The White Council

Re: Did Elves Farm?

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: Elves eat, but I don't believe that they farm.

: They have gardens (Galadriel did), and they harvest food from : the wild. I would speculate that they have probably developed : some "magical" food production and processing capability - for : example, infusing lembas with nutrients and preserving agents.

Tolkien said they worked the fields. Maybe there was magic involved, maybe not.

: There are two reasons that I believe that Elves buy the bulk of : the food they consume from their neighbours.

That would have been difficult to do in the periods where they had no neighbors (especially for the Lorien Elves, who became so withdrawn they wanted nothing to do with outsiders -- I doubt any food caravans went rolling into the woods every week).

: First, pre industrial farming is labour intensive and dirty. : Would Elves spend hours shovelling manure? If they had to, : perhaps, but not gladly. Also, while Elves are not : vegetarians, the idea of Elvish butchers with their aprons : covered in blood seems inconsistent with the Elvish image : presented in LOTR. It seems likely that Elves wouldn't want to : run pigsties and slaughterhouses, if they could avoid it.

I don't see why Elves wouldn't gladly spend hours taking care of their fields. If that means shovelling manure, that means shovelling manure. Surely you don't think the Noldor came up out of their mines completely clean and glistening? The Elves got down and dirty whenever they needed to.

As for Elven butchers, someone had to do the slaying and preparation of meat. They obviously had no problem wading through the blood of Orcs, Trolls, and Men in wartime, so why should they care about wading through blood in a butchery?

LOTR's Elves do what is necessary to live. You don't see any butchers in Bree or the Shire, so why should we assume they are there, except for the fact that Men and Hobbits eat meat.

: Second, they don't need to farm, because they can buy whatever : they want with the sale of Elvish goods and services. The : Elves certainly possess a lot to sell, including: a vast : treasury of precious metals, jewels, advanced materials; : valuable weapons and tools; extensive historical and : geographical information; advanced medical, metallurgical and : agricultural technology; lore; and current news gathered by an : extensive intelligence gathering network (comparable in : coverage to Sauron's, I would imagine).

The Elves certainly engaged in trade, but they mostly traded with the Dwarves in Beleriand (there wasn't anyone else to trade with for the equivalent of thousands of years). And it was the Dwarves who didn't like to farm or raise their own food. I'm pretty sure the Elves were the ones who raised the big crops in Beleriand. And Cirdan's mariners seem to have spent a fair amount of their time fishing. At the very least, they provided pearls to the other Elves.

But Elvish clothing and weapons were not common among Men. Tolkien makes that clear in several places where such adornments are treated as unusual gifts to mortals.

: The Mirkwood Elves traded with their neighbours. Rivendell, : Lothlorien and the Havens probably did as well, but on a : smaller scale, since they weren't close to major settlements.

: So, in short, I would argue that Elves probably didn't farm.

I'm afraid Tolkien disagreed with you. He said they did. This whole debate is really pointless. The manner in which they would farm would be a more worthwhile discussion. That's an open book.

Did they sing their crops into good health? How did they harvest them? (The lembas corn was picked by hand, but Tolkien seems to imply other crops were harvested with tools.)