SD.Net in The Sea Of Time

[KrauserKrauser]

Agreed on the Amoeba and Duchess plan's being cold heartless and alarmist to the extreme. Saying hey we have a larger number of men to women somehow = time to adopt polyandry and kill off 90% of our own population would get them excluded from the conversation extremely quickly because as scientific as it may sound people do actually want to survive and not give up before even trying.

Anyway if in 10-15 years we're actually not finding any women to procreate with, then that plan can be adopted, it shouldn't be the first goddamn apporach we have.

Not only can we trade with the locals, we have the Toltecs, Aztecs, Olmecs, etc. that may suffer a 50% or so mortality rate from our diseases but should provide more than enough women for our needs. Yes, it's a bit cold but so is adopting polyandry and leaving most of our population to rot.

The 90-95% mortality rate figures I got were from 1491, a book looking into the Pre-Columbian North America and was for the entire colonial period. There was no immediate 90+% die off, it took hundreds of years for everything to cycle through.

Also, the trade networks that existed in the 14-1600's will not exist now as many north American cultures have not popped up yet. The Mississippian's for example will not be in existence for almost a thousand years and they provided alot of the exchance between South America and North America. For the most part I would expect the disease to stay relatively close to immmediate contact with us and not spread like wildfire as in OTL as the population density will be nowhere near the same.

[Stormin]

There's only one type of breeding stock I would want to risk a voyage to the old world for, horses. Unless there's a big horse breeding mill I haven't noticed googling Nantucket we will need additional stock because they will be so damn essential for long term plans. We will lose many advantages of thousands of years of breeding (horses of the time were pathetic) but if we can get local period horses to mate with ours we might have a useful animal even with the first generation.

On another issue does anyone know what the islanders use to heat their homes? Is it generally electrical heat, natural gas or heating oil? If it's oil then we can probably use proper fishing boats for the first few years for our winter fish supplies. It would mean having to send a lot fewer people out a lot less often.

[Alferd Packer]

Don't the viruses we're worried about need a reservoir to survive in between outbreaks? I mean, if we're socked in for the winter, we won't be in contact with the natives until the next spring at the earliest. Isn't that enough time for the flu work its way through the population? Won't it then disappear?

[Coyote]

It does seem disingenuous that a trip across the Atlantic and through Gibraltar to a place where there are actually organized governments with something worth fighting for get hailed, when a simple trip to the Caribbean is not.

The Caribbean is close, we can navigate off the coast, the islands are small and relatively contained. At worst we have to worry about the depth of the sea there, which can get as shallow as about 45 feet or so, which I think even the Eagle can clear and if not, we tow along some launches for close-in work. If we get in over our heads on any particular island, we use the motor to get away quick, outpace the local canoes, and back to the Eagle where bigger guns may be.

EDIT: and bear in mind, there is still a liklihood that the locals around may be perfectly fine trading freely with us, if not their own women, then those they've captured from other tribes in previous battles. Some steel axes and a few farm animals can probably net us a dozen or so nubile maidens.

Just remember, guys... razors and toothbrushes haven't been invented yet where we're at, so don't expect something from the pages of Elle or Vogue.

[PeZook]

The Caribbean is close, we can navigate off the coast, the islands are small and relatively contained. At worst we have to worry about the depth of the sea there, which can get as shallow as about 45 feet or so, which I think even the Eagle can clear and if not, we tow along some launches for close-in work. If we get in over our heads on any particular island, we use the motor to get away quick, outpace the local canoes, and back to the Eagle where bigger guns may be.

It's not that easy. The Caribbean is essentially a giant bay, and it has lots of shifting sanbars, shallows and coral reefs.

Map of coral reefs throughout the world

Reefs can shift, rise and drop rather quickly, while sandbars shift with varying speed, but often yearly. Especially in river deltas.

To add insult to injury, the Eagle is very heavy. So while XVIIth century explorers could beach their ships and pull them from sandbars and shallows with relative ease, if the Eagle runs aground, we're fucked (depending on how severe it is, of course), especially if the hull deforms.

The safest course of action would be to stick to deepest parts of the Caribbeans, and tow two or three yachts for landing parties to use. The Eagle would anchor somewhere, a decent distance from shore, while launches do most of the work.

Some larger sailing yachts could also easily sustain trips around the Caribbean with decent sized crews (hell, people have crossed the Atlantic in small sloops).

