Reply #11: Farming in the soil of North America? [View All]

[RaleighNCDUer]

They had no experience farming at all. They were city folks. Religious nutcases who were craftsmen and shopkeepers, who had just spent ten years living in the most industrialized mercantile city in the world, Amsterdam. They had no idea what they were getting into.

And, btw, they were living communally because they were trying to model the original christians and their communal enclaves. The "no work, no eat" rule was probably aimed at the pilgrims who spent their days reading the bible instead of trying to learn how to survive - which is why so many of them didn't.