Rural Ways was hiking in First Left Hand Canyon the other day. Many of the south and west facing slopes were covered with Oregon grape (Mahonia repens). Some of the patches were producing good fruit this year and Valerie mentioned that it would be nice to pick some for jam. Unfortunately, the berries are very small and it would take hours (days?) to find enough ripe fruits for even one batch of jam.This is the problem with living off the land today. Thanks to the hyper-specialization of the global labor market, as well as the super-efficiency of big agriculture, it is best to work in the office and let someone else produce jam. In one hour of specialized office work, Rural Ways can earn enough to fund a week's worth of calories; in one week of picking berries, Rural Ways can probably produce one hour's worth of calories.
I'm not really complaining. I mean, the level of physical comfort (not to mention luxury) afforded by labor specialization and industrial farming is phenomenal. It has produced wealth (and obesity) for hundreds of millions of people. Rural Ways surely benefits from this. But, on the other hand, it probably hasn't produced much Oregon grape jam, and I'm not sure where to find it at the supermarket.
Shortly after writing this, I was reading Shelley (no not that Shelley, his wife Mary) and discovered that her famous monster was well aware of the benefits of labor specialization: "I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist their labours. I found that the youth spent a great part of each day in collecting wood for the family fire; and, during the night, I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days. I remember, the first time that I did this, . . . I observed with pleasure, that he did not go to the forest that day, but spent it in repairing the cottage, and cultivating the garden."
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