The British landlords took their rent in wheat. No rent and you were sleeping under the bridge. So yes, wheat was exported from Ireland during the famine. Hard to believe isn't it? That is part of why the Irish love the English so much. ;)
Kirk -----Original Message----- From: Hakan Falk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 7:33 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [biofuel] Re: PENTAGON THREATENS TO KILL INDEPENDANT REPORTERS INIRAQ-innocent lives will be lost! Wow Randy, You have to read the history about the potato and the potato blight first. The potato comes from the Andes in South America and was brought to Europe by the Spanish. In the Andes there are hundreds of varieties, growing on different highs and in different soils. It spread throughout Europe and became a staple food in Northern and Middle Europe. The potato, is probably one of the few food products that stand alone can satisfy the human needs. In Sweden the military have investigated this as a part of what we needed for a readiness, in case of a cut off from imported food. Several families lived for one year only on potato and did not show any nutrient deficiencies. When it was introduces in Ireland, the population grew three times in 3-4 generations, due to the lower child death and a significant higher average life span. Ireland standardized on only one variant of potato, when the rest of Europe had minimum 3 to 4 variants. When Europe was hit by the potato sickness, it hit the variant that was grown on Ireland and all of it's potato was sick and the people was starving. The other countries had difficulties, but since it had several variants, it never became a starvation problem. England that obviously had potato, but in smaller amounts, was of course a suspect of foul play by the Irish, but the truth is that the rest of Northern and Middle Europe also had surviving variants. 200 years ago, it was no refugee camps and very few land owners. The Kings ruled and it was nearly no small scale farmers that at the same time was land owner. A typical estate would be owned by the Royals or other in the court, this estates was divided into several smaller and autonomous production units (Farms) and each one normally assigned to a family with some additional workers. Around 150 - 200 years ago this farms started to be rented by the employees, since they discovered that this kind of system raised the output. In Sweden such an arrangement was called "arrende". The King often had his soldiers on such a farms, to be called up in case of war. The Swedish name for those was "Soldattorp", if the soldier performed especially well he could get the owner rights to his farm as a gratification. Today you only get a medal. Very interesting history, which I could follow in the contracts when my grandfathers estate was sold after his death and we had to go through, divide and move everything. One quite interesting thing about employment contracts in Northern Sweden, was the clause about how many days a week the employees could be served Salmon. I had only heard about it and did not really believed it until I saw the contracts myself. On our estate they only had to eat Salmon 5 days a week and meat the other two days. All of this kind of things, was given to the local museum, including a dedicated book by H. C. Andersen. We can take this about emigration an other time. But one interesting thing is the word FUCK that is used so much in US, but not in UK. The origin is probably the shortening in English for why prostitutes was serving time. I have been told that it was "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge". So it was not only starving Irish people who was given the choice to go to the colonies. By the way, the politicians that was not welcome in UK any longer, was exported also. The hard core criminals had to go to Australia. But I cannot really see the parallels with the Palestinians in this, other than that they also are losers and Americans do not like losers. Maybe that have some historical background in the attitudes that the immigrants had to the original population of America. I heard that they had the expression "the best Indian is a dead Indian" and maybe we have some sort of brotherly understanding here between Sharon and Bush. Hakan At 12:39 AM 3/21/2003 +0000, you wrote: >--- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Hakan Falk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Greg H., > > > > If you see any parallels with Northern Ireland, you have managed > > with something that I never heard someone do before. Please > > read and learn more about both situations and then try to think > > again. Or do you really think that they have refugee camps in > > Northern Ireland and that any side have expropriated the other > > ones property and refuse to hand it back and instead force you > > to spend your life in a refugee camp. > > >Yes Hakan essentially that is essentially what did happened at the >beginning of the UK/Ireland conflict more than 200 hundred years >ago. British troops invaded Scotland and confiscated property in the >name of the king. The disposesed scottish property owners were >appointed as Land Managers and Barons in Ireland. Most of the Irish >farmers were forced to rent small plots from these barons. Then many >years later during the potato blight catastrophy, the Irish people >and some Scottish people also were given the choice of starvation or >immigration. Some people still argue to this day (true or not) >whether agricultural foodstuffs were taken from Ireland to the main >island of Britain at the starvation expense of the Irish people. >The "Refuge Camps" in this argument is then identified as Canada and >the United States and the 'Refugees' were called immigrants and >pioneers. They left because they were starving and they had no >future under the conditions that were present at that time in >Ireland. > >that is my opinion. and I see the connection parallel between >Ireland and Palestine. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.461 / Virus Database: 260 - Release Date: 3/10/2003 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Your own Online Store Selling our Overstock. http://us.click.yahoo.com/rZll0B/4ftFAA/46VHAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
