Stories of Arda Home Page
About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search

The Purple Path  by Dreamflower 1 Review(s)
LarnerReviewed Chapter: 16 on 4/21/2017
I added in both trade and farm partnerships in which various entrepreneuers were able to raise capital to help fund their new businesses or make larger purchases such as new plows, draught animals, or additional farmland by receiving grants from investors, either known or secret, who would receive dividends in either funds, products, or foodstuffs until they were bought out by those in whose enterprises they'd invested. A northern farmer who raised sugar beets might purchase farm shares in a pipeweed plantation and receive a certain number barrels of cured pipeweed per year, while those who owned the plantation might reciprocate and receive so much sugar in return; a carter might purchase a new wagon due to investment from one who manufactured furniture, and repay it by providing so much cartage per year, and so on.

But I DO love Carlo's mercantile business!

Author Reply: I love the additions you've always made within your Shire, showing the hidden side of the Shire economy, and I've no doubt that in mine, much of this occurs as well.

The barter, especially, is something that would go on in any agrarian society, but I also like the hidden investors you have in your Shire--I do hint a bit at that with some of the things Bilbo did--particularly with his dragon gold after returning from Erebor.

I first thought of that idea when I wrote "Pippin the Protector"; I needed a shop where that sort of encounter could take place, and it was fun to think up a backstory for the Brownlocks' stores.

Return to Chapter List