EDIT: and bear in mind, there is still a liklihood that the locals around may be perfectly fine trading freely with us, if not their own women, then those they've captured from other tribes in previous battles. Some steel axes and a few farm animals can probably net us a dozen or so nubile maidens.

I keep saying this, yet people keep talking about kidnappings and abductions and conquest

Hell, it's not even "buying" the women per se, since in primitive cultures it was the accepted way of doing things: you showed up, impressed the parents, gave gifts and made your pitch for why you should be the husband of their daughter, and they made the decision. So, as I wrote before, wooing the local girl shouldn't be particulalry troublesome, especially for our "wise shamans" and powerful warriors wielding thunder-sticks.

Just remember, guys... razors and toothbrushes haven't been invented yet where we're at, so don't expect something from the pages of Elle or Vogue.

I always wondered just how bad these aspects were

[Darth Wong]

Don't the viruses we're worried about need a reservoir to survive in between outbreaks? I mean, if we're socked in for the winter, we won't be in contact with the natives until the next spring at the earliest. Isn't that enough time for the flu work its way through the population? Won't it then disappear?

I was wondering something similar. It seems like you should be able to eradicate many diseases simply by quarantining sufferers until their immune system either fights it off or fails and they die. You can't do this on a global scale, but in a smaller community it seems like it might actually be feasible.

[Academia Nut]

As for razors and toothbrushes, I do believe that hunter-gatherers actually have very good teeth (its what our teeth evolved for after all) and access to things like green twigs to chew on a bit to make more fibrous then run over the teeth to clear away large particulates. Its the farmers who were eating large amounts of coarsely ground grain and carbohydrates that had bad teeth. As for razors, there were alternatives including sharpened shells and just plucking the hairs either with some form of tweezers or with waxes or the like. By the time we get around to trading we'll probably be the shaggy ones in need of a razor, because how many people here actually know how to shave with a straight razor?

Still, the Caribbean has one major issue that makes it somewhat less appealing than Europe: the tropical environment can support disease much more easily than temperate environments. Not that we won't go there, its just that until we have some quarantine colonies and a bit of a medical industry set up its best avoided as a first choice. If we can't get enough women locally and our intent is to keep from bringing back disease then we want to avoid tropical conditions and heavily urbanized areas, so Egyptian and Babylonians are probably out, at least at first. The majority of Africa, as the home of humanity and all of the lovely tropical diseases that like to prey on us, should be completely avoided whenever possible. Going for north-western Europe has the advantage that we can get stocks of not just women but horses, grain, cattle and other important agricultural goods that we can use to diversify our own crops and stocks to avoid destructive monoculture. As the only ones capable of making it across the pond, we could probably set up a damn nice trade network, moving goods between peoples who would otherwise have no idea the other even exists and would pay a premium for rare and exotic goods. We don't even need to use our own stuff, we could easily sell Olmec jade (cause they're about it for Mesoamerican civilizations on the Atlantic side at this point) for Indo-European bronze and gold, making a tidy profit off the exchange. That is of course waaaay down the line, but interesting to consider.

[Darth Wong]

If the island has a laser hair treatment clinic, we might be able to solve the female leg hair problem permanently. That stuff really works well, although it's most effective on lighter-skinned darker-haired (the high contrast makes it work better).

[Darth Wong]

Also, I'd imagine compared to the first Europeans that showed up in the Americas OTL we'd probably be a fairly healthy, disease-free lot, which I'd think would by itself help.

That's what I was getting at earlier. The early Europeans virtually stumbled off the boats, having lost a significant number of travellers to disease on the journey already. What the hell kind of shape were they in? I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them either.

[Academia Nut]

On the disease front, we may in fact be over estimating the impact, but here's an analysis of what we have working for and against us:

For-

*Relatively healthy population with the super lethal strains stamped out and most of the other dangerous strains like measels or mumps outside of our population as we'll have already gained immunity

*We know how to work a quarantine, so we can make sure people who go over to the mainland aren't overtly infectious before they leave

Against-

*Because of modern medicine we could be harboring pathogens capable of becoming deadly and not even realize it

*First contact will likely be before we know what's going on as people scouting the mainland for civilization stumble upon tribes of people before retreating again. We can't control that, and if one the scouts happens to have the sniffles or recently caught the flu, it could be problematic

