//------------------------------//
// 23 The King and the Brambles 
// Story: Alternate Beginnings: Year Four 
// by Doug Graves 
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October 4th, 996

Big Mac shakes his head as he looks over the two fields of wheat remaining. The tall stalks have grown steadily over the last four months, finally reaching their full height, flowered, seeded, and now are about to be harvested. It is like watching one of those fancy science displays, where they take pictures of something and present them back to back, to give an idea about how something changes over time. But this is in reverse. It has taken over five times as long for the wheat to grow in the field that Doug planted on the heavy weave, and almost seven times as long for the field that Doug had plowed and planted by himself. Just over five months. And the yield looked to be a third, at best, of their normal crop. Seven percent of their highest yield per acre year. One twelfth, give or take, depending on the harvest. A dismal result. The experiment, he would say if anypony asked, is a failure.

Apple Bloom's field had been somewhere in between. Took three months to grow, half a normal yield. Given her difficulties with magic, it made sense. Probably not getting a cutie mark in wheat farming, thank Faust. His own quarter acre field is still doing well, and he kept replanting to see how many harvests the heavy weave could take before it gave out. At five, and still going strong, though the upcoming harvest will be the last one for this year. Hopefully the weave lasts the winter, but without plants continually drawing magic through, it is very likely the whole thing would need to be scrapped and redone in the spring.

Doug had mentioned he was doing the calculation a little off. You see, he hadn't taken into account that he didn't need to plow and harvest the field as frequently. Say it takes him about four hours to plow, rest, and plant a light weave acre. About four hours to harvest, give or take. For a light weave, it takes him one time over the field. Then one for the harvest three weeks later. So, eight hours of work per three weeks for one acre. That gets you one field worth of food, call it two thousand pounds. Two hundred fifty pounds per hour of work, gotten every three weeks. Field gives eight hundred thirty pounds a week.

With the heavy weave, he needs to plow twice for the first time, taking about eight hours. Only needs one plow on the second planting. Five hours to harvest, from the larger yield. So thirteen hours on the first time, only nine on subsequent harvests. Harvest about thirty percent more, so the yield is about twenty six hundred pounds. First harvest, two hundred pounds per hour of work, harvested every five weeks. Next harvest, call it two hundred ninety pounds per hour of work. Field gives five hundred eighty pounds a week.

So, which one is better? Big Mac smiles; Doug loves these trade-off type games, and he finds himself getting more and more interested in the thought process behind it, how to come up with and figure out these scenarios. They really did interest and drive the human. If you are low on fields? Light weave. If you have plenty of acreage, and care more about harvest per hour? Heavy weave. Assuming the heavy weave lasts for more than two harvests. If it only lasts for two, then they are about even. And with it lasting for five, maybe more, harvests? Well, they had plenty of land at Sweet Apple Acres, though he doesn't like how they have more wheat growing at a time, mostly for Doug's consumption. Sweet Wheat Acres just doesn't have the same ring to it. But, Doug is certainly pleased to have helped out. So is Big Mac; if the only thing they get out of this is he has to spend less time working with wheat, he'll be happy as a hog. The human plowing side of things, though...

Applejack is standing at his side as Big Mac strides up to the human, a smirk growing on the red pony's muzzle, "So, enjoying the fruits of your labor yet?"

"Eeyup." comes the quick reply, Doug chewing a long stalk of wheat.

Big Mac rolls his eyes before looking around; Doug has the hand scythe he made resting against the fence, ready to be put to use. Big Mac had chuckled at Doug's original twenty inch blade design and two handed staff, despite the claim that it would double as a Nightmare Night costume. Knowing the human, he would probably make one anyway, but the thought that some scarecrow with a larger than normal scythe would be frightening is somewhat silly. He had talked Doug down to the smaller, more easily wielded blade, especially since he planned on harvesting the field himself. 

"So, hoss, how much wheat flour would you normally get from a field this size?"

"A quarter acre, off one harvest? Maybe five hundred pounds of flour, after it's milled and all."

