Eric Flint: 1634: The Ram Rebellion

Edgar’s explanation wasn’t any too clear, but Birdie got the gist of it. Willie Ray might have to ask the farmers to do things that weren’t that profitable in the short run. Things like building up seed stock. Birdie, like many farmers, bought seed every year, instead of saving his own. Saving your own seed hadn’t made much sense up-time.

“What it boils down to, is the bank is going to cut all the farmers some slack. Considering the circumstances, what with the Ring of Fire and all, we’re giving you a year to get caught up.”

Birdie was pretty sure that Edgar wasn’t telling him everything. Bankers always acted like it was their own money you were asking them for.

“Suppose I need some more money? Bank gonna be good for that? There’s a lot that needs doing, and it ain’t getting done for nothing.”

“We might loan you more money, Mr. Newhouse. If Willie Ray agrees that what you need it for is important to the town, it’s more than likely that you’ll get what you need.”

All this support came as a bit of a surprise to Birdie. Grantville had never been farming country. The hills were just too steep and the valleys too narrow. The focus had always been on industry of some sort, natural gas, coal mines, even the toilet factory. Just before the Ring of Fire, a fiber optics plant was being built. Farmers had never been a big part of the local economy.

* * *

“Poor bastards,” Willie Ray remarked when he and Birdie reached Birdie’s tractor. Willie Ray had been introducing Birdie to the local farmers. The introduction had been accomplished with gestures, for the most part, with a few badly accented words of German thrown in here and there.

“What happened to them?” Birdie asked.

“From what I gather, Sundremda, that’s this little village here, used to have fifteen farming families plus a few folks who had houses and gardens in the village but weren’t farmers. There was a blacksmith, a carpenter, and the like. This last year has been rough though. Now there are six farming families and four of those families are part time farmers. Halbbauer the Germans call ‘em. ‘Half farmers,’ that would be in English.”

Birdie knew what that was like. He regularly had to work odd jobs to keep the farm going.

“They also lost a bunch of their livestock,” Willie Ray continued, “which made getting in this year’s crop just about impossible. Some of it was lost to the mercenaries that hit the place a few months back, and some to Remda, a little town that way, a ways, where they ran when the village got hit.

“Ernst, that fella you shook hands with, called it theft when I was out here before with Miss Abrabanel to translate. From what I understand the folk in Remda are saying they took the stock for rent and fines. Then, some bug came up about the same time, and quite a few folks died. So everyone’s blaming everyone else and there are law suits goin’ both ways. Meanwhile, the folks in Remda seem to figure possession is nine points of the law, so they’re holdin’ the stock till everything’s settled. I’m guessing they’re also holdin’ the oxen to force the Sundremda villagers to settle their way.

“You clear on what’s needed?” Willie Ray asked when he had finished his explanation.

Birdie nodded. He and Willie Ray had walked the fields with Ernst and defined what was needed where. Willie Ray headed back to town and Birdie got to work harvesting and thinking. His farm was just over the Ring Wall, less than a mile away. If he could cut some sort of gap in the Ring Wall this would be the perfect farm for him. He didn’t want to put anyone out of their homes but it looked like they needed him as much as he needed the land. Maybe he could buy this place or most of it anyway. Once he got done here he’d go see if Willie Ray would support him with the bank.

July 1631

Willie Ray had agreed that buying a farm outside the Ring of Fire and near Birdie’s place, what was left of it, was a good idea. However; he didn’t know much of anything about how Birdie would go about buying a farm here. Birdie had talked to MacKay, who had recommended one of his troops who spoke English and German and knew a bit about farming.

Danny McTavish was willing enough to act as translator and guide, for a fair payment. Fair payment, in McTavish’s eyes, was five one-liter plastic soda bottles, complete with their lids, and a gutting knife. Birdie threw dinner into the deal, so they could eat while they talked over the plan. Birdie liked McTavish, anyway. The scruffy Scot sure could use some dental work, but he spoke German and knew the area fairly well.

“Won’t work, what you’re saying,” McTavish said. “You won’t be able to buy a farm for the working. Farmers around here are mostly tenants. They don’t own their farms the way you up-timers do.”

“I didn’t really expect them to,” Birdie answered. “I was just glad to find out that things aren’t as bad as I thought they would be. I never paid much attention to history, back in school. I figured that just because they didn’t own their farms, there was no reason I couldn’t buy one though.”

“You understand, I’m no expert.” Danny tugged his goatee, apparently to help organize his thoughts. “You don’t exactly buy land here, at least not to use it yourself. What you do is rent a piece of a farming village. Along with the rent you pay, you get some specific rights, all of them written down proper, in the contract. You get a house, or the right to build a house. You get the right to gather or cut a given amount of firewood, and to pasture so many head of cattle or sheep or whatever. It’s all specified in the contract. Finally, you get a strip of field to plant.

“Mostly you lease a piece of land for ninety-nine years or three generations, whichever comes first. Now, you don’t always go to the laird for this. The laird might have sold off some part, or all of the rents. When that’s happened, and I’m told it happens most of the time, there might be a whole bunch of different people, and each one of them owns a part of the rent.”

“What does the lord own after he’s sold the rents?” Birdie asked “Mining rights?”

“Mining rights belong to the ruler. The laird never had those. Timber rights, probably. Maybe hunting rights. It could be. It depends on how he sold the rents. Sometimes, a laird would even give the rents to someone, like as a dowry or for the support of a relative. Sometimes, all that’s left to the laird is the right to control who cuts down how much of the forest. Or, other times, he might have nothing much. It could just be a leftover from when the ‘von Somewheres’ really were lairds with rights and duties to the folk under them. Back when only a ‘von Somewhere’ could own land and owning land meant you were a noble. Maybe back then you couldn’t sell your land and still have ‘von’ in front of your name.” Danny shrugged. “The truth is I don’t know why it’s that way. But, I’ve talked to a lot of farmers since I came here with Captain MacKay, and that seems to be the way it is.”

“Do we have to track down everyone that owns a part of the rent if we want to rent a farm in one of the villages around here?”

“If lots of people own a piece of the rent, they generally hire someone to handle the rental. You have to deal with who ever that is, and it’s usually a lawyer. The Germanies are a lawyer’s paradise.”

“What about just going to the guy that owns the land and buying it?” Mary Lee asked.

Danny was shaking his head. “Even if he hasn’t sold the rents, the village is probably rented. If you bought the land, you would be the new laird, but the rent contracts would still be there. You couldn’t use the land yourself. All you could do is collect the rents. If he’s sold the rents, I don’t think you’d be buying more than a piece of paper, or maybe hunting rights. If you want to farm, you pretty much have to rent a farm in a village. Then, after you got the rent worked out with the landlord, you have to be approved by the Gemeinde .”