Chapter 65 Harvest Season
Two days later, several recruits introduced by an intermediary from the town of Lavoisin arrived at the church at Helions Manor with their luggage.
The butler, George, and Fanon were already waiting here for them to sign the written contract.
These recruits were all people who worked as porters in the city to support their families. They were between 20 and 25 years old, strong and healthy, but very poor.
They all came here for the recruitment conditions, land.
As long as you serve for half a year and are still alive, you can get a gold coin as resettlement allowance and an acre of land in this manor.
Although one acre of land is small, it is enough to build a small house and grow a vegetable patch, which is better than renting a house in the city.
According to the introducers, most knights who were recruiting soldiers only offered money as a condition, and very few offered land.
For these landless farmers, owning their own land is a painful obsession.
Who doesn't want to have their own land to live and work in peace and contentment? However, the law is unforgiving. In order to protect the sacredness of private property, land can only be inherited by the eldest son.
Their fathers, grandfathers, and even themselves were not the eldest sons, and they had lost their land for several generations.
They came to the church carrying their bags.
The steward first took them to write a document, signed it, and then handed the document to the priest for safekeeping.
After signing the document, the priest led them in reciting the hymn of the Valkyrie.
After the announcement, these people carried their luggage and followed George to collect their weapons and equipment and went to the barracks that were under construction.
The recruits received their equipment in confusion.
Each man had a set of chain mail, a leather vest, two felt coats, a pair of leather boots, a spear, a leather and wooden helmet, and a water bag.
These recruits could feel that this set of equipment was much more valuable than their lives.
Normally, it would be good enough if a recruit could get a broken spear.
When they arrived at the barracks, they saw that it was still under construction. The escort George was very nice and gave them a newly built house to stay in.
Afterwards, they put on their equipment and followed the squire to meet the knight.
The barracks covered an area of three or four acres, surrounded by wooden fences in a circle. There were about twenty soldiers sawing, carrying and building wood, and they were having a lot of fun.
George told the recruiters that these twenty men were old soldiers from the manor.
Twenty new soldiers were recruited yesterday and divided into two groups to tamp the ground and cut down trees.
They work like tools that fit together perfectly.
Several recruits recognized the knight patrolling nearby from a distance. Whether it was his armor, mount, or majestic demeanor, he stood out from the crowd.
When they arrived, the recruits were frightened and behaved very solemnly, ready to do hard work, such as moving wood.
As a result, Caesar just glanced at them and asked George to take them to the barracks kitchen to cook big pot meals as cooks.
Although the recruits were confused, they followed George to the kitchen.
George was a kind man and told them the knights' plan.
These recruits only then realized that they were recruited to stay in the manor to guard the house and serve as sentry, not to go to the front line.
They breathed a sigh of relief, feeling like they had won the lottery.
If you don't go to the battlefield, you won't die so easily.
After guarding the house for half a year, they will be able to get land, and then they can bring all their family members over.
So, several recruits happily began to chop wood, clean the pots, and cook a big pot of rice.
George saw how happy they were, shook his head and said:
"Don't be happy too soon. When the barracks are finished, the master will let you practice with spears and swords, and then you will know the hardship."
These cooks had heard before coming here that this knight was extremely strict in training his subordinates.
However, since they came here, they have inexplicably developed a sense of obedience, and are no longer afraid of hardship or fatigue.
…
The riverbank was bustling with activity, and in the manor, Olivia had just gotten up.
The necessary procedures every morning are nothing more than washing and dressing. She went to the bathroom and sat on the chair.
While he was yawning, the servant brought hot water, mixed it with half cold water, and poured it into the iron basin.
Olivia washed her face first and then chose a tooth powder from the drawer on the shelf.
Her wooden shelf, which is similar to a basin, is designed with a groove for placing the washbasin and six small drawers on both sides.
The drawer was filled with various toiletries, olive oil soap, bath salts, coconut oil, and tooth powder.
There is also a bronze mirror installed in front.
There are two types of tooth powder.
There's sea salt and mint powder mixed with a little charcoal ash, and pink mineral salt with jasmine powder and coconut oil.