*Assuming we get transported now, its flu season. Our flu has to deal with hardened immune systems, Tamiflu, quarantine, sanitary conditions, etc. These strands have been selectively bred to be sneaky and extremely hard to kill

*Second contact will likely be the natives coming over to see what the hell happened, which will be when we haven't sorted out our logistics yet and are still trying to figure out how to set up sanitation and get food distribution up and running, so any diseases already in our population will likely have spread out, but what to us is a head cold that is a pain in the ass for a few days will start killing people with no prior genetic history with it

So that's what we've got working for us. It's really not the stuff that we can control that will get us, its the random factors of how and when contact occurs, what pathogens are present in our population, and which ones of those can spread and turn into nightmares. Probably at a minimum we're looking at a 1/4 to a 1/3 die off rate unless we can keep first contact until after we have our shit in order and we can quarantine off any explorers before they leave to ensure that their systems are flushed of transmittable pathogens while keeping anyone curious in us off the island (or at least make sure they don't get back until they have been similarly quarantined). Of course, since we're arriving in chaos, we're basically playing Russian roulette here on what will happen, only the gun isn't pointed at our heads.

Incidentally, I have this image of other cultures seeing us as really superstitious and fastidious because our traders all wear face masks or veils and gloves and the like and don't like touching others or their goods without careful inspection.

[WesFox13]

Well, in this situation, I probably would first be looking for an axe to try to chop down firewood for heat and light as well as scavenge weapons for the MESS. Even though I'm only 21, I probably wouldn't be one of those "Anarchic Morons" who'll try to raid liquor stores and take advantage of the situation but try to work with the government that forms in out first weeks on the island. I also would go to the library to look for information for farming, engineering and electricity generation (For future use). I believe the best bet is to at least get some agriculture up and running at the island because the canned foods and refrigerated food only last for so long.

The idea of scavenging houses for their copper wiring is a good one, so we can make makeshift telephones/telegraphs for fast information sending, like in the example for an early warning system. I certainly hope that late in my life I'll possibly make some form of steam engine powered by wood or coal so we can get some kind of industry set up by the time our children are in adulthood.

[AdmiralKanos]

If we can make it past the rough early period, the trick would be that our technology is based on the tools required to make the tools required to make the tools required to make the tools. You have to start at a really basic level, and then work your way up. Before you can think about steam engines, you have to first find ways to build up a critical mass of personnel to do nasty things like mining ores by hand. Mind you, the presence of a small cache of pre-existing tools on the island would help in this regard. Then you need to set up filthy, hot, smelly operations to melt and purify those materials for industrial use. Again, this is going to be unpleasant. If we don't have access to large numbers of labourers to do this kind of work, it won't happen. Only after we have solid, reliable metalworking can we start thinking about things like power-generating devices, engines, etc. (apart from that which is already present on the island of course, or which can be cannibalized from components on the island).

Luckily, we have the advantage of already knowing in advance all the brilliant ideas that took thousands of years to figure out through trial and error, but that doesn't take away the necessity for ugly grunt-work. Even today, there is plenty of ugly grunt-work; we just isolate ourselves from it. If I order a fancy piece of aluminum alloy from a catalogue, it's just a mouse-click to me. To some guy in a mine, it's painful, difficult, toxic labour.

Therefore, the creation of a new industrial society would require (as unpleasant as this sounds) an exploitative labour arrangement with indigenous peoples. I suppose our first priority would be finding ways to help them increase their population, especially if it crashes due to our arrival. Needless to say, this would all be pretty long term.

I'd imagine our first contact with the natives would probably be due to both of us fishing the same waters. I'm not sure how to convince them to do dirty work like mining. Then again, the Mississipians built gigantic earthen mounds to glorify their tribal leaders (large enough that they are still recognizable geological features today), and that's far more pointless grunt work.

[Academia Nut]

Well, the work will be shitty, but it doesn't necessarily have to be exploitative beyond a certain point. The need for lots of grunt work is also another nail in the coffin for anyone wanting to kick people out, we're going to need as many grunt workers as possible to get industrialized. Better yet, we're going to need them as examples. Hunter-gatherers don't really get 'work days' so they make piss poor slaves, and if they know the area they will just run away given a sliver of a chance. Combined with the high die-off, those three reasons combined were why the Europeans brought over so many Africans, as I believe quite a number of them came from agricultural communities and thus got the idea that their owners wanted them to till the soil. Thus, if we want to set up mines or farms we need people to show the Americans the benefits of a work day through good pay and benefits or we're going to need to import European labour.

