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Originally Posted by tore
Does arable mean land suitable for growing vegetables?  I've never seen that word before, but from context, it seems a likely assumption.
Not much of Norway is suitable for growing vegetables. I did check up on some numbers, but that was a long time ago. Without modern fertilizers, I guess it must've been even harder. We have a lot of rocky mountainsides and the like where certain sheep and cows do well, but where it's very hard to grow veggies. |
Yep, Tore, arable land would be suitable for growing vegetables. "Arable" sounds like something you'd do with a bull. Actually, that isn't far off, because early agriculturalists eventually often used livestock to pull plows...though to this day some agriculture depends only on human labor.
Wikipedia says:
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Arable land - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In geography, arable land (from Latin arare, to plough) is an agricultural term, meaning land that can be used for growing crops. It is distinct from cultivated land and includes all land where soil and climate is suitable for agriculture, including forests and natural grasslands, and areas falling under human settlement.
Land which is unsuitable for arable farming usually has at least one of the following deficiencies: no source of fresh water; too hot (desert); too cold (Arctic); too rocky; too mountainous; too salty; too rainy; too snowy; too polluted; or too nutrient poor.
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I'd say your rocky Norwegian mountainsides are *not* arable! Probably pretty hard to plow up there. Or on the tundra where the mites thrive.