Doug nods, "And how much do you see here?"

Big Mac squints, turning his head to the side, "One hundred twenty or so, each. Bit more on the magic one, bit less on yours. Might end up a bit less on both, depends how much gets dropped on the ground."

Doug switches the wheat stalk to the other side of his mouth, "So, I do about as well as back home."

"So, it took ya how long to do this?"

Doug counts on his fingers, "Let's see, two hours to plow one quarter acre. Five months to grow, so might get two in a season if I found the right wheat, but lets stick with one harvest a year. It'll take, hmm, let's call it five hours to harvest the half acre."

Applejack raises an eyebrow, "That's pretty optimistic there, partner, for just starting off."

Doug shrugs, "Well, I'm new now, but I think I'd get faster as I got used to it, or made some better tools."

"Well, at least you ain't going to thresh it yourself, or mill it." Big Mac shakes his head at Doug's insistence on going through every part of the process. It helps him think through everything, though, so he isn't complaining. He did miss that part about taking less time overall on the other experiment, after all.

"Sure, but then I'd probably have to trade a portion, let's say half, to whoever does. So, I can plant an acre a day, maybe more if I push myself, but I'd have other chores than just plowing. I can only plant for four months, since it takes five months to grow and I've only got nine months of growing time, so I've got one hundred and twenty acres of farmland I can work myself."

"So, a twentieth of Sweet Apple Acres?" Applejack whistles, "That ain't bad, for a non-earth pony. Ah mean, you're just growing wheat, but still."

Doug nods, "So, one month off, then next four months I spend harvesting the wheat as it matures, and carting it to get processed and traded after. So, figure, two hundred forty pounds of flour that I end up with per acre, and one hundred twenty acres. Ends up with, hmm, just under twenty nine thousand pounds of wheat."

Big Mac does a quick calculation; using heavy weaves everywhere, eight months of work, thirty days a month, eight hour days, two hundred ninety pounds an hour, makes five hundred fifty six thousand, eight hundred pounds of wheat. Half of that if he is trading part of it to be milled. Just about ten times what the human made.

"And how much do you eat a year?" Applejack asks while Big Mac moves his own stalk from one side of his mouth to the other.

"Um, rough estimate, aiming high, call it two thousand five hundred pounds a year. For just me. So, by myself, I'm productive enough to feed twelve people."

Big Mac thinks to himself; growing apples isn't as 'productive', calorie for hour worked, as growing wheat and hay, but they don't need to mass produce calories. Taste is way, way more important for everypony. So they probably produce enough apples to feed forty ponies compared to one hundred twenty growing wheat. Well, that is per acre, and they can grow way more acres of apples than they can wheat. So maybe they do even out, but it could be cutie mark related.

"Is, uh, is that a lot? Ah mean, we grow a heck of a lot more than that, and that's mostly apples." Applejack shakes her head, "Ah don't see how you got your population got so large if that's all you're able to sustain. Ah mean, that's just food you're talking about, that's not counting housing, or weather, or medical bills, or all the other jobs ponies have."

Doug nods, "Yup. I mean, my old job, before I came here, I made about ten times what I would make if I was a full time farmer here. And that's not taking into account that not every field would perform this well; this is very high quality farmland. Most areas would make a lot less; you might see half of the population employed in farming in worse areas, or spots without as good tools. Like metal plowshares."

Applejack smiles at the complement, but frowns after, "So, then, how did humans get so numerous? And such varied jobs, if so many of you worked the land. Ah mean, you look at Ponyville, a farming community, and less than ten percent of us are farmers. At best; that's counting me, you, Big Mac, Granny, and Apple Bloom as working on this farm."

"Yup." Doug picks up a stalk of wheat, slowly pulling the grains off and inspecting them.

Applejack bumps Doug with her flank, "Ah asked you a question, partner."

"Oh." Doug looks up, "Well, we cheated."

Applejack raises an eyebrow, "Ah might need more of an explanation than that."

"Well, you know what animals are like, back where I came from, right?"

