Originally Posted by
Velo Vol
Why would anyone leave a field fallow for 25 years? Or even five years? Even if you had a huge amount of land and could afford that, it would become all overgrown again.
That's the point. Store up all that nutrition in the plants and trees. Then when you come back and slash and burn it, the ash is highly concentrared. Enough for two seasons. With low population density it works beautifully.
Slash and burn 101