I was trying to figure out vegetable and fruit yields. It seems grain yields are roughly 1/6 that of current day yields.

Peas - a 12 bushel yield seems to be fairly accurate. That's about 1/7 of todays yields of peas of about a 2200 pound/acre average (Pea bushels are 25 pounds each).

The prices in a French Document would suggest about 5d per bushel - giving a yield of 60d per acre, comparable to an 8d x 8 bushel yield of wheat at 64d.

The 1f per pound in HM pricing actually works out well here - 25 farthings for 25 pounds is 6.25d.

Now, if you use this for say cabbages - they are rather prolific, yielding 20,000 pounds per acre, one of the largst yields in pounds per acre of any veggie.

take the 20,000 pounds, divide by 7, and we have 2857 pounds per acre of cabbage. at a 50 pound bushel, that is about 57 bushels per acre, we can round to 55 bushels.

At a cost of 3d per bushel, that is a yield of 165d per acre, maybe 2d per bushel makes more sense, a yield of 110 per acre. Otherwise, cabbages would be planted everywhere

That lowers the cost a lot though, 2d a bushel is 1 farthing for about 12 pounds, a far cry from the HM cost of 2f per pound.

Of course, the alternative is using HM yield per acre and cabbage prices - an 80d yield, at 2f per pound means only 160 pounds yielded from an acre, or 0.8% of current yields.

Orchards I look at a bit differently. IMO, an orchard may yield very high - but it's not as though you plant an orchard and it blooms in summer, rather it's years of work an preperation, almost like having a little gold mine.

The yield of 1/7 still makes sense though I think. Somewhere around 20,000 pounds is an "average" yield of apples.

This would be 2857 pounds per acre, or 59 bushels at 48 pounds a bushel, probably round to 55. Cost? at 4d per bushel, it's a yield of 220d per acre, very good.

4d per bushel is still less than the suggested price in HM of 1f per pound, which would be 12d -it's about 3 pounds per farthing.

But this seems to make pretty good sense overall I would think price wise.

_________________
Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Those numbers came from a large set of data from the 1860's US and Europe. They take into account a lot of factors like pests, storm damage (especially to orchards), etc.
Yes, you can grow a lot of cabbages, but after the first ton or so you might find a decline in local market value...
feel free to work out your own numbers if you like, I'm retired.

john

_________________
Heroes should be uncommon. They just happen to be the PCs.

Orchards can be badly effected by weather - have a cold snap at the wrong time and you can end up with no fruit on the trees.

In terms of cabbages, I don't have the foggiest idea what a medieval yield would be like; but as a vegetable it was more like what are sold as "brussels tops" or "greens" these days (loose and small clump of leaves) - i.e. far from the large and dense drumhead cabbages of today. A lot of the development of the brassica family took place in the 19th C - so even John's 1860s figures would be much improved on, say, 600 years earlier.

_________________
··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

LOL, I'm not suggesting to do so.



Yeah, that and other things is why I am suggesting a yield of 1/7 that of normal yields. Seems like the 1/7 or so number is reasonably consistent. I am sure not EVERY harvestable crop was exactly 1/7 the yield of today, but for lack of any better numbers it would seem to make sense.

A lot of the development of the brassica family took place in the 19th C - so even John's 1860s figures would be much improved on, say, 600 years earlier.
Orchards can be badly effected by weather - have a cold snap at the wrong time and you can end up with no fruit on the trees.



Yes, it seems that much agricultural and even animal husbandry occurred over the past few hundred years. We can probably thank or curse that as a precursor to our modern huge metropolitan areas



That is a good point regarding orchards, that is somewhat reflected by their lower hardiness in HM.

Now, there would probably be more of a variance than HM gives, but on average would think a well kept orchard would yield very well.

Perhaps even throwing in a bigger variable would make sense.

Actually, something I was thinking that would work well for livestock would be the occasional livestock plague - where a manor may lose 25-75% of their stock of any given animal, occasionally effecting all animals but more often a certain strain, i.e. cows, sheep, goats, etc.

Reduce kind generated by livestock, and also reduce next years numbers permanently, the only way to increase the lifestock back to it's former values would be either to purchase replacement animals (which would be at a premium unless very localized outbreak) or reduce the harvest values of the animals the upcoming year, meaning some of the yearlings that are normally slaughtered would be kept.

_________________
Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....