Re: Magic to aid farming in space

How about this ... they raise herds of a domesticated form of scavver, which
doesn't need surface space to ranch, instead of raising cattle; and grow
asteroid wheat, a special breed of wheat that only grows on size A bodies
and that needs very little water.  And they also farm trith sluk, a type of
sluk that doesn't taste as bad as normal sluk and that is more nutritious.
It doesn't need surface space at all, because it grows floating in out
wildspace.


>From: Richard Myers <REMyers001@???.com>
>Reply-To: Discussion list for the Spelljammer campaign setting
><SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com>
>To: SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com
>Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Magic to aid farming in space
>Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:05:34 EDT
>
>I agree that magic increases the urban population percentage, but I think
>inundating any region with magic is extreme.  One spell already increases
>yields,
>though others could certainly be researched.  These spells would not likely
>be arcane spells, but divine spells instead.  Only druids and clerics of
>agricultural gods (and maybe elven gods and other demihumans) are likely to
>have the
>spells...and a few rangers.  Look at your percentages of 5th level people
>and
>how many of them are clerics, and then how many of those clerics have the
>proper spell, and you usually are going to come up with an insignificant
>increase
>for food production in space...not that the occasional city doesn't have
>such
>a thing going...I don't remember any such temples in Bral, or any
>organization dedicated to improving food supply.
>
>There are other considerations that make farming different from
>"groundling"
>farming.  Asteroids such as Bral don't have regular rainfall, making
>irrigation mandatory.  High yield crops (yield in tons/acre) would be
>economical just
>because of shipping costs, so bananas, olives, grapes and other orchard
>fruits
>might predominate.  Certainly, vegetables should be grown in abundance.  In
>the end, however, grain needs to be imported.  It is the biggest waste of
>domestic farmland because it stores easily for voyages and doesn't rot as
>fast,
>making it the food import of choice.  Bral, with a population of 10,000,
>and less
>than 1000 acres of arable land, still needs to import a minimum of 10 tons
>of
>grain per day, not to mention livestock...if they want to eat meat...and
>grain
>for any livestock they happen to keep on The Rock.  That's a tradesman
>docking every day with a hold nearly full of grain (maybe a cow or a couple
>of pigs
>on board).  The increased cost of living this entails might make housing on
>Bral more expensive than Manhattan's better areas.
>
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