How could Agriculture in a forest kingdom (landscape is mostly forest) look like?

The thread is clearly about a fantasy setting where such a thing as a forest kingdom could exist, so why don't you stop wanking Veeky Forums on Veeky Forums and come up with something that sounds believable enough for a game? There's no point in nay-saying jsut for the sake of it, you autists.

Here's a thought, OP. Assuming the kingdom doesn't have magic to make every tree provide sustenance regardless of species, have they had any kind of influence over what grows in the land and where? If they're the ones planting the trees (or otherwise growing them or able to change their placement easily or some such) they could be going for agroforestry.

Agroforestry is where you plant trees and shit around crops. There's some pretty good evidence to it helping with fertility and yields, and has the benefit of looking sick as fuck.

I mean he didn't really specify, I provided historical examples as well hey they're there and can be handy. But, yeah if he wants to go full on fantasy with it that's perfectly doable as well. Likely you'd see a very parkland like environment where the understory is well kempt but designed with a mind towards animal species that are easy to hunt while keeping it relatively predator free. You'd also likely see magically engineered plants that favor certain portions of trees and are carefully grafted so as to encourage maximum yield. Hell you might see species of tree that produce multiple species of fruit all from one plant(though we do have these actually). or even specialized species that are cultivated to produce alchemical resins and saps useful for potion making.

It would like areas of farms in clearings where the trees were chopped down.

Scandenavia is pretty much that.
It would essentially just be large patches of farmland laid around roads and cities and then just huge walls of "100 people a year dying in there" forests.

>muh cleared forests
Guys, just fucking stop.

>Scandenavia
>Forests
>Cleared
Nigger the country is like 90% forest what the fuck is your malfunction?

This has been said before, but OP SPECIFICALLY asked for "agriculture within a forest". Not around it. Not instead of it. IN a forest.

I mean is a small clearing of land not considered part of a forest?

If 90% of the country is forest, then wouldn't those small clearings of farmland also be considered part of the forest?

Take a chill pill, baby! These guys are just using historical evidence to provide a good framework for an agricultural society based near forestry. The only way a purely orchard-based agriculture could survive is if the setting added fruits that could fit the same industrial niches as cereals and textiles, which wasn't specified in the OP.

He said in a forest kingdom, first of all.

2nd of all the most efficient way to farm is just going to be to clear land no matter what, otherwise you're not going to be able to support a real civilization. Even if you're going to plant orchards and use trees for food, you still clear an area first.

Any other solution is going to be pure fantasy which no one needs help making up.

Silk floss trees and Coconuts/Almonds/Acorns for flour could work. Silk floss isn't as high quality as cotton, but it can work for a medieval society and you can still have silk without crops.

That's my two cents.

Siviculture, they just use trees that produce nuts and fruit. Look at Polynesian examples, coconuts and breadfruit trees balanced with seafood.

Slash-and-burn farming probably would be common, with communities living semi-nomadic life farming one spot until its ground is exhausted at which point they look for another area to burn and farm, rinse and repeat until the population size grows too large to rely on such farming methods and settles down in permanent farming communities along the rivers/other major waterways. These slash and burn farmers might also keep lifestock that can survive on their own/with minimal oversight in the woods, but they might rely on fishing/hunting to get the necessary proteins in their diet.

There's no reason for people to leave in a forest, unless they're magical. And if they're magical, they could probably make it on the moon too.

The dearth of creativity in Veeky Forums made apparent. Motherfuckers thinking of ways to burn the forest kingdom to make place for farmland instead of sparing a second's thought to preserving the fact that it's a forest kingdom for the setting's benefit.

And if they're magical, what would stop them from becoming gods?

Native Americans semi-cultivated the entire eastern forests.

It wasn't as intensive as clearing land and planting fields. They just selectively culled trees that didn't produce fruit or nuts, and planted and encouraged ones that did. They also preferentially hunted animals (birds especially) that would eat the nuts and fruit before they could.

The result was hundreds of miles of forest that you could just walk through and be confident you could find dinner. Nuts everywhere, different fruits and mushrooms in different seasons, plenty of wild game. It wasn't "living in harmony with nature" so much as distributed agriculture.

You are must be very delusional narcisist to believe your 'Lol magic' is creative at all

You mean the humans in your setting know how to light a fire? What's stopping them from driving cars ayy lmao.

You people are a fucking pest

Semi-nomadic slash and burn culture is more interesting than muh harmony with nature hippie shit that tends to happen with forest kingdoms.

Which one of those comments is 'Lol magic', user. I dare you to fucking quote from mine, where I specifically block off that explanation. You uncreative mongoloid.