She usually uses coconut oil toothpaste with moderate cleaning power in the morning, brushes her teeth, and then rinses her mouth with hot water.
After washing up, the servant helped her comb her hair. She turned on the system and began to prepare to sign in.
After signing in, the taskbar refreshes.
Congratulations on achieving "Recruiting Soldiers"
+50 Experience Points
+＊2 Geology
She first looked through the card pool and put geology on her father, Old Reno, and Priest Donald, who had the highest level of favorability.
"Geology" is a book with three-star exploration talents, which opens up the exploration talents for these two people.
Unsurprisingly, these two have no skills of their own.
Then, she continued to refresh the copy mission.
Harvest Season:
Mission Description: Harvest a cumulative total of 30,000 pounds of agricultural and livestock crops within the territory.
Mission progress: 1/30000
Mission Reward: +35 Experience Points
+＊1 blank character card
Olivia looked at the task and couldn't help scratching her head.
From the start of the mission, the total harvest was thirty thousand pounds, which sounds intimidating.
But in fact, all the unharvested agricultural and livestock products on the estate add up to 30,000 pounds.
She estimated that the wheat, soybeans, and apples and pears from the orchard alone could produce about 20,000 pounds.
The remaining ten thousand pounds could be made up from bits and pieces of other crops.
Who was this system looking down on? Giving her such a simple task was practically giving her a character card for free.
Olivia got up from the bathroom.
"Go open the window."
Upon hearing this, Fan Xi immediately opened the window and tightened the curtains. The sun was shining brightly outside.
Olivia changed into her nightgown, took the shirt brought by the servant and slowly buttoned it up, thinking about what to do today.
The barracks are still under construction and will take about ten days to complete by late August.
She has nothing important to do at the moment, and is just busy preparing for the autumn harvest, preparing food and clothes for the winter, doing the quarterly accounting for the workshop area, and social interactions in the second half of the year.
Because the Baron's Mansion was short of money and had a lot of things to do, the Baron's birthday celebration in July was simple. Olivia only sent a few dishes and gifts, but did not attend.
At the end of August, there is another big festival, which is about the autumn harvest, Saturnalia. This festival cannot be frugal. It is necessary to pray and organize a dinner.
After putting on the petticoat, she put on a long ramie blend skirt suitable for summer. The skirt was indigo blue and was made by the town tailor when he lived in Renault Manor. The cuffs and upper body were moderately voluminous, and there was a row of brass buttons on the cuffs and chest. It was made quite exquisitely.
The hem of the skirt is loose and has no waistline, so it just floats casually.
When she thought she was dressed, Graya came in from outside and reported what happened in the kitchen.
“Ma’am, the vegetables are pickled.
A total of sixty pounds of pickled radishes, sixty pounds of cabbage, twenty pounds of garlic, thirty pounds of onions, thirty pounds of dill, thirty pounds of chives, ten pounds of Jerusalem artichokes, and thirty pounds of peppers were pickled.
Half of it is pickled in salt water and the other half is pickled in chili powder, with sugar and cumin added to the chili powder.
We’ve already started canning, and it’ll be ready for the cellar this afternoon.”
Olivia buttoned her cuffs and nodded with sparkling eyes.
"Very good. Cut me a plate of chili-pickled shallots and radishes to go with my breakfast later."
She would depend on this bite of sour and spicy pickled vegetables to survive the whole winter.
"By the way, is the tailor still at Renault Manor?"
Graya nodded: "It's still there. I went to invite her. Mrs. Renault said that she would bring someone over tomorrow."
Olivia planned to ask the tailor to make winter clothes for the whole family as soon as possible, and to call Theresa to choose fur coats.
She straightened her dress and walked through the long corridor with Graya, went downstairs, and walked through the corridor again.
When passing the entrance of the courtyard, you can see the cooks busy making pickles by the well in the yard.
For areas with short summers and long winters, making pickles and smoking meats is a skill that everyone must learn.
Olivia watched for a while with great interest.
The cooks worked very efficiently. They cut a pot of shredded radish, first used salt to remove the moisture, then mixed it with chili sauce, and sealed it in a cleaned ceramic jar.
