"Do not speak to me of dragon fire"

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

"Nor did they bother much" doesn't mean they didn't do it at all. I think it probably means they did it exactly to the level that it supplied their necessities but did not engage in trade for profit or base their entire way of life around it.

That's a good point, and perhaps it's something of an effort on Professor Tolkien's part to foreshadow the greedy Master and Thorin and contrast the way of life the Professor preferred (which the Wood Elves at least evoke to an extent, if not wholly – they certainly still have negative traits, "more dangerous and less wise") to the possessive attitudes the novel criticises.

That is to say, why Thranduil and his people certainly aren't perfect, they are "good people" and in some degree that is because they are not to the same degree affected by the traits upon which the novel looks unfavourably.