Problems With Farming
The first problem that Early Middle Ages farmers had with producing crops and cultivating land was the landscape itself. Before they could begin to farm they had to cultivate the land. To do so they had to clear terrain including forests. This, however, raised another problem; the German tribes had old traditions that were rooted in the beliefs of sacred forests. They believed that it was sacreligious to cut down a tree, so simply clearing the forests wasn't necessarily an option.
Clearing the land wasn't the only problem, but finding good soil also became a mountain to overcome. Even though the tribes only farmed every other year so that the land had a chance to regain its fertility, the soil bared little produce. It was said that a common ratio of a farmer's seed output to crop income was only two measures of grain to one measure of seed.