Gracias

To continue this line of thought, there are a couple things people rely on agriculture for. Food, clothing, shelter.

For food you need protein, fat and vitamin C. Carbs aren't actually needed but are probably easier. So a nut tree, a coconut or other sugar tree, and something like cabbages that produces vitamin c would work.

For clothing bark cloth is a thing, but in a fantasy world giant spiders raised as guard dogs whose silk is harvested would work great.

Finally you need shelter, which is actually hardest as it takes a lot of wood to build houses and shit. Giant spider web houses would work but be creepy as fuck, while more naturally you could have the native trees have high root structures that people simply live under the trunk of.

Whatever you say, delusional narcisist. You have not a bit of creativity over us.

Nobody asked for hippie shit. If you can't come up with a forest kingdom that isn't some hippie's wet dream then that's your problem. Slash and burn semi-nomads don't make a forest kingdom. Stick to the thread's question or go make your own.

If realism matters to you at all then you are essentially looking at slash-and-burn agriculture like describes.
In this system the people who are nominally in charge of the kingdom would have very little power over the forest agriculturalists because they move around often, are often hard to reach, and produce very little which the kingdom can tax.

I'm the delusional narcissist? Aren't you the one who thought they saw "Lol magic" in the three numbers you quoted?

delusional
dJˈluːʒ(ə)n(ə)l
adjective
characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder.

>Agroforestry
And while you pretend to ignore magic how comes these not very developed people know and master 'agroforestry' to be productive enough?

Refer to a more fantastical take on things. I went the easy route first because yeah Im a lazy fuck.

>I'm the delusional narcissist
Yep, you are one loud delusional narcissist who insults everyone else, thinks he is somehow very fucking creative and the best shit since sliced bread.

Hey faggots, this user has it.
Rather than repurposing the land outright, just encourage what is already there.
If there is a burgeoning kingdom within a forest, that forest must have already had strong food production. Bolster that, combine it symbiotic farming techniques such as in and underground farming, and OP's question is solved.
Why are you all being such cuntwaffles about this?

slash and burn

>edible mushrooms, edible mushrooms everywhere
>edible berries
>edible fruit trees suitable to the climate (apple and cherry trees in cold climates, bananas and coconuts in warm climates)
>trees with edible nuts, pine trees (break the pine cones) oak trees, maple trees, (slice up and boil acorns and maple seeds to remove tannins to make safely edible) coffee trees, chocolate trees, etc.
>lots of fruit/vegetables that can take advantage of all the trees to climb such as peas, beans, passion fruit
>crops that don't give a shit about whether they are planted in the middle of a flat open acre or not, such as pumpkins/melons, peanuts, strawberries, etc.
>crops that do well in/along stream and riverbeds, such as water chestnuts, cattail reeds, etc.

>How could Agriculture in a forest kingdom (landscape is mostly forest) look like?
It won't be mostly forest for long

Who said they're "not very developed"? Because it's a monarchy it's got to be run by retards? Or is it because it's mostly forests that it can't have any sort of heroic genius figure out how to grow crops between trees and trees between crops? Anons on Veeky Forums don't have to justify our creative output to an uncaring universe, just to humans with a capacity for suspension from disbelief. As long as what I come up with is internally consistent it's more than workable, and if it makes for a better fictional setting then that's a good thing. Stop screeching autistically at fantasy in a traditional games board.

Fruit and nuts harvested from trees cultivated as to keep an area wooded, but controlled. They would often be dried and/or preserved for storage. Fungiculture would be a big contribution to the diet. Instead of pasture grazing game would serve as the primary meat. Any meadows or open space in the kingdom would be dominated by growing your starch of choice.

Fellow agricultural folks! Here's a great idea... Let's settle in a forest! Yes, the forest. Not the plain right next to it where it would be easy to practice our main form of sustenance, just straight in the dark middle of it where the bears shit.

Can someone explain why Canada is full of trees?

Certain trees do help replenish the soil and add nutrients into it. I think poplar trees are one of them. They are just like peanuts and beans in that they replenish nitrogen in the soil they are planted in.

Other trees form symbiotic relationships with beneficial fungi, which also enriches the soil. And to top it off some of the fungi create edible mushrooms, such as chanterelles.

Chanterelles are ridiculously expensive IRL. So in a fantasy setting I could easily see a forest kingdom making themselves rich off of protecting their forests, thus protecting their magical fungi, which they can sell for ridiculously large amounts of silver and gold to wizards/alchemists/filthy rich elite.

