be good, people drank it. If the water was bad you tried to purify it, usually with some sort of alcohol. Again I am talking about
Concepts of things here.
But as Pliny is translated as saying
"It is a fault also in water, not only to have a bad smell, but to have any flavor at all, even though it be a flavor pleasant and agreeable in itself.... Speaking in general terms, water, to be wholesome, should have neither taste nor smell.”
Ancients knew what good and bad water was, but not necessarily why. Hence the
CONCEPT of why water could be bad is important.
... And how many farmers nowadays know anything about those tools? When we have... Trucks.
Considering that they use those tools or variants of them in day to day life.
ALL of them. FYI: Trucks are not plows or harrows; moving goal posts there? It is not so much that they have the technology at their finger tips, it is that they have the
Concept of the technology and why it works the way it does. Yes, we still use horses/cows/oxen and have the concept of harnesses and tack. The knowledge and the
concepts of what that knowledge does is still there.
I still know about outhouses and where to site them, how to build them and more importantly why it needs to be done that way, but I am not a doctor. I work in the utility industry Gas/Water/Wastewater/Power and so on. I have never built an out house, taken a dump or two in them sure but have I ever built one? No, but I could site it and build a proper one because I know the concepts for why they should be sited and built in a certain manner. I could give the ideas of how and what should be used for a generator. Steam systems, water purification plants. Though I have never built a single one, but it is because my career has revolved around those that I have the concepts of what why and even how to get them.
You're asking an isekai'd person to not be a farmer, but a historical farming nerd... Sure, you can make a story about the historical farming nerd making success with this ability, it's not very different from the gun nerds using magic to create guns in medi-fantasy settings.
Depends on where they are on the status board for the society they are going into. The higher the status they have, the broader their impact could be.
Doesn't change the fact you have to be a very odd and rare kind of person for this to work.
Every Isekai person is an odd and rare kind of person I would presume. Whether or not they use the concepts they have in their brain or not, I am just arguing that there are concepts even in a high school kids head, that they could use to further their ability to live well in a world with a much lower tech level than ours.
Uhn... You really think past farmers didn't know how to make a proper rotation, how to water their crops, and how to identify illnesses of their animals? Or knowing how to identify if a bug is eating their crops or helping them? Uhn... Yeah, they did know those things. That's why their plantations actually worked.
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Or some how mis-reading or reading more then what I am saying? I said "
knows more" not that the medieval or earlier periods knew nothing.
We improved on the medieval 3 crop rotation with manure placed on top of the field methodology; by using better crops in the rotation:
https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/W235-E.pdf
Properly harrowing fields and turning the manure down into the soil to prevent its run off is another.
Name your Government; and you will see they even regulate how close you can plow your field next to bodies of water. What used to be something done right up to the waters edge now has grown from that to 3ft, 6ft and I think in last decade 10ft+ from the water bodies edge. Oh the political shit storm in the US when that was dictated as it effects more than just farmers.
That run off would lose you a large chunk of your fertilizer lowering your crops food source, it would cause fish kills and pollute your drinking water. Which would lower the life expectancy of everyone using that body of water (including your family). Even if you have a well for drinking water and your top soil washes out into a stream during rain. That stuff is going to get into your drinking water over time.
Groundwater is crucial to millions of Americans as well as many more worldwide. Groundwater provides drinking water to many. Thus, having reliably clean groundwater is of concern for many throughout the world. But, groundwater can become contaminated with chemicals, biologic organisms, and other...
www.usgs.gov
To minimize impact on water quality: control erosion on cropped land; manage manure; maintain buffer strips along streams and lakes; and safely store chemicals.
extension.umn.edu
Then there is the use of "Nightsoil" which was used as fertilizer, recycling human disease vectors into our crops. Hauled away from cities and sold or given to farms outside of cities. We know better now and have treatment schemes for it.
Sure, they may not know the specifics behind why and how those things work, but they have enough experience (and were taught by their parents, who also had experience) on the matter to know what works and what doesn't work. What is good and what is bad... Yanno, basic knowledge passed down by word of mouth? This kind of thing.
Oh, and never mind the fact farmers nowadays often times have veterinarians working with them, so they might actually know less about identifying illnesses than old day farmers know... Because yanno, you don't need to know how to do it if you pay someone to do it for you.
Farmers are running a business', Vets are called in for check ups and very serious cases only. Farmers, as they are running a business, have a very strong interest in keeping up with technology and new information, including how to recognize issues and treat their animals for those issues.
Calf scours – diarrhea occurring in the first 30 days of a calf’s life – is caused by viruses, parasites, bacteria, or any combination of those.
www.agriculture.com
... And how will you use this magical knowledge of "double entry book keeping"?
If your know numbers and basic accounting, you can get a high level job, even if your not born a noble. Education and Literacy is the way to a better life in any society.
Will you work with the bankers, merchants and nobles that already know about it? Not very helpful.
Yes, the need for educated people has always been there. Did I say you were a shoe in for any particular job? No.
Or will you do what? Keep track of the money earned by your mom as she works as a seamstress or something? How is this helpful?
Are you going to read what? The stuff that the priests preach on the church? What is the use of that?
And what are you even going to write with? You can afford parchment? How?
An educated person is always of interest. Laborers have always been a dime a dozen, educated persons, not so much.
What are the uses of all this modern knowledge? Seriously... You're overestimating the power of modern knowledge in a medi-fantasy setting and severely underestimating the knowledge of people who worked on the area back in the day.
All knowledge is power, it is the application of it that will dictate your success or failure. 1500's England rough 11% of the people were literate (can
both read and write) In the 1600's 30% 1700's 60%.
The Growth of Literacy from 1100 to 1500
www.historyofinformation.com
I disagree that I am overestimating the knowledge one has. What I am saying a modern person has knowledge and concepts in his head, ahead of any previous time period that could be useful to propel them higher in a society. They also have an education that places them in a position to be in the top 30% or better of society. Which
could let them get snatched up by those with interest in them.
If you are Isekai'd suddenly outside of a ramshackle village in the middle of nowhere much, your gonna be lucky if your not immediately killed then robbed, no matter your knowledge.
If your Isekai'd near the local barons hunting party, you might be considered unusual enough to be entertaining and could get guest rights for a bit, especially if you were in modern clothes (as that is "different"), and looked as healthy as a noble.
Edited to correct spelling mistakes I missed on the first 3 passes.
A general description of EPA’s requirements applicable to agriculture, and should only be used as a guide. Since rules and regulations may change use this information is a starting place to determine which regulations apply to your agricultural operation.
www.epa.gov
Just throwing this out there on the USA federal level of things that impact farmers. I actually work within the scope of several of these regulations on a regular basis, just not directly for farms.
