Chapter 223: Working diligently on the land
As the saying goes, a person who has eaten someone's food will be soft-hearted. Cui Qingyi and Wangcai both had a slightly changed opinion of Nong Qi.
The official fields of Qinghe City were about a mile outside the city, and the carriage arrived there in no time.
Nong Qi arrived a few days earlier than Cui Qingyi and had already become familiar with the people guarding the official fields. When they saw him coming so early, they just muttered something and let him in.
Nong Qi introduced Cui Qingyi as they walked, "Every place in our Great Jin has a set amount of government farmland. Every year, if there are no new crops to plant, we need to try them out. Wheat is planted in the north, and rice is planted in the south. The harvested grain is stored in the government granary. If a famine occurs in a certain place, this grain will be the first batch of relief grain distributed by the government."
After they walked for a while, Nong Qi pointed to a piece of land on the east side near the mountain and said, "Village head, those fields are reserved for growing potatoes and peppers. I have arranged for people to plow the land and apply manure these days.
Mr. Sinong showed me your potato planting notes, and I carefully selected the soil here and found it to be the most suitable."
Cui Qingyi raised her eyebrows. She didn't expect that Nong Qi, who looked even more pampered than her, could talk about farming so well. Then, thinking back to the donkey meat hotpot she had just eaten, Cui Qingyi thought that she needed to change her habit of judging people by their appearance.
Now that she has arrived at this place, and it was potatoes that helped her escape the Cui family's entanglement, Cui Qingyi, with the idea of making the best of it, accepted her fate and prepared to start her own farming journey.
She squatted down and reached out to grab a handful of soil from the field. The soil was loose and fertile. Although Qinghe had a lot of rain, the soil was not compacted. It seemed that it was indeed the best choice for growing potatoes.
Taozhi, who was following behind Cui Qingyi, was dumbfounded when she saw her mistress's delicate hands grab a handful of soil and hold it in front of her eyes. She seemed to remember that Mr. Nong had just said that these fields had been fertilized with manure.
But seeing how seriously Cui Qingyi was looking, Taozhi didn't dare to interrupt her.
Just as surprised as Taozhi was Nong Qi, who had been paying attention to Cui Qingyi. Even though his family had been agricultural officials for generations, many of his sisters were reluctant to go into the fields, let alone fields that had been fertilized.
Just like when he was young, he often followed his father and uncles to the fields to fertilize and cultivate the crops. If he came back with dirt on his shoes, he would be criticized for being unhygienic.
"Let's mark out a small area for seedlings first. The land needs to be plowed deeper."
Cui Qingyi didn't get many potatoes from the Beijia caravan. She had planted one crop of potatoes in her backyard and harvested them. Even though she was very frugal, some of them were left behind for trial planting by the agricultural officials in the capital when they arrived in Dongping County. She didn't expect that there would be many left when she returned to Qinghe from the capital.
The imperial court wanted to promote potato planting throughout the Jin Dynasty, so Cui Qingyi thought that she must use limited seeds to cultivate more seeds.
Hearing Cui Qingyi mention the word "seedling cultivation", Nong Qi's last bit of distrust towards the Dongping Township Master completely disappeared. He humbly asked for advice:
"Village Master, to be honest, I've read your planting notes and I still have some questions about the method of raising potato seedlings."
The planting notes that Cui Qingyi gave to Zhou Yanxiu were already quite detailed, but some of the methods were still difficult to understand for the ancients of this era.
Potato seedlings are generally grown from tubers. After listening to Nong Qi's question for a while, Cui Qingyi realized that potatoes are fruits themselves. If they are cut into pieces and planted in the soil, will they rot?
To be honest, Cui Qingyi didn't know how to explain this to Nong Qi. "Of course there's a possibility of rotting. It's like wheat seeds in the field. Even when they're almost ripe, they can still be attacked by insects.
The same is true for potato seeds buried in the soil. If the potatoes themselves are diseased, it will inevitably affect the emergence of seedlings, so we also need to treat the cut seeds before planting them."
It is better to put it into practice than to say more. Now is the season for planting potatoes. If you don’t want to miss the season, you have to speed up the seedling cultivation.
There was a house near the official field that was specially built for officials to rest. Nong Qi consulted Cui Qingyi and asked the official field manager directly for a house to process potatoes.
Trial planting of new grains is a top priority for the imperial court. The prefect of Qinghe City also attaches great importance to it. He has long ago instructed the people in charge of official fields to follow the agricultural officials from the capital, so Nong Qi can be said to have the full support of hundreds of people here.
Cui Qingyi taught Nong Qi how to select potatoes. In fact, according to Cui Qingyi's memory, modern people have become very casual about potato planting, and even directly abandoned the seedling raising step to save trouble.
"First, separate the high-quality potatoes from the low-quality ones. We will plant them in two separate experimental plots."
Cui Qingyi did this to facilitate the improvement of potato varieties in the future. Now there are not so many technological means, so Cui Qingyi can only use this most primitive method. The higher quality and stronger the seeds, the more likely they are to produce good fruits.
Of course, the relatively inferior potatoes cannot be wasted. After all, so many places in Dajin are eagerly waiting for potato seeds.
Nong Qi did not object to Cui Qingyi's orders by relying on his position as an official in charge of agriculture. He imitated Cui Qingyi's actions and quickly mastered the skills of picking potatoes.
"Go find some clean rice straw and burn some ashes and bring them here."
Nong Qi's eyes lit up: "Village Master, wood ash can prevent potatoes from rotting."
As far as Cui Qingyi knows, in the early agricultural civilization of China, there were methods of using wood ash for disinfection and treatment, and even methods of using wood ash to improve soil quality.
"That's right. Before planting the seedlings, coat the cut potatoes with a layer of wood ash."
Nong Qi suggested that he first set aside a small portion of potatoes and leave them as is, and Cui Qingyi readily agreed.
There were not many potato seeds, and several people worked together to finish the work in less than an hour.
When it came time to select a site for seedling cultivation, Nong Qi had another question: "What's the point of oil paper, and why use oil paper made of silk?"
Cui Qingyi: "Growing potato seedlings requires a warm and humid environment. Today's weather temperature is not yet sufficient for accelerating the growth of seedlings. We can use oil paper to build a greenhouse to artificially create the necessary conditions for accelerating the growth of potato seedlings."
Nong Qi clapped his hands suddenly. "I knew this. The palace has such a greenhouse in winter. I didn't expect it could be used in this season as well."
Cui Qingyi had probably heard of the greenhouses in the palace. It was said that they were built so that the nobles in the palace could eat fresh vegetables in winter. The amount of charcoal consumed by the greenhouses in one winter was equivalent to the amount consumed by an entire county.
Although His Majesty of this dynasty is sympathetic to the people, he is also not vague when it comes to enjoying life.
While waiting for the greenhouse for raising seedlings to be built under Cui Qingyi's guidance, Nong Qi looked at the small and very simple greenhouse in amazement.
Cui Qingyi patted the dirt off her hands and said, "Alright, leave the rest to Mr. Nong. I'll come back after the potatoes in the nursery shed sprout."
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