A Baptiste-era toothweed farmer
"A man might run all day and not leave sight of the fields. He might plug his ears but never escape the sound of chattering teeth." - Unkown Baptiste-era serf
Toothweed production has historically been a driving market force of the post-northern hemisphere, first as a staple crop to small farming communities and later as one of the Baptiste Dynasty's largest state-run agricultural enterprises. The market's collapse on the eve of the revolution has led to historical confustion.
Roots/Pre-Baptiste[]
The annual toothweed market has its origins in a centuries-old tradition. As the fable runs, a trading village was in the habit of gathering toothweed from all its nearby farms and stacking it in the town square where it would be safely set ablaze. On the day before the weeds were to be burned, a foreign merchant arrived in town and asked about the prominent heap of plants. Sensing the opportunity, a local trader explained that the plants represented the entire crop of the village's finest rare grain, and convinced the merchant to buy the lot. It quickly became custom to forgoe burning the weed in favor of waiting for more gullible merchants to arrive. In particularly harsh years farmers were known to cook and consume harvested toothweed.
Post-Collectivization[]
Francois Baptiste was the first to recognize the potential for toothweed's economic power beyond cheating individual strangers. Under his highly organized regime almost 100,000 hectares of farmland was converted to year-round toothweed production. The crop was sent overseas in the guise of foreign debt payments, textiles and edible foodstuffs, and also fed to state prisoners, many of whom grew toothweed themselves while strapped to their penal threshing harness. Talepisian historians have called Baptiste's ruthlessly enforced economic engine ' the clearest marker that our nation was fueled by designed insanity.'
Market Failure[]
Tooth-marks on fragmented bone found near a plantation could lend credence to the farmers' claims
The toothweed market collapsed completely and explosively (see:Remnants of Toothweed Production ) in the last week of the Sixth Epoch for reasons still debated by revolutionary historians. As officially recorded in the Baptistes' periodicals, stirrings of revolt led to widespread abandonment of toothweed plantations, with the sensitive crop quickly dying out when left untended. Undocumented reports from the farmers themselves contend that the last months of the epoch was marked by a distinct change in the crop's behavior. Workers noted increased agression, higher mobility and sharper teeth, traits many blamed on a clandestine operation by an underground blightweed strain attempting to re-introduce blight spores to the population. After dozens of dissapearances and several alleged weed uprisings the farmers abandoned their posts and fled toward the cities.
Citations[]
This knowledge brought to you first hand by me, Archivist Ultan.
See also: