Chapter 267 How can this penny and an egg be worth it!!!
"Growing ginseng?"
The old man was a little surprised by Sang Zhixia's sudden idea. He paused and said, "Ancient books record that various types of wild ginseng are spiritual creatures formed by the energy of the earth. Before they grow up and are dug out, they must not be contaminated by any human foul energy, otherwise they will die prematurely and have difficulty growing."
"Can this thing really be grown?"
Sang Zhixia said with a smile: "Why not?"
"Although wild ginseng can't be eaten like rice, doesn't it also grow from the soil?"
"If rice can grow in our fields, then ginseng can also grow in our fields."
The only difference is that the planting process is different and the time required is also different.
Sang Zhixia had already roughly figured out how to proceed, and the old man just smiled after listening: "Okay."
"Since you've thought of it, it wouldn't hurt to give it a try."
Anyway, everything comes after trying. As long as you don’t care too much about gains and losses, it is also important to enjoy the process.
The winter snow began to melt, and the land that had been sealed by the vast white snow for a whole winter began to reveal its black and yellow edges. The small grass sprouts that had emerged from the edge of the ridge also inadvertently revealed a small hint of new green.
Spring is approaching.
With last year's experience, this year, even before the spring breeze started, the villagers saw the Xu family's plows and harrows starting to move, and more people were working in the fields.
Sang Zhixia walked around the several areas of the farm that had been marked out separately. She bent down, picked up some soft black mud, rubbed it in her hands, and said, "The ground here has been turned over and can be sown."
Although there was still a chill in the air, the weather was warming up as the sun rose higher.
If you start sowing seeds at this time of year, the seeds will not rot due to slow emergence due to the weather being too cold, nor will the seedlings be weak due to the weather rising too quickly.
The timing is perfect.
Because Xu Tongsheng was literate and organized, he worked hard on the farm for more than half a year and had become a well-regarded manager.
He followed Sang Zhixia closely and asked, "Sowing the rice seeds?"
“No, soybeans are grown here.”
Sang Zhixia brushed the mud off his hands and said, "It's not time to plant rice yet, but soybeans are just right."
Seeing the confusion on Xu Tongsheng's face, Sang Zhixia smiled and explained, "Soybean seeds can withstand the cold better than rice seeds. Rice seeds will have to wait a little longer."
Xu Tongsheng silently noted this in his mind and nodded, saying, "There are over 80 acres of land that have been turned over here. Are they all going to be planted with soybeans?"
"More than eighty acres?"
Sang Zhixia was slightly surprised and raised an eyebrow. "We've only been plowing for eight days, and you've already turned up so much land?"
Sang Zhixia quickly went through the number of people working on the farm in his mind, and always felt that this result was a little unbelievable.
Sang Zhixia was a little cautious, frowning and emphasizing, "We can't ignore the depth of the tillage for the sake of speed. This is all wasteland that was just reclaimed this year. The depth of the tillage must not be less than two palms deep. It can only be deeper than this. Shallower won't do."
The wasteland is severely compacted and not suitable for crops to take root and grow, so the depth of the first tillage is particularly important.
Xu Tongsheng heard her worry and smiled while rubbing his hands.
He sighed and said, "Don't worry, Boss. The rules you set are ironclad. We dare not forget a single word of them."
"These are people who have been through the gates of hell while starving. They've been holding back their energy for a whole winter and are now working hard in the fields. We dare not neglect them!"
Winter melts late in the northwest, so the time for farming starts more than a month later than in the south.
Those who have signed contracts to work on the farm will not arrive until mid-March.
Half of those who are now working in the fields are the more than 100 people who stayed behind from the summer mulberry harvest during the famine, and the remaining half are from Luobei Village.
Most of these people are illiterate and do not understand the principles of life, but they know that they must repay their employer's life-saving kindness with their efforts.
When they heard that they could go to the fields, they picked up their farming tools and ran faster than each other, fearing that they would not do enough work.
Xu Tongsheng sighed and said, "The boss didn't see that. These people are all good at plowing the fields. You said the soil should be two palms deep, but many of them plowed it three palms deep. There is no shallower than this."
In addition to manpower, the farm also sent out ten oxen to work together.
The turned-up soil was loose and soft, and people would sink up to their calves when they stepped on it. It was much better than the soil that Sang Zhixia had hired people to turn over last year.
Sang Zhixia felt relieved.
Xu Tongsheng became more talkative as he spoke, saying to himself, "The creatures in the pen are doing well too. A few days ago, a new batch of chicks hatched, a full eight hundred in total!"
"Since we've been feeding them coarse grain, we've been collecting eggs from the grown chickens, ducks, and geese every day. Sometimes we can get 500 to 600 eggs, sometimes over 400. We can fill several large baskets with eggs every day."
More people were assigned to help with the feeding than before. They were competing to find free food for these clucking chickens, ducks and geese. They wished they could feed them eight meals a day. It would be best if they opened their eyes to see chicken, duck and goose eggs all over the ground.
Even the pigs that had previously lost a lot of weight gradually gained weight, and their fat heads and big ears looked particularly pleasing to the eye.
Sang Zhixia knew all of this, but she still listened patiently to Xu Tongsheng finish his talk.
Sang Zhixia waited for him to finish before saying, "In the farm warehouse, excluding the ones that were shared out by the workers, how many eggs are there now?"
Xu Tongsheng smacked his lips, raised his two palms, bent down two fingers and said, "This number."
"This is just a lot of what was left over after we took it away along the way. Otherwise, there would definitely be more!"
The chicken, duck and goose eggs in the warehouse were all sorted and organized, and the surface of each eggshell was wiped clean, just waiting for Sang Zhixia to tell them what to do with it.
Xu Tongsheng said, "Master, the weather is getting warmer. We can't keep it like this."
When the weather is hot, these eggs in the shell will easily go bad.
It would be fine if the quantity was small, but with so many of them in the tens of thousands, if even a few of them went bad it would be heartbreaking!
Sang Zhixia smiled: "Let's pickle them into salted eggs, they won't go bad."
"Pickled into salted eggs?"
Xu Tongsheng smacked the words in his mouth, his expression odd: "What kind of egg is salted egg?"
Salt was an expensive commodity, and it was difficult for ordinary people to get enough food. The salt jars at home were never full all year round.
Unless it is used to pickle bacon and smoke fish during the New Year, people would not be willing to waste the salt on ordinary days.
In the words of Xu Tongsheng, since it is not meat, there is no need to use salt.
waste!
But there are so many eggs that I can’t sell for the time being, so I have to pickle them.
If it gets bad, Sang Zhixia will have to hold her breath too.
As Xu Tongsheng gasped with his hands covering his chest, Sang Zhixia poured a whole jar of salt into the big wooden basin. It was a bit funny to see him grimacing and looking pained.
"It's just a jar of salt, Uncle Xu, why do you care?"
If you didn't know her expression, you would think she was pouring gold all over the floor.
Xu Tongsheng bared his teeth and said, "Boss, this jar of salt will cost one ounce of silver!"
It is true that the farm makes money, but no matter how wealthy one is, one cannot spend money like this!
Xu Tongsheng looked at the duck eggs placed beside the wooden basin with deep sorrow, his mouth twitching with heartache: "How did you match these duck eggs?"
"How can this penny and an egg be worth it!!!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com