"Mile upon mile of small fields, all arable and all bursting with fertility are partitioned up by tall, well-maintained hedges. Narrow lanes, shaded by oaks and birches, wind like serpents through the farmlands to form a network of thoroughfares more torturous than a labyrinth. They pass through numerous small farmsteads, though occasionally enough buildings are clustered in one place to demand it be called a village. Regardless of the foreground, the atmosphere is invariably of complete peace. No-one shouts, no-one bawls, no scenes rise up to shock the senses. The most jarring detail might be a skylark trilling endlessly high above, or it might be the anxious lowing of cattle awaiting fodder. Two miles away stands the Triple Cities, the most over-developed and congested area the world has ever seen and here... Here is peace and stagnation and sheer tedium and nature, astonishingly, being left alone to quietly follow its own patterns.
"And this is a complete illusion. The Dorlafan Central Plains are a long swath of flat arable land between the Brail and Balaway rivers stretching down to the coast. It is also the area which, in all Teraf, has been covered the thickest by the pitch of humanity. Crops are planted, cultivated, harvested, stored, sold and transported with military precision. Fields are rotated so regularly that they must feel giddy from the whirl. The soil is fertilised fanatically with compounds of natural and herbal products which are the products of centuries of research, each substance carefully selected for crop, climate, soil type and a host of other variables. Surplus produce is bought by local authorities, stored in huge corn barns and scientifically distributed to the poorer farmers. When the floods come the water runs off the fields via drainage channels and is stored in brick pits underground, to be used during the dry summer months. Even the mighty monsoons are combated by damage limitation measures more energetic than an Emissary whose private life has been leaked to the newsheets. Strange beasts stalk the fields, contraptions which resemble great iron boxes placed on wheels. They cut corn or thresh crops with tools which are suspended on metal arms and driven by a fantastically complex arrangement of springs and coils. (Though the boxes themselves are pulled by the simpler mechanism of two big oxen). The whole land is engaged in warfare against the land itself - part of mankind's endless, much-vaunted struggle against the whims and caprices of nature, of his fight to bring his fate into the hands of he and he alone. A whole church, that of the god Garrath, largely bases its theodicy on this battle. Garrath is strongest in Christoté, especially Dorlaf, because it is here that mankind seems closest to victory.
"The new lords of this kingdom are the small farmers. The patchwork collection of tiny fields aren't born from agricultural considerations. They reflect odd state of affairs whereby most of those who work the land own what they work on. First created by the great class struggles of the 1000's, this has been kept in place by a kaleidoscope of legal statutes and a perpetual wielding of the power which general enfranchisement and prosperity brings. The plight of the small farmer was the issue which sparked off the class conflicts; and if their ability to now survive comfortably and with dignity looks a little prosaic compared with the battles and wholescale socio-economic restructuring of the Garreday Uprisings, they are still models of inspiration for workers everywhere. And the system on the Central Plains is certainly effective in its own way. Human nature being what it is, each small farmer wants more than they have, and because land ownership quotas mean they can't acquire more fields, they try to get more money. And how, by increasing the effectiveness of their crops, by adopting the newest farming methods, by maybe clubbing in with a neighbour to buy a new piece of machinery. As their livelihood depends on their farm there is none of the arrogant disregard shown by larger estates elsewhere; and as it also is the livelihood of their descendants, the future is always planned for and development isn't confused with over-production. It's not perfect, but then that's a national motto: "It's not perfect, but..." "
(from City Hobgoblins)
"The Central Plains village plan - who needs more than one? There is a square square, with a paved area for markets on days other than today, a stream mumbling down one side, a horse rail and trough and a conical-roofed Garran altar little taller than a man in the very centre. Around the square are several stone cottages, all identical, several two-story half-timber houses, ditto - except one cottage has a sign proclaiming it to be a Herbalists and General Store, and one of the houses has a sign announcing its existence as an inn. A big barn a short step down one road calls itself a smiths and another up another road calls itself a Church to Garrath. A few more cottages straggle along the four lanes which meet in the square, but each row of housing frankly gives up before long. And that is about all you get from your Central Plains village." "The average Central Plains cottage has a large vegetable patch at the front and either a bigger patch or a few animals at the back. There are tidy stone walls, a neat, unassuming facade, a holy sign above the door and flowers standing in the window boxes. They are owned by semi self-sufficient labourers, the respectable rural poor who are one step down from the small farmers. The income from their busy little gardens is supplemented by wages earned on the land of farmers such as Saska Fletson, by small domestic industries and by government poverty vouchers." (from City Hobgoblins)
"The Dorlafan Central Plains lie in the heart of the province. They run from the Elsey border in the west to the shores of the Eastern Ocean, bordered by the rivers Balaway and Brail to the north and south. When Christoté wants to boast to foreigners, and Christoté does so often want to boast to foreigners, it describes the Plains in great detail. Fertile arable lands for centuries, their yield was increased still further by a series of agricultural innovations which began in the 1200's. Though predominantly wheat fields - they are nicknamed "The Breadbasket of the Cities" - a large variety of crops and fruits are grown on the flatlands. The Plains, together with the Cities themselves, are the foundations of Christoté's considerable economic prowess.
"Kenner and Calli strode quickly down a lane which was flanked by two high hedgerows. Until the lane met the Mellertang Way they saw or heard no-one else. Kenner wasn't surprised; he thought he'd seen a total of twenty people in all the times he'd been on the Central Plains. Away from the Cities, and off the great trade roads which march between the fields, the atmosphere is invariably one of content and restful hush, broken only by the warbling of birds. Kenner had been assured that the farmers worked twelve hour days to keep their fields so ripe and orderly but it could be hard to believe. Even less credible in the face of the present serenity was the history of the Dorlafan Central Plains. When Christoté was first formed in the late 900's it was born aloft by some grand ideals, none of which included sharing its power and riches with the majority who created them. The peasants on the Plains continued to bring its prosperous harvests to their lords and receive pitiful remuneration - as they had under the Erish Empire and the Kingdom of Dorlaf before that. Finally, on the Garreday carnival of 1037, one group rose up in revolt. Their protests ignited twenty years of class warfare, which at times spread right across the Confederacy but remained at its most ferocious on the Plains themselves. The conflict eventually ended with the workers, remarkably, bearing the closest resemblance to the victorious side.
"From the so-called Garreday Uprising came Christoté's genuine commitment to social justice and welfare, and the less whole-hearted creation of its quasi-democracy. From it, too, came the distinctive appearance of the Central Plains. Unlike most prosperous rural regions they aren't littered with stately piles and vast estates. Instead it is a land of small holdings, farm houses and tiny villages. The plethora of modest fields create a dense patchwork linked by an intricate network of lanes. The one definite aim which the rebelling labourers held was to own the land they worked on. They won and clung tightly on to that ideal. The Central Plains enjoys some of the severest maximum-land-ownership legislation seen in the world and even the Triple Cities is unable to expand its boundaries due to the reluctance of the neighbouring farmers to sell."
(from A Shining Light)