Hello all.
There is a cave in Moria, with farming fields. Basically there are farming lots with grey bushes and red berries. There is no light source in the cave. I'll post several points on why I think this is not okay, and I'll explain alternatives to food resources.
- Every plant needs sunlight.
Every plant needs sunlight. As said above, there is no light source in the cave. Do all plants really need sunlight? Yes. What about mushrooms? Mushrooms are no plants (Plantae) but Fungi. Mushrooms also don't need sunlight, they can grow with almost zero light. (Sun)light does significantly increase the growth though. But anyways, we weren't talking about mushrooms but about crops. All crops (plants) need sunlight. The sun sends energy in the form of photons to the chlorophyll, which turns the energy of the sun, carbon-oxide and water into oxygen and glucose. You all probably already know this, and that it's called photosynthesis, but there are several problems in Moria that would obstruct this process. The necessary carbon-oxide is not a problem, there would probably be a lot of CO
2 in Moria, because of the lack of plants and the forges. The needed energy from the sun however, would cause a major problem and would make it
impossible to grow
any crop in Moria. There is no air hole, so a natural light source is not in question. Even if there was a hole, it would not nearly provide enough light to effectively grow any crops.
Now some people will say: what about fires or the crystal chandeliers? Light comes in different waves and the wavelength of sunlight is unique. Every plant on earth has adapted itself to it. The wavelength from fire is very different, and the light of the crystals would definitely have been different as well, so that's out of question as well. The crystals or fires would not have provided enough light anyways.
2.
Soil
This issue would not be an issue as much as much as sunlight, but still it would make farming in Moria quite impossible. As kid you have probably grown cress in cotton wool. Cress is quite an exception, that it needs so little nutrients and minerals. But it still needs a soil to root in and that can hold water. Very few plants can grow on bare rocks, and no crops. In fact rocks are probably the most horrid places for plants to grow on.
But oh well, couldn't the Dwarves just have imported some sand from outside? Yes they could have. They wouldn't have a lack of water either. The issue here would be the nutrients. This problem could have been fixed as well though, by fertilizing the soil with dung from their stables. This would not be convenient, but not a major problem.
Now I will address some arguments I've heard from various people, supporting the idea of Dwarven farms.
"How would they get food then?"
This is a very good point, but Tolkien explained this quite elaborately. Wherever Dwarves settled, they always seemed to have set up an alliance with men (sometimes Elves and Hobbits) and even encouraged men to settle near their halls. Examples: Ered Luin (TA) with the Shire, Erebor with Dale (the Dwarves of Erebor even helped the Dalians to construct their town), Ered Luin (FA) with Elves of Beleriand, Avari and first men in Eriador. The Dwarves of Moria were mentioned having trading relations with many folks of the Vales of the Anduin, and later with the Elves of Eregion. So that is really the way the Dwarves got food, trading.
In “The Quest for Erebor” in
Unfinished Tales Gandalf notes that
Thorin dismisses the Shire-folk as “food-growers” who live on either side of the Dwarves’ ancient road. In another passage he admonishes Gloin not to mistake the hobbits’ generosity (in their dealings with Dwarves) for simple-mindedness or gullibility. In the essay “Dwarves and Men”, published in
The Peoples of Middle-earth, Tolkien noted that the Dwarves preferred to trade for their foodstuffs with neighboring peoples.
I will talk a bit more on this, and the problems that will come with this. What if Moria was under siege? Well the besiegers would not have a big chance, because the Dwarves of Moria were just too populous and too well armed, and had allies across Middle-earth. But still they could try to starve them out, right? Yeah, kind of, but then again, with a mighty charge out, the attackers would be screwed. But yes, there is a threat that the food supplies would be cut off for years. A solution to this would be laarge, hermetically sealed granaries. As Eriol pointed out a while before, wheat stays much longer good than ground flour.
So the Dwarves would want to store the grain as long as possible ungrinded, and they would also have large watermill complexes for the grinding, instead of importing already ground flour. In fact, the Fellowship thought it heard a water wheel turn in Moria, so this is even supported in the canon.
Another argument I heard is: "There were farms, he shouldn't doubt the planning. Every people had farming technology, even Dwarves."
I don't have much else to say to this than that I disagree. Not every people has farming technologies, the Inuit for example did not have farming techniques. This is not by lack of technology, like with some peoples in Africa, but by the impossible circumstances, just like with Dwarves.
I hope the people that the leaders of Moria (I'll @ you
@Despot666 @Finrod_Amandil ) will take this in consideration. If you agree with this, I think the fix would not be too great of a deal. The farming cave could become the wheat storage and the watermill complex could be planned in somewhere random.