[Alferd Packer]

It's going to have to be a generational attempt. There's really no reason the metal already available on Nantucket couldn't last, with proper recycling, for fifty years or more. That gives us time to reshape the native culture--part of the reason I suggested we offer to educate the native children as part of a carrot-on-a-stick venture. We could introduce advanced methods of agriculture to get their crop yields through the roof and encourage them to settle more permanently nearby, set up a micro-hydro-powered grain mill for them, and as payment, they have to ship their kids out to Nantucket for a few months at a stretch(probably in the summer, so that they can be returned in time for the harvest, where we will feed, house, and give them as modern an education as can be afforded, as well as practical lessons in agriculture and other topics.

Through exposure to our culture, the native children will grow up to alter their native one. It may take decades, but we shouldn't need to be in a particular hurry. Eventually, the difference between our culture and theirs will be limited to a higher standard of living on Nantucket.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Also, I'd imagine compared to the first Europeans that showed up in the Americas OTL we'd probably be a fairly healthy, disease-free lot, which I'd think would by itself help.

That's what I was getting at earlier. The early Europeans virtually stumbled off the boats, having lost a significant number of travellers to disease on the journey already. What the hell kind of shape were they in? I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them either.

It depends on the diseases and what we can domesticate. We will need to domesticate some animals, and any chickens or pigs that are on the island (any wild fowl actually, like ducks) will carry some form of influenza. The natives just never lived in close proximity to them. Our flu strains will jump to these animals and have a reservoir unless we want to risk killing off large numbers of them.

Again, it all depends on what animals we have in our vicinity.

[Junghalli]

I'd imagine our first contact with the natives would probably be due to both of us fishing the same waters. I'm not sure how to convince them to do dirty work like mining. Then again, the Mississipians built gigantic earthen mounds to glorify their tribal leaders (large enough that they are still recognizable geological features today), and that's far more pointless grunt work.

I think we could probably work out some sort of labor for trade goods arrangement. "You give us X number of people who will do X amount of work for us and we will give you X goods." As I said before, with all the technology lying around on Nantucket and all the modern knowledge we'll have I'm sure we could come up with things that the 'temps would be want and willing to trade for. This leads into something I've been wanting to talk about, which is what we could use for trade goods. Here's what I can think of:

Simple high-tech goods: Things like metal knives which would could trade to societies that don't have metal-working, or just have metal-working inferior enough to modern that modern metal tools are seriously superior to anything they could make. Heck, I imagine some Mayan princes might pay rather handsomely if we could, say, melt down some scrap to make a couple of thousand shields out of modern metals for their warriors. Things like plastic bottles might be rather useful in a primitive society (stronger and lighter than a lot of the containers they use), and there should be tons of them lying around on the island.

Simple to implement concepts: I'm thinking there are probably more than a few things that the 'temps theoretically could make but simply haven't thought of yet, and we could trade the knowledge of how to make them. Stirrups, cowpox vaccine, and Archimedes screws are three that come to mind offhand.

Medical supplies: I'd be loath to trade these on any serious scale as they're probably in limited supply that we might badly need for ourselves, but modern medicines, surgery etc. as gifts to 'temp nobles might be a nice way to get on their personal good side. For instance, Ramses II would be ruling Egypt at this time and as I remember his mummy showed he had a pretty nasty infection in his mouth when he died. It would probably be worth something to him if we could cure that for him (of course, he won't die for decades after we arrive, so it'll be a while before we can take advantage of this and the infection may just be butterfield away by then).

Precious metals and stones: There are bound to be some on the island, but I don't know how much we could actually get for it, as I doubt we'd really have large quantities compared to what would already be circulating around the trade routes at this time.

Exotic delicacies and preserved foods: Assuming we don't eat all the preserved food on the island before we can establish other food supplies we may be able to trade our exotic foods and spices like Twinkies, Coca Cola, sugar etc. for stuff. I'd think anybody who had to travel long distances without assurances of resupply in an era before modern food preservation might be rather interested in getting their hands on some canned and other non-perishable modern foods, or even just vitamin pills ("have your men swallow one of these every 8 days and they won't get scurvy"). Long-run we may be able to trade stuff we can catch or raise in Nantucket to places where those foods don't exist. I remember there being mention earlier in the thread of manufacturing salt and selling that.

