After talking for a while and eating the fish and chips Lili learned a lot. The young boy Edgar was apparently the same age as she was with his birthday being on the 25th of December. And despite his young age, the boy had been chosen by his mother to go represent his family as no-one else was available because of the war.
Edgar's family of being the Lionheart family. A family whose lands are important as they hold the iron mines of Albion. Also she learned that Edgar is the third of the living sons in the family and the grandson of Grandma Linn. Grandma Linn although being a part of the Lionheart family was by now retired from handling any matters as her health had been on the decline recently, well that was before she began healing the old Grandma Linn.
Other than that Lili also learned of Wilfred, who was in his twenties and the second son of the Westfield family. The Westfield family being the main food producing family of Albion.
While talking Lili learned a bit more of the desperate situation in the land. Not only was Albion under threat of a major coming famine, which it was already partially suffering from. But other nearby civilized countries were also suffering from it greatly. Especially The Kingdom of Maria Tiefland, had been hit hard with great floods and cold weather's that had already caused great death amongst people and livestock. Plus the last few years harvest's had almost totally been lost.
The only thing that was keeping The Kingdom of Maria Tiefland, or Tiefland for short, afloat was the assistant from the Empire which was its Eastern neighbor.
Then there was the kingdom of Franchia that was also suffering almost as greatly as Tiefland from the cold weather and constant rains. Even the empire that was helping Tiefland had not been spared and with these three nations all suffering that was now forcing Queen Wilda to look further South for assistance.
Apparently Scandinavia is full of savage barbarians, so no help was coming from there either. And as for the far south Africa and in the middle east there ruled a large Arabian Caliphate that did not act friendly towards Europe, so there was that as well.
Of course there are more countries and problems in the world, but it was a bit too much for Lili to listen to as it didn't really have anything to do with her right now. So instead Lili decided to focus on something that she could actually do something good about.
Sitting on the Queens soft lap, Lili then began explaining simple things that could be done to improve the current food situation. Although the three, especially Edgar seemed skeptical of Lili, the Queen nonetheless allowed it and so Lili explained.
Firstly the method Lili wanted them to know of was selective breeding or in this case, plant breeding. While selective breeding was done with some dogs here and such, Lili hadn't seen any mentions of it being done with plants.
To Lili its important as it is a process to develop more desirable characteristics for plants, such as to make the more resistant to certain environments. It can for instance improve farm yields, better quality foods and more desirable shapes for plants, like flowers.
Secondly there was the practice of crop rotation, which basically meant the four-field crop system. Wheat, barley, clover and turnips would be important to get this cycle working here in England. Basically different crops eat different nutrients out of the ground so its important for the crop to be rotated out every year or so for another crop. And like so the soil could be kept healthy and constantly producing good yields. Although sometimes one field out of four would be kept only for the livestock and not some specific crop.
Thirdly was the mechanization of farming. Of course she couldn't propose creating anything super complicated, as she didn't know how to create the steam engine or anything so complex anyway. But simple things could be made like the seed drill, the threshing machine, the mechanical reaper and the self polishing steel plow, but most simple and important of all was probably the scythe. With all these simple things in use, farming could be made more efficient and a lot of time would be saved. And with time on hand more land could then intern be planted and farmed, increasing farming output even more. This would also reduce the amount of labour required for farming and release those people to pursue other more sophisticated jobs.
Fourthly there would need to be policy changes to make this all work. Farms needed to become big efficient machines in a sense that had one clear goal and weren't owned by many different people with many different goals. All fields would need to be separated by law and by hedgerows or fences so as not to mess with other fields with different plants.
With all these things food production would increase. Livestock would grow bigger and fatter, meaning more meat. Plus with selective breeding they could make them even bigger and better. All and all these would be quite radical changes and not something that could be implemented in a short period of time.
And as Lili said her peace and looked at the faces of the people around her it seemed that this would not be easy. None here seemed convinced by her words that probably seemed quite strange to these people.
The Queen merely ruffled her head lightly and said. "Ooh, Well, thank you for sharing that big load of information with us Lili. I see your studies of agriculture have definitely not gone to waste, maybe I'll have to give you the position of head gardener, hehehe. But I think we need to speak a bit further amongst ourselves now, so why don't you go along and write all that you have said down, so we can look at it later. How does that sound Lili, could you do that for me? And thank you very much for the lovely food as well."
To this Lili merely nodded as she was lifted off of the Queen's lap. Standing there at the side of the Queen Lili couldn't quite believe it, had her words actually been listened to by these three influential people?
Thinking on this, Lili then said. "Hmm, ok I'll go do that. I'll make it all super clear and pretty for you. Trust me, with my designs soon everyone will be eating like kings in Albion and there will be no famine ever again, hehehe."
After saying this Lili like a little girl happily skipped towards the door and as she began pulling it open, Wilfred called out to her saying. "Lili Could you bring some of those potatoes to my room. I'd very much like to have another look at them."
Hearing this Lili just happily said. "Ok, I'll bring you lots of potatoes and instructions on how to plant them and such."
After saying this Lili waved goodbye to the three, Queen Wilda waved lightly back as did Wilfred, but Edgar just had his arms crossed and face in a frown.
Uncaring of the young boys attitude Lili happily left the council room and was immediately met with nervous faces of the guards and her followers. But as they saw her happy face their faces were relieved as Jack asked. "Well, how did it go? Did they like the food?"
To this Lili could luckily could say yes, yes indeed it did go quite well. Not only had she managed to introduce potatoes to these non potato eating people, but she had taken the first steps towards taking this country towards a agricultural revolution. And with an agricultural revolution, an industrial one would possibly follow at some point also.
Although thinking back on it she hadn't managed to get them to agree on visiting the Inn on its opening day, but that was ok. As Lili returned back to her room that night, she didn't go asleep and instead immediately began writing down her ideas and drawing up some basic designs.
While she worked on this she also ordered Chad to go gather potatoes for her. She now needed to work on writing down basic instructions for planting them and eating them. Making chips would not be easy to teach to Wilfred as to make them like she did would not only require magic, but other ingredients as well. So she could only write down a very basic recipe for him.
For the whole night Lili worked on these things until she finally fell asleep on her desk with a quill pen in hand.