>Who said they're "not very developed"
If they live in forests without clearing them out they don't have industry, cities, productive farms and other stuff associated with development. And civilizations started in fertile regions because surplus of food was necessary for further development. In your case it somehow jumpstarts straight to 'agroforestry' bypassing the necessary phase where it could be figured out.
> it's mostly forests that it can't have any sort of heroic genius figure
Yep, that's basically 'Lol magic' right here as expected. Just heroic genius figure appears and pulls this gimmick out of your ass. And then it manages to spread and take root after he dies somehow. Yeah, you are in love with your idea but didn't think a step beyond it.

Same reason Siberia is full of trees.

Everything even remotely worthwhile is situated within 100 miles of US border, everything past that is woods, tundra, ice, and natives doing shrooms and drinking firewater.

Nothing worth looking for in the woods. Except timber and place to pee.

No one cares anymore.
OP got functional answers to his post, and you are screeching to the internet that it's not "realistic" enough for your liking.

You can make flour by collecting acorns and maple seeds, slicing them up, then boiling them three or four times to remove the toxic tannins. Afterwards let them dry out. Then grind them up just like wheat or corn. Certain native american tribes had entire orchards of oak trees.

Plus, with maple trees you can get the maple syrup.

And I am pretty sure you can use pine seeds from pine cones to make a peanut butter replacement.

>and you are screeching to the internet that it's not "realistic"
Now point out where I said anything about 'realistic', delusional narcissist. And you cared enough to quote lots of posts to screech at them for being not original enough for your taste.

Your assumption that I have posted in this thread before is cute, but wrong, while I can reliably wager that a number of the multiple posts bitching about OP's premise can be attributed to you.
Moving on.

For shelter, just build cob houses. All you need is clay, sand, and dry grass.

Cob houses that were built over 100 years ago IRL are still being used and lived within today.

Not even elves want to live *in* the forest, they're just being more ecologically responsible and have lots of green spaces inside their cities.

The only things that live in the forest, apart from the bears, are faeries and other unwholesome folk. Take redcaps, for example. They don't have industry, they don't practice agriculture and they don't really have a culture. Just stone weapons, rudimentary magic and desire to skin other living things and turn them into caps.

They're not rational agents, and they're not good people. Stay away from the forests.

>You're a delusional narcissist!
>You're in love with your idea!
>Don't you see slash-and-burn is the superior idea because it came from my brain????

Projection much. I'm the one inaccurately labeling it "Lol magic", as if even being similar to fantasy makes an idea trash from the get go? I googled agroforestry and quoted off the first result.

Go look in a mirror, user.

>bitching about OP's premise can be attributed to you
And your assumptions are wrong. I told the same thing as many other people about how people did it our world then some delusional narcissist started schreeching at us like autist.

That's pretty good.

You've been acting like a panicky retard this entire thread. People presented their ideas, other people presented theirs, and you've been howling to the night that the people presenting certain ideas are WRONG WRONG WRONG. This whole thread would have been better if you had just kept it in your pants and not tried to speak for the OP on the setting he wanted to make.

>Projection much
Nah, you are just a retard obsessed with his amazing idea of 'agroforestry'. Why don't you go kiss and hug another delusional faggot before he moves on, he must be loving your creativity.

You have as much self-awareness as a rock

...

Yep, apparently when you properly boil then roast acorns and maple seeds to make tea they can taste like chestnuts. Combine with a little bit of dandelion for the caffeine and you have an excellent RL replacement for coffee.

People in Europe did this during WW1 and WW2 when they couldn't get their hands on coffee.

>"Hey guys, I want to make agriculture and civilization in the woods a thing - "
>"NO, OP, YOU CAN'T. DISCUSSION'S OVER."

I'm the one who shat on the "it wouldn't stay a forest kingdom" people. That user isn't me. Don't shit on them.

I admit I could've been less confrontational, or just not participated at all, and that I escalated shit, but I think the thread would've been better off without the ritualistic anti-fantasy slant Veeky Forums worldbuilding has as of late.

Vertical farming perhaps?

Who are you quoting?

>"Hey guys, I want to make agriculture and civilization in the woods a thing - "
That's not what OP said. You somehow misunderstood him.
>How could Agriculture in a forest kingdom look like?
Or just fishing for (You)s, here you can have mine.

Is there room for cattails in this? I imagine you couldn't grow them under heavy foliage, but could cultivating them along rivers and such work? They're pretty good wheat replacements, too, aren't they?

>I'm the one who shat on
Nope, you are the one who started the shitfest. Shit on you and shame on you.

I want to make a non-amphibious totally underwater civilization of blacksmith mermen. No, they can't use underwater vents because they'd get boiled alive.

I can't really remeber if it was at the beginning or in the middle that they started cutting down a lot of woods but wasn't Germany very forested

Cattails seem like they'd be a cunt and a half to industrialize, but the thought of ricefields just full of cattails is weirdly cool to me.