Foreknowledge: I figure there's bound to be certain things in our history books that concern events that will happen in the lifetimes of people alive during this period that those people would be interested in knowing about so they can change their outcomes.

Middleman trading: Since we have what at this point is the best ship on the planet I think we could probably have some success just acting as a middleman between different 'temp civilizations. I'm sure there are things in the New World that Old World people would be interested in having and visa versa, and if they want to get them for the moment we're the only pipeline.

Edit: while we're talking about how to organize labor, it might not be a bad idea if we could try to trade things for food from the 'temps. If Egypt could produce enough grain to be a large supplier to Rome then they should definitely be able to produce enough to feed a town of a few thousand people in exchange for the useful stuff we should be able to offer them (granted, the Roman period is over 1000 years after we arrive, but I don't think their farming methods changed all that much in that time - could be wrong about that though). If we can shift at least some of our food production elsewhere it will free up personnel to do other things.

Not saying Egypt would necessarily be the best place to get our food (the long ocean voyage required will be at least very inconvenient I would think), I'm just citing it because it's the example I'm most familiar with.

Also if we're planning to start serious long-distance trade it would be helpful if we could have more than one ship capable of serious ocean voyages. If they could build ships capable of crossing the Atlantic with 1500s technology I'd think it should definitely be technologically feasible for us to build a small fleet. Can anybody here comment on the feasibility of building more ocean-going ships with the resources we have access to?

[Academia Nut]

The only problem is that as mentioned before hunter-gatherers don't really get the concept of work for compensation. I'm sure we could get it across eventually, the problem is that you need to have agriculture before the concept of 'X amount of work for Y amount of reward' actually clicks. So we'd have to travel over to Eurasia or Africa or maybe to find people who we could show a farm or a mine or give them an axe and point them at some trees and they would get what we want of them. The North Americans would probably make better herders than labourers.

Although thinking about things, we really need to head off for Eurasia as traders within a year or two simply because all the good agricultural products are there. About the only really good crop available at the time in North America is maize, which while a good crop is also depleting to the soil in a monoculture arrangement and lacking in a lot of nutrients. And how many of the crops on Nantucket could we actually plant after harvesting? A lot of modern agriculture use specially bred or GM crops that are only good for one year.

[JonB]

To add to the above posts, any luxuries would be useful for trade. Once we go trans-atlantic, any supplies of perfumes and spices we could spare would be an excellent high-value/low-volume trade.

A quick query, how many of you have potatoes in your house right now? Not frozen or canned or instant, but actual potatoe spuds? As I recall, this would make a decent staple crop for us to cultivate.

Also - one of our more basic technological exports could be simple Iron working. Sure, places like Egypt and China are on the cusp of figuring it out themselves, but it's a case of something we can show them to do themselves. We would really need to keep gunpowder under wraps as best we can.

I now have the idea of forming the 1st Nantuket Mercenary Company, as a means of giving purpose to some of our excess population as well as an excuse to travel the known world. Supplies would be a bitch unless we establish a secure Medditeranian outpost. Perhaps one of the Agean islands?

[Junghalli]

The only problem is that as mentioned before hunter-gatherers don't really get the concept of work for compensation. I'm sure we could get it across eventually, the problem is that you need to have agriculture before the concept of 'X amount of work for Y amount of reward' actually clicks. So we'd have to travel over to Eurasia or Africa or maybe to find people who we could show a farm or a mine or give them an axe and point them at some trees and they would get what we want of them. The North Americans would probably make better herders than labourers.

I wasn't thinking of the local tribes but the people further south. Looking around Wikipedia the Olmec civilization was getting started around this time, and certainly there would have been sedentary agriculturalists in the area. I think there would have been agriculturalists in Peru too (we'd be arriving about 5-600 years after the end of the Norte Chico civilization), but reaching them would require a voyage through the Straight of Magellan or the Drake Passage, which the internets tell me are both difficult sailing (the Drake Passage having some of the roughest weather on the planet), so I wouldn't exactly be eager to send our only serious oceangoing ship with a mostly inexperienced crew on an expedition over there.

