Agriculture is the knowledge of growing crops and of managing everything on a holding that is not under the plough — pasture, orchard, coppice and wood. A character knows the plants native to their own country, can judge the condition of land and equipment, and can put a price on a standing crop.
In temperate country the principal crops are wheat, barley, rye, oats, vetch, hay and flax. The basic unit of land is the acre, roughly two hundred feet square. Beyond a cottage garden, holdings run something like this:
| Occupation | Acres | Occupation | Acres |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unfree: serf | 0 | Beadle | 15 |
| Unfree: cottar | 5 | Reeve | 30 |
| Unfree: half-villein | 15 | Freeholder | 65 |
| Unfree: villein | 30 | Yeoman | 80 |
Weather lore. Anyone whose livelihood depends on the sky learns to read it. An Agriculture test predicts the weather for the next four-hour watch — a Critical Success reaching 2d3 watches ahead — and the success level sets how good the forecast is:
| CF | MF | MS | CS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unknown | Incomplete | General | Specific |
A forecast covers three qualities. Temperature falls into six bands: freezing, cold, cool, warm, hot, sweltering. Precipitation is dry, showers, or continuous rain or snow, under clear, cloudy or overcast skies. Wind is a direction and one of five forces:
| WF | Force | Effect | kph | d100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Light | Leaves rustle | 0–8 | 01–15 |
| 1 | Moderate | Branches move | 9–24 | 16–55 |
| 2 | Strong | Treetops sway | 25–48 | 56–84 |
| 3 | Gale | Branches break | 49–88 | 85–99 |
| 4 | Storm | Trees uprooted | ≥ 89 | 100 |
For a given 3d4-hour period the GM may generate the windforce from that d100 column, and roll 1d12 for its quarter: 1–2 north, 3 northeast, 4–5 southeast, 6–7 south, 8–10 southwest, 11–12 northwest.
Wind force matters well beyond the farm — it is what decides whether open water can be swum, and Piloting, Seamanship and Survival all read the sky by exactly this procedure.