Anarchotech Tuesday: Miller's Earth

[u/OceansCarraway]

The people of Aelbaion are have been taking their waste disposal fairly seriously for a little bit, in accordance with the Great Charter's codification of environmental protection 'laws' that required that water be protected and the Common Lands be replenished. All of this management and organization of dung and urine has made it possible for them to produce fertilizer at something like scale. This fertilizer was typically a mix of cleaned up dung, mixed with compost and some urine, and then applied to the field by plowing it under. For a few hundred pounds, the sweat of serfs suffices, but for large volumes, the Aelish would need to turn to the forces of nature to do their work. Turn they did, moving to wheels and pounding hammers and reciprocating beams moving up and down. Furthermore, by using a few tricks from the Rai, they were able to avoid overstressing the gearing in very torque heavy applications. There'll be more on that later.

By now, the ratios compost, proofed dung, and urine are well known. Making it in a mill just requires using specialized machinery that can be built with a couple of months of thought and some deft measurements. Forcing the compost through an array of rising and falling beams aerates it; a steadily rotating shaft serves as a crude timer, dispensing a mixture of diluted urine at regular intervals. Manure is broken up by a longer section of reciprocating beams, then dropped into a mixer by a bucket on a rotating chain lift to ensure that it doesn't clump together too much. Mixing up the disgusting stew is fairly easy; taking a water wheel and putting it on it's side can yield a nice mixing apparatus; reinforcing the beam driving it and popping in the right gearing will get a suitable mixer. A trapdoor in the bottom of the mixing unit can be opened, and the contents dropped into a wagon. This is how fertilizer is made, according to the Aelish, and it covers the physical element of production.

The Earthmill, as the Aelish call the building that makes this fertilizer, uses primarily physical processes to produce it's end product. The component ingredients are mostly chemically unchanged, aside from some residual fermentation prior to processing. Compost is mostly mature, but not yet inert; urine has turned into a disgusting mass that we need not discuss further, and the manure has either been delivered after baking down or will be heated clean of microorganisms. The only thing that occurs is mixing; after which the nitrogen-carbon-microbe supplement will be delivered to the farm. Sometimes, however, there are extra additives. Potash is the most common, coming from the rare ashery that processes tree ashes; guano is more rare still. Both come from domestic sources; wherever a domestic source is available, an Earthmill has rapidly been constructed to make use of this.

Right now, the Aelish are not aware of the chemistry of their fertilizer much; they can simply tell that more is better. However, their is always an opportunity to improve by hiring alchemists and millwrights, and to improve the inputs of their materials, or their transport-questions for hired scholar-nerds. In the meantime, they are reaping the benefits of these 'stinking mills' in improved agricultural yields and better soil quality. Fertilizer, while only as industrially produced as you can with a water or wind-powered mill, is now available for the Aelish. This is a powerful weapon against famine, and an even more powerful backstop against instability. By banking on local sourcing of materials and local use of the end product, the Aelish have a direct economic engine against disruptions to the food supply-and other worries. No matter how halting their success is, they have made it into a triumph.

There is one footnote here that deserves note: that of Ser Saggittois. On his errancy, the knight became very familiar with dung and it's processing. The first earth mill was already operational by the time he arrived back-but he, with a massive chip on his shoulder, took the nearby mill to be an immense personal insult. He marched up to the Master Miller and demanded satisfaction by a duel. The Master Miller, not wanting to be run through, offered him 35% ownership on the spot. Recognizing that coming back from an errantry nothing but experience beating dung was not good for his future, Ser Saggittois grumbled and accepted. With this gentleman so involved, the earth mill became slightly clean, money and names washing away a little bit of the stench.

And that would lead somewhere mildly interesting...

[u/Cereborn]

Ugh, what a shitty post.

Well done!