"Sure. Dumb as a fish. Nothing like us, or even Mary Joe."

Doug chuckles, "Yeah, it's definitely a little weird for me thanking the cow whose milk I'm drinking. So, we would use oxen, or horses, or whatever animal is available to do the plowing for us. Feed and take care of them, of course. That was the way of things for a lot of people the world over. Would probably be, let's say, twice as good as I did. Maybe only half again, counting the extra cost of the animal. And it's way easier for anyone to farm, because you don't have to be as physically fit as I am. You probably still would be, from all the work you're doing. But it wasn't until later that the real innovation happened."

"And what's that?" Applejack laughs, poking Doug in the side with a hoof, "You breed some sort of, Ah dunno, super horse?"

Doug chuckles, "You could say that. Mechanical horse, called a tractor. Think of... think of a unicorn come to life spell, right? Makes it turn on its own. You could hook up one, two, maybe even ten plows to one tractor. Plow ten feet at a time instead of one, and at three miles an hour or more, for as long as you care to plow."

Applejack raises an eyebrow, "You're saying you, with one of these here 'tractors', could plow more'n ten times as fast as Big Mac on a good day? And do it all day long?"

"Eeyup." Doug flicks the wheat he is holding away from him. "Had a similar machine for harvesting, called a combine. Because it combined reaping, threshing, and winnowing, leaving only the grain with the machine and everything else being left on the field. Then, you could go over it with a baler to make hay bales, if you wanted to keep all the stalks and whatnot. Or just plow it under if you didn't, and start the next crop. Some machines even planted as they plowed. So, the pinnacle of human engineering, and we're as good as a bunch of magic ponies." He winks at Applejack as she rolls her eyes, "Well, I better get started on this. Remind me when I'm done to never try something like this again." Doug grabs his scythe, walking to the field to begin cutting.

Applejack moves a little closer to Big Mac, "No wonder you're so interested in getting a unicorn of your own." Big Mac stares at Applejack, his expression unreadable as she continues, "Ah can see it now, old Big Mac sitting on top of some sort of tractor. Only part of him that moves is his hoof, slightly to the left, slightly to the right, just guiding it along." She snickers at the thought, not noticing Big Mac's increasing grin.

"Well, Sis, maybe you'll get another unicorn in your herd, too. Ah can see it myself: all the apples in the apple trees, magically pulled from the branches" -Applejack gasps in horror- "And set into one basket so large even Ah can't lift it." Applejack winces, "Then, she just levitates it over, dumping the contents into boxes, and they get sorted as they roll down." Applejack holds her hooves over her head, sinking to the ground, "And they don't even bruise, because she's got such a careful hold on the apples. In fact, Ah think she'd treat them with more care than you do."

Applejack wails, "Stop, make it stop!" as she playfully beats her hooves against the ground.

"And it won't stop there, we need some giant conveyor belts that cart the apples where they need to go. And they'll feed straight into some big mechanical presses that make juice for us, and big engines that make cider. In metal cans, no less. And the remains will be already pulverized to some apple mush not fit for the pigs to eat, and we'll ship all that off as the pride of Sweet Apple Acres."

"Noo! Stop, Ah'll do anything!" Applejack flails around on the ground before Big Mac lightly pushes her with a hoof.

Big Mac sighs, "Ah'm joking, you know, Ah'm just getting back at you for implying me and Doug were an item. Ah'd hate for that to happen to us, too."

Applejack slowly gets up, smiling at Big Mac, "Ah know. Sometimes, though, Ah like it more when you don't talk so much. Actually, that might be true of Doug too. He tries, but it ain't the right way a lot of the time, you know? And I'm worried something might happen, even if the worst thing that happened here is just him wasting his time with trying to recreate something from back where he came from." She sighs, "Well, at least he enjoyed himself, a good break from the monotony of weather scheduling. Even if it didn't work out."

"Eeyup. Well, he did help me find a better way of growing wheat."

Applejack rolls her eyes, the two watching Doug as he goes from stalk to stalk.