Beginning of the Middle Ages is what I meant

This, or just do what the Mayans and Aztecs did. Find all the lakes and build giant floating rafts that you can grow food on.

This would be especially useful because you never have to worry about them dying during a drought, or the soil being depleted because it will soak up all of the nitrogen from the fish in the lake shitting and pissing.

Heck, that can be the whole reason WHY the surrounding land is all forests. The people figured out how to make superior large scale industrialized magical hydroponic/aquaponic farming that supplies all their needs as a self sufficient nation.

So they deliberately let all of their free land go wild for "rare delicacies" such as venison, edible mushrooms, nuts, berries, fur for cloaks such as wolf or mink, etc. etc. etc.

So that's basically what the rich and elite do, you're not a true noble if you don't own at least 30 acres all heavily planted with fruit or nut trees.

>people list various ways how humans have historically used woods in agricultural purposes
>one autist throws a shitfit because it is all too realistic for his tastes

Yup, they lost quite bit of the forest during the Middle Ages, bit of it grew back after the Black Death hit (mostly because farms abandoned) but over all Germany's forests have been in decline for centuries.

What would*

Yes, the best part is that there isn't a single part of the cattail reed that isn't edible. It just depends on what time of year it is. So if you eat the green parts then you can probably use them as a good source of vitamin C. Just like wild rose hips. HOWEVER, I am not an expert on cattail reeds, so I have no idea if harvesting them just for vitamin C is a worthwhile endeaver. I personally would just let them grow all year, then harvest their roots as a source of flour, or a potato replacement.

If you want a damn good source of vitamin C then research stinging nettles. They can have up to four times the amount of vitamin C that oranges do. The entire plant is edible even the roots, and you can grind their seeds up to make flour.

> Cut down trees
> Burn the stumps
> Grow crops in the ashes
> Move on after a couple of years, fell another section, burn, grow, move on
> Eventually move back to what's grown in the first area
> It's forest again.

Shit, that's the story with almost all of Europe. Didn't most of the Greeks and Romans get their leopards, lions, and bears from Europe for their gladiator fights? Before it was so deforested that all of the large predators died off due to starvation?

Isn't that why European crests sometimes have lions or bears as their emblem, even though none of those creatures have been seen in Europe for centuries?

>bit of it grew back after the Black Death hit (mostly because farms abandoned)
Coincidence or secret plan of the forest folk to take their lands back?

urbaniahoeve.nl/2012/06/hugelbedden-hugelkultur/?lang=en

Yeah, that or wattle would do. Gather up fallen twigs and glue then together for mad housing.

Also pigs would be a huge part of any Siviculture, as they were nearly always raised as a feral population that would be rounded up in winter times.

Lions used to live in Balkans, Spain, Southern France, Italy, Greece, Anatolia, and Caucasus. As far as I know leopards historical range has included Anatolia&Caucasus. As for bears those cunts are still alive and well in Eastern Europe but their range used to reach far longer in south and west than it does these days.

Oh fuck, I forgot all about pigs. Goats would do really well in a forest nation too. Seeing as how they are browsers, not grazers. Goats actually get sick if they eat nothing but grass or hay.

So you can have goats for milk and cheese, and then use pigs to replace everything else that you would use cows for. Up to and including leather. Pig leather is just as good as cow leather.

Not only that, but both goats and pigs would make an excellent clean up crew for all of the people's trash. Feed all your leftover table scraps that don't involve meat to your goats. Then feed all of your dairy/meat leftovers to your pigs.

Were they mountain lions like here in the U.S.? Or were they african/asian lions?

In England, the large predators were deliberately hunted to extinction, LONG before the forests were cut down.
IIRC, the last of the old-growth forests went into the trenches of WW1 as duckboards and props.

>IIRC, the last of the old-growth forests went into the trenches of WW1 as duckboards and props.
The old world died in WW1, how poetic

A subspecies of the African lion.

parasitical crops
imagine creeper vine or orchids, which steal their nutrients from the trees, while still having leaves up high enough to absorb sunlight.

So basically half of the ecosystem of the Amazon Rainforest.

No one newds help coming up with 'cut down the forest' either.

Seriously, it's like you came into a thread asking how farming for an underwater kingdom would work and suggested that farming would be much easier if the kingdom was on land instead.

exactly

Because Canada is empty and the Government owns all the land. All of it.

Underwater is mutually exclusive with above-water, they are vastly different biomes. Fish people who can't breathe air are not going to till land and plant potatoes, but forest people just have to leave or get rid of forest to do so.