[Academia Nut]

The seas around Cape Horn, the bottom of South America, go all the way around the planet without encountering land, so waves and storms can just keep circling the planet, picking up energy and momentum, so trying to get around the Americas is probably a bad idea until a looong time after the initial arrival. Probably the only blue water sailing we'll be doing is scooting across the Atlantic, maybe, maybe after many years of such sailing going around Cape Horn to head for China or India.

As for potatoes, good call, although the trick will be to actually realize this before people start eating them, especially since the amongst first thing people will eat will be uncooked vegetables, so managing to catch enough to make a good crop could be tricky. Of course, that makes our primary crops likely to be maize and potatoes early on. We'll need to diversify.

On the agriculture front, while many of us will only have vauge ideas about how to do agriculture before the modern era, there are a couple of really simple ideas that will give us a massive leg up. The top three would be the horse collar, steel plough, and proper crop rotation. These three helped turn England into the most productive per capita farmland at the end of the 18th century. Add in all the additional knowledge and once we get our agriculture going we should be able to support ourselves. Of course, part of the diversity of crops necessary to make this sustainable and productive will probably require a bit of poking around the planet first.

[Junghalli]

On the agriculture front, while many of us will only have vauge ideas about how to do agriculture before the modern era, there are a couple of really simple ideas that will give us a massive leg up. The top three would be the horse collar, steel plough, and proper crop rotation. These three helped turn England into the most productive per capita farmland at the end of the 18th century. Add in all the additional knowledge and once we get our agriculture going we should be able to support ourselves. Of course, part of the diversity of crops necessary to make this sustainable and productive will probably require a bit of poking around the planet first.

Is long-term food self-sufficiency really desirable though? I mean, yeah it'd be something we'd want to be able to do if we had to, and maybe something we'd need for the first years, but as I said if we could trade other stuff for food it could free up personnel to do other stuff.

How much freight could the Eagle carry anyway?

[Academia Nut]

Long term food self-sufficiency is what makes or breaks cultures. If we have to import everything then any disruption to those imports will kill us. Not that we'd be doing our primary farming on the island, most would happen on the mainland, but the sooner we have a wide variety of crops that we can grow the healthier we and our agriculture will be. Remember that the primary mode of agriculture in North America will still likely be slash and burn, with the crops depleting the nutrients returned to the soil by the fires within a few years and the people having to pick up and move to a new site to avoid the land becoming so nutrient depleted that their agriculture collapses.

A trip around the North Atlantic after say the first year or two could be important to:

1) Gather up a diversity of plant and animal species to improve our agriculture
2) Get some of the wanderlust people out off the island but away from any immediately nearby groups we might need to be friendly with later in case they cause trouble when away from civilization
3) Obtain the all important more women
4) Serve as a propaganda piece. The crew will only be the most well trained and motivated just to make the trip sane, and when they come back they will have rare goods and stories to tell, and some might have women. It would really encourage the people who are still only barely pulling their weight (cause anyone who isn't pulling at least their own weight will have probably starved by now) to try and work harder so they can reap the rewards of trade.

As for how much cargo the Eagle can carry, probably at least a few dozen tonnes, likely more. The more experienced nautical types could tell what is most likely for a ship that size. Basically it can haul a pittance of what we could probably need or want, but it can move faster, further, and haul more than any other ship in the world at this time.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Agreed on the Amoeba and Duchess plan's being cold heartless and alarmist to the extreme.

Um... What sort of plan did I propose?

[Academia Nut]

I'm thinking that KrauserKrasuer got you confused with Alyrium there Amoeba, since he was the one advocating kicking about two thousand people off the island to starve to death. The biologist in him at work.

[KrauserKrauser]

Yeah, definitely got that confused there, sorry about that.

There are multiple small farms on the island and many of which likely emphasize the sustainability of thier growing habits. Potatoes, Corn, Tomoatoes, Berries, Apples, and on and on are more than likely available on the island, not counting what can be found on the mainland.

Something as simple as the few backyard gardens which must be all over the island can likely be used to provide the basis for further agriculture. I'm betting there are even some greenhouses that may provide some species that would normally survive the island temperatures.

We'll have limited stockpiles of modern fertilizer and treasure troves of gardening techniques in basic gardening books more than likely some of which will be specific for the island growing conditions.

I still say that any expansion should first be made to the New York island area. Historical accounts make this area to be absolutely amazing in growing conditions, weather and abundance of oysters and game.