There are also several larger ceramic jars, which contain the old sour water that Graya made in previous years, in which she soaks some freshly picked peppers, Jerusalem artichokes, cabbages, and whole radishes.
She looked at it for a long time, then suddenly remembered something and said to Graya:
"In October, we slaughtered the two pigs in the pen and smoked the bacon. We also pickled fifty of each of the duck and chicken eggs."
Graya responded, and Olivia went to eat breakfast with peace of mind.
Two days later, it was mid-August.
After several days of sunshine, the pears on the farm were almost ripe. Every morning, Jacob would take people to pick a basket of about forty or fifty pounds.
Theresa came with Sansa, the tailor, and a cart of things, and only then did she find out that Olivia had bought furs for them.
They took their measurements and confirmed the style and quantity with the tailor.
Olivia set up a workshop and two bedrooms for the tailor and her apprentice, and provided them with good food and drink.
This kind of good tailor is not circulated outside the town. Usually he is hired for several months, and after the work is done, he is introduced to the next regular customer to do the work.
They piled the materials in the living room and spent the whole morning just discussing the styles.
At noon, Theresa had lunch at her place and began to care about the harvest on the estate.
The tenant farmers and self-employed farmers on Olivia's estate were busy working three jobs a day and had no time to chat outside.
Therefore, when Theresa was at home, she never heard the housekeeper talk about whether her harvest was good or not.
"The harvest this year is pretty good. We should be able to harvest over 10,000 pounds of grain and other things."
"so much?"
Theresa never expected that such a small piece of land in the manor could produce so much food.
At the Renault estate, they also planted a hundred acres of grain this year, similar to what Olivia had planted here, with oats, rye, and wheat, and they could harvest a total of over a thousand pounds.
If you leave two-thirds for the tenant farmer, you can still get two or three thousand pounds.
Sansa's mouth was burning with the spiciness of the spicy fried chicken, so she quickly grabbed a glass of iced pear juice and drank it. She then began to imitate Olivia, eating pancakes with spicy radishes and spicy bear onions.
She finally stopped talking and listened to the adults discussing the harvest, and said quickly:
"I want to go fishing at the lake later."
On the way here, Sansa saw that the lakeside was paved with gravel and the lakeside was built with embankments, so she would never step into mud again, which was perfect for fishing.
Olivia agreed to her request. Coincidentally, Theresa also wanted to go to the fields to take a look and learn something.
"Who is the manager who farms for you? How come he is so capable?"
"His name is Jagbu. He was one of the first people to flee here from the other side of the river. Since he knew how to farm since he was a kid, I asked him to take care of the orchard. Seeing how well he was doing, I transferred him to be in charge of the spring plowing."
"This man knows a lot about farming, including fertilizing, creating ridges and furrows, thinning out seedlings, and composting. He knows everything about what can be grown in each area."
"I didn't expect that he would actually get a small harvest."
Theresa was confused by what she heard and became even more curious. If these thin fields here could grow crops so well, then there were 200 acres of good fields in Renault Manor. Wouldn't they be able to grow crops just as well?
Theresa thought about it and decided to go and ask in person. If this person is capable, she would ask him to help Renault Manor.
We asked him to help plan how to apply fertilizer and dig ridges and furrows.
As the saying goes, if you have food in your hands, you will not be worried.
Olivia said this on purpose to build up Jacopo's reputation.
Looking at Theresa's expression, you can tell that she is very concerned.
She smiled and served Theresa a bowl of soup, with this plan in mind.
The private plots and tenant plots in the manor were merged and used as an experimental base to some extent.
Leave it to Jagbu to manage it uniformly, and let him play his role freely to produce the greatest effect.
Whether it is the self-employed farmers in the manor, the self-employed farmers and tenants in the Toksun Manor, or the Reno Manor.
These farmers are not fools. When they see that Jagbu's method is effective, they will naturally learn from it.
She didn't need to work hard to persuade her family about the benefits of slash-and-burn farming.
Seeing the actual output is the most convincing proof.
If this continues, if she has more territories or estates, there will be no need to manage them in a unified manner.
As long as the tenant farmers are brought to this experimental base to study for a period of time, when they return home, they can use these scientific methods to cultivate their own land.
