Traveling through troubled times to escape famine and cultivate crops as a grain merchant

Chapter 796 Harvest in the Experimental Field

Li and Zhou Su looked at each other with smiles in their eyes.

The person who said this blushed. She didn't expect Zhou Guo to be so disrespectful. After all, she was her elder. She forced a smile and said, "We are all from the same village. Isn't it normal to borrow a little thing? I'm not going to cheat you. Besides, if it doesn't work out, can't I give you money?"

Zhou Guo said, "Aunt, I told you that crabs are hard to raise. You can't just put them in the field and everything will be fine. You have to keep up with the subsequent management. There are many tricks involved. If they die, you still have to pay me. It's not cost-effective. It's better to raise ducks. It doesn't cost much, and you can still make a profit when they grow up."

"If we raise too many ducks, we can sell their eggs. We have been collecting duck eggs on our farm. We can collect as many as you want. Selling ducks is no worse than selling chickens. We can make a lot of money in a year."

Some people even started to think, “Can raising ducks really make that much money? The main reason is that ducks can’t be compared to chickens. Chickens are easy to sell, but ducks are different. Duck eggs also have a fishy smell.”

Although the Zhou family collects duck eggs, the price of duck eggs is not as high as that of chicken eggs. They think that it would be better to raise a few chickens instead of a few ducks.

After hearing what Zhou Guo said, I thought raising ducks could also help fertilize the soil, which was not a bad idea.

Each crab costs five hundred coins, which they cannot afford. Looking at Zhou Guo's expression, he will definitely not lend it to them.

Zhou Guo said: "Duck eggs are smelly and will sell well. I'll buy whatever you have. As for ducks, although they're not as easy to sell as chickens, they're not bad either. You know better than me."

Seeing that so many people were considering raising ducks, the woman who had spoken at the beginning stopped talking.

After the rice at home was dried and weighed, the two acres of rice produced nearly three dou more rice than one acre of the other twenty acres of land.

Li was puzzled. "It's not a big difference, how come the harvest from these two acres of land is always more than the other land? The rice seedlings used in these fields this year all come from the same land, so how can there be three more buckets of rice?"

Zhou Guo said, "That's different. I've been raising these two acres of land for so many years, so I manage them more meticulously. The harvest of the 20 acres of land is shorter, and the land is more, so the management is naturally not as meticulous as the two acres. That's normal."

Everyone knew that this was her experimental field, and that every year's rice seeds came from these two acres of land, so naturally she dared not neglect it.

The rice from other fields is used for eating, so no one pays as much attention to the two acres of land as he does.

Wu Ya said, "That's right. Two acres of land is easier to manage than more than 20 acres. When I was pulling weeds, I could also pull out the grass on the roots of the seedlings and bury it deep under the roots. I couldn't pull out the grass that was on the more than 20 acres of land as carefully."

As long as there were no major mistakes, it would be fine. It was the same when she went to the fields in previous years. There was too much work and the weeds grew fast. If she worked slowly, the weeds in several acres of land would not be completely weeded before new grass would grow in the field in front.

Li sighed, "It seems that we have to work more carefully next year. We have to weed these twenty acres of land like we did the two acres."

Zhou Guo said, "Mother, you and your sister-in-law are the only ones who can take care of more than 20 acres of land. You can't manage it all. There are so many people on the farm. When I'm not at home, you can transfer a few people from the farm. With more people, the work will be faster. One person per acre can finish the work in one day, and they will do a good job. Not a single weed will be left behind."

Both of them are used to working and are capable people who can do everything from inside to outside. They have hired someone to do the spring plowing and fertilizing, so it doesn't make sense to have someone else do the weeding as well. No one else on the farm is needed, as the two of them have taken care of it all.

Wu Ya said: "It seems that we can't do without this person, we can't handle it."

Li compromised and said, "Next year, I will do as you said and let the people on the farm take care of these fields. I will just watch from the side and not show off my power."

Zhou Guo smiled. "Besides taking care of these fields, you also have to take care of the sheep mushrooms and flower mushrooms in the mountains. There are also many things to do on the two hills in the next village. I estimate that these fields will be handed over to my sister-in-law next year."

"Me?" Wu Ya was surprised, happy and worried.

She has been married for several years and has never had to deal with such a big thing.

Li said, "Then it's settled. You have to manage these lands, especially the two acres of paddy fields. Maybe in a few years, those salty and bitter lands can be used to grow crops, and these seeds will have to be moved over there."

Wu Ya hesitated and said, "Second Aunt, can I do it? I have never grown rice, I have only grown wheat."

Li said, "Why not? You've been married for two years, and you've also been planting rice for two years. We're both planting, but one is dry land and the other is paddy field. You've learned how to do it in these two years."

Zhou Guo comforted her, "Sister-in-law, it's okay. I don't want you to take care of everything from beginning to end. I will also keep an eye on it. It's just that you have to keep an eye on it for me when I'm not at home."

Wu Ya smiled and said, "Don't worry, I can do this. If you ask me to take care of it from beginning to end, I really can't do it."

Li laughed and scolded, "You are useless."

Wu Ya was not angry either, she smiled and said, "Second Aunt, I don't have much skills. I can only grow some wheat and vegetables and cook a few farm meals. I don't know how to cook big fish and meat, let alone cook them well. I can only help you. I hope you don't despise me."

Zhou Guo said: "We don't lack people to work in our family, so who would dislike you for this? Not only do we like you very much, but my eldest brother likes you even more."

Wu Ya's face suddenly turned visibly red.

Li glared at Zhou Guo, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "How dare you say such words? You have no respect for your parents."

……

The last bit of rice in our family has been stored in the warehouse, and all the grain for this year has been harvested.

Zhou Guo calculated that it would take another month or two to sell crabs and harvest pine mushrooms.

After resting at home for a day, he left again.

After passing through Song County, which is now the most difficult section of the road, Tanghe only needs to come back once a month to take a look and assign the tasks for that month.

She looked around and thought that with such a large piece of land and so many people, the ditch should be able to be cleared next year and rice could be planted on the land the year after.

The rice in the experimental field had not been harvested yet, but Old Man Zhang and his son remembered her words clearly, and she would come to harvest the rice herself when it was ripe.

She took a sickle and cut all the rice in the field. Old Zhang and his son dragged a threshing basket behind her and carefully pounded the rice she had cut into the basket. If they moved more gently, not a single grain would spill out.

She harvested all the rice in the two acres of land in half an hour, but the rice was mostly sparse and there were not many seedlings.

Among the threshed rice, a small half was empty husks, the remaining half was incomplete grains, and there were very few round and plump grains.

Of the two acres of land, one acre was fertilized with purchased late rice seeds, and the other acre was fertilized with seeds brought from home.

A total of 81 kilograms of rice, including the empty husks, were harvested from the two acres of land.