Swidden cultivation; or, turning forest into ag land without machinery

[rbrgs]

If you want to clear land for agriculture, and you don't have a bulldozer to remove the stumps, there is really only one practical technique.  Note that for this to work, most of the wood has to be dead, dry, and burned in place.  Hauling off the firewood won't leave enough fuel for the hot fire you need to kill the stumps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn

Slash-and-burn defined

An area of primary or secondary forest is selected, and the vegetation is cut and allowed to dry. Large trees are often girdled and allowed to die standing. Some trees are often left standing, especially those viewed as useful, such as food producing trees like chestnuts or economically valuable trees like teak. Portions of the cut timber or saplings are often gathered to use for firewood or to make charcoal. After some period of time (a week to a few months) the residual dry vegetation is burned. Plots are cultivated for a few seasons (usually one to five years) and then abandoned as fertility declines and weeds invade.

Such abandoned plots often become used as pasture for livestock. If the forest is allowed to recover, pasture becomes rough pasture for a while. Recovering woodlands are sometimes treated as "fallow" land, which means it is to be subjected to another round of slash and burn in the future.[2]

Burning removes the vegetation and may release a pulse of nutrients to fertilize the soil. Ash also increases the pH of the soil, a process which makes certain nutrients (especially phosphorus) more available in the short term. Burning also temporarily drives off soil microorganisms, pests, and established plants long enough for crops to be planted in their ashes. Before artificial fertilizers were available, fire was one of the most widespread methods of fertilization.[3]

Slash and burn requires a relatively low human population density or a continuing supply of new "frontier" lands, since the recovery of forests may require many decades or even human generations.

Various forms of slash-and-burn have been used in nearly every forested environment, from the temperate coniferous forests of Northern Europe (e.g., Svedjebruk in Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway) to the tropical moist broadleaf forests of Indochina and the Amazon Rainforest. Much of the temperate forest cutting was followed by sustainable grazing or crop rotation practices. An almost total conversion of forests to farmland and pasture has occurred in many temperate regions, such as England. In many tropical forests, sustainable forms of slash and burn have been practiced for millennia, but population growth and large-scale industrial logging, among other factors, have made traditional slash and burn practices less sustainable and more likely to result in catastrophic wildfires.[4]

I grew up in New England, where the forest has mostly recovered from the ravages of the 18th and 19th Century.  Cheap oil made large machinery necessary to be competitive, and local food production was mostly abandoned.  While the fall colors are pretty, maples are a wind-spread second growth weed tree, and once they close the canopy, there's little food for anybody, even squirrels.  I hate to even mention this technique in a world with too much carbon in the air already, and a looming shortage of firewood, and it's almost certainly illegal as well (it is in my state), but...

Slash and burn does work.  In a temperate forest (like New England), careful management can maintain soil fertility, and people did, for centuries, before the era of industrial agriculture.  If you see that as your future, trees are best girdled in winter, when it's easy to move around in the forest and light enough to see. 

[atomicat]

Sounds interesting but to me you'd probably be better off trying to thin and grow unconventional foodstuffs (unless your getting into more farming production) the food among the forests.   Organically your going to be getting more nutrients and there should be some value from thinned forest.  Birds and other animals can naturally fertilize the forest and woods and also (the negative) unfortunately eat your crops.  But if you had an area where you have protected gardens, it would seem to me that some kind of strip of gardens could exist with the forest providing you with far more natural humas and topsoil. vs. creating a farming eco-system.  The other thing is thinning may provide you with enough wood or you may want to do some limited hunting and preserve more of a personal natural habitat.

We can't have a "slash and burn of all the woods program, unless we want blown away topsoil and eventual desert and hope to use some kind of chemical (hydroponic/artificial/jetson dome future plant) which becomes fairly artificial.  It seems to me that there is a need for a lot of cold frames and greenhouses for protected crops unless your planning on feeding the local deer population and trying to hunt some and live mostly off meat.  I think it will be pretty challenging if you have forest land, to try to preserve a pretty good organic mix and sustainable system.

If you think about it, in "POST PEAK" and maybe that's 20 years from now or maybe 50 years from now.  Under great demands barring dieoff, there will be great pressure for the masses to move to the woods, hunt and kill all wildlife, at least in the "state" land and start harvesting the trees for firewood fuel survival.  Unless we really figure this out in a smart and planned way.   This could cause a lot of friction and perhaps the best approach would be to seek a partially wooded lot with some farm and clearing. 

Of course there's the wishful thinking future as well where a mix of technology and traditoinal farming provides some kind of comprise.  A kind of small tech at times, but mostly rural farming system.

I can think of a few examples where third world kids live in primative conditions, yet have a few "modern tools" like the XO computer introduced into the village and learning life.  They end up using both new technology and primative living for the most part.  But the technology is just extra dressing and window dressing and may not affect their life much.  But if we had the chance to pick and choose technology castoffs, we'll have almost infinate ability to pick and choose interesting mixes.

Planning for POST PEAK is daunting and very difficult.

[rbrgs]

Bump, 'cause I referred to it in another thread.

[Permie]

Mushroom cultivation in stumps can be a way of hastening their rotting process and give you a yield.  Fungi Perfecti (google it) has mushroom spawn in plugs for a variety of stumps (as long as the stumps are sufficiently fresh).  There is a fir oyster for fir trees, and many possibilities for hardwoods (or alder, maple, etc.).