By then, even if Olivia only collected one-third of the rent and grain, she would not have to worry about food.
After dinner, the maids in the manor prepared several fishing rods and fish food, and also set up chairs, tables and buckets in advance.
After they finished their meal, they walked all the way through the courtyard of the manor.
Along the way, Theresa paid close attention to the fruit trees, vegetable plots, and millet crops on the estate.
When she came, she didn't pay much attention to these things, but now that she takes a closer look, it's really amazing.
On an old pear tree with lush branches and leaves, there are more than a hundred pears hanging on it. All of them are large, uniform in size, and have no spot disease.
Olivia explained to her:
"These have already been picked. The rest can be picked within this week."
He also explained that the reason these pears were disease-free and uniform in size was because Jagbu often pruned the branches. When the fruit set, he removed all the fruits that could not absorb nutrients, leaving only one or two hundred pears on a tree.
When they arrived at the lake, the servant took Sansa fishing, and Olivia went to the fields with Theresa.
At this time, Jagabu was leading people to harvest okra.
Olivia called him over and asked him to take Theresa to the edge of the wheat field and gave her another explanation.
After hearing this, Theresa felt like she had found a treasure.
"When can you spare a day or two here? How about having him come over to my place and help me design a drainage ditch and teach my tenant farmers how to compost?"
Composting and ridge-making cannot be done at the moment. The only things that can be done immediately are digging ditches, designing drainage channels, and burning manure for compost.
Olivia first asked what Jacopo meant.
He said he would be free tomorrow, so she arranged for him to help.
In fact, this was not the first time that Jagabu had been asked for advice.
Ever since the wheat fields began to ear, Mr. Rhine, the miller at Toksun Manor, could no longer sit still.
He comes here five or six times a month, and every time he comes he only looks for Jagabu to ask him for advice on farming.
After returning, Rhine ordered all the tenant farmers at the former Toksun Manor to start burning manure.
He also took Jagbu to his estate in a donkey cart to design a drainage ditch and asked him to give some advice to several tenant farmers.
Later, Rhine wanted to give Jagobu something to thank him, but he refused to take it.
Jacob thought that he was paid by Olivia, and now that Toxon Manor was under her trusteeship, one-third of the autumn harvest there would be given to her, so there was no need to ask for thanks.
As for Theresa's invitation to him, there was nothing to say, he had to go and take care of it.
Theresa didn't want him to go in vain, so he had to pay for the round trip expenses.
Nowadays, people with abilities are welcomed wherever they go.
In the afternoon, they were fishing by the river, and Theresa noticed that the road she built here was different from the road built in her own estate.
The road was wide enough for two cars to pass each other, and just as they were sitting by the lake fishing for fun, several donkey carts carrying neatly loaded goods passed by behind them.
Although Theresa heard from Olivia that her estate supported some workshops and the goods produced were quite good.
Now, seeing that the situation was much better than she had thought, she asked Olivia to take them to visit the workshop.
Olivia naturally agreed and took them to visit the pottery workshop, blacksmith workshop, and textile workshop.
"These workshops are quite profitable. We can earn a few gold coins every month. At the end of the year, it's almost the same as the harvest money."
When Theresa heard these accounts, she felt that they were complicated and difficult to manage.
Before leaving, Olivia did not forget to pick out some high-quality bows, swords and leather goods from the blacksmith's workshop and asked them to take them home and give them to old Renault.
Two days later, the barracks began to build stables, and Jacopo went to the Renault estate to help design the ditch.
In the orchard, most of the pears are ripe, and a dozen or so tenant farmers are picking them.
In the livestock area behind, the servants milked two buckets of goat milk, one bucket of cow milk, and picked up a basket of chicken and duck eggs every day as usual.
Olivia's system displays the progress, currently at "600/30000"
You definitely can’t finish all the milk, eggs, and autumn pears.
Milk has to be made into butter, and eggs have to be hatched into chicks and then sold.
As for the pears, most of them are sold directly, and the remaining small part is made into soaked pear dried pears, preserved pear strips, honey pear jam, and stored in cellars.
…
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