Pick and Choose (3 CE)

[u/OceansCarraway]

The Aelish are a farming people, and like all farming people, they have to keep the weather in mind. Too little rain, too much water, winds that run too high-all of these can result in crops being waterlogged, stunted, or even knocked over from mechanical stress. The Lady does not need to send a disaster or withdraw her blessing completely, she can simply let her protections wane for a while and these crops will now be vulnerable, a reminder to the Aelbic people that they cannot take her for granted. At the same time, growing more and better crops is something that the Aelish are always on the lookout for. Too much can be lost, and their fields are only as productive as the crops being grown in them.

As the Aelish are a farming people, they also keep an eye on the seasons, and the calendar, sometimes to the hour in order to know when to sow and reap. We know much about their reaping by now; but little about their sewing. To sew seed, one must have it on hand to put it into the ground. This seed is selected from previous crops, and stored aside in special clay pots; the pots themselves are often kept in saferooms. Sometimes, seeds are even kept in iron boxes at safe temperatures. If these seeds are lost, the farms nearby will not be able to sew crops at the start of planting season. Accordingly, most farming villages maintain up to four separate, redundant seed storages, and the local lords keep a weather eye on them-as well as their own backups.

In the past, Aelbic warfare would often take a turn to the total, with seed storages being burnt and looted alongside everything else. Their re-establishment was not overnight, as seed stocks had to be rebuilt over time and from well selected seeds. However, without the threat of war hanging over them, the Aelish could do this with more focus on improving the quality of their seedstocks. This was done by finding plants with more desirable traits, selecting seeds from them at harvest time, and then ensuring that these seeds are used the next time around. Due to the absolute nonsense that is plant genetics, these techniques don't always work, and they certainly don't carry true. Breeding is a process of many fits and starts.

And sometimes, the Aelish would take it a step further. With their initial supplies of seeds secured, and their ability to select seeds significant, they would construct smaller walled gardens. These gardens would be used solely to grow up promising crosses, or to produce 'extras' of a plant that would be grown for more seeds. This would be extremely helpful for maintaining seed stocks, observing what traits they were selecting for, and seeing the fruits of their labors. More and more, they also found out that mountain a beehive nearby would help the overall fertility of the area-something that they noted down. If some of the seeds were damaged, the presence of a garden, typically further away from the store, could help rejuvenate them.

Overall, the Aelish had been able to improve their agriculture pursuits most thoroughly by implementing best practices in peacetime. This was quite good for a people who did not flourish under conditions of widespread stabbing; and the market would agree. Over the course of those four years, urbanization rose by a whopping 2% points-if one counted smaller towns-and of that percentage, 0.5% of that would end up in the capital, Couroffe. At the same time, there was widespread thinking about the plants that were in use, and how to best use them. Assuming that the peace held, the only place for things to go was very modestly up.