Chapter 1181: Really Fragrance
"Finally, be careful not to affect the normal work in the fields. In January and February, manage the mulberry trees and stock the fish fry; in March and April, fertilize the mulberry trees; in May, raise silkworms and sell them in June, and use the silkworm pupae to feed the fish; in July and August, dredge the fish pond and use the pond mud to strengthen the pond base; in the last few months of the year, weed and feed the fish. We must arrange the farming time well and make full use of the slack time, so that neither of them will be delayed."
Ma Yilong spoke for more than half an hour, then he waved his hand with a slightly tired look and said, "get out of class is over."
The students bowed respectfully and left. The boy quickly brought the old man a cup of tea. Ma Yilong drank the water and squinted at Zhao Hao and said, "You still remember to come here? It's been more than a year since I was brought here. This is the first time I see you."
"Sorry, sorry, I'm too busy." Zhao Hao hurriedly smiled and said, "Didn't I write you several letters and invite you to give lectures at Yufeng Academy? Since you're not going, I'm rushing over here."
"Hmph, I don't have the time for that." Ma Yilong snorted. "I just don't understand, does your Yufeng Academy teach science or the imperial examination?"
"It's a comprehensive university." There is no doubt about how thick-skinned Zhao Hao is.
"Hmph, that won't work at all." Ma Yilong snorted again, threw the tea leaves in the tea bowl to the ground, and threw it to the boy, saying, "In many people's minds, your science is just a trick. How many of those students really want to learn science? They all come here for your reputation of having five successful candidates in one family."
"It hurts, old man." Zhao Hao smiled bitterly and did not deny it.
"That's right. Look at my original group of students. Once they had a choice, they all ran to your academy. Only four stayed, and two of them had already passed the imperial examination." Ma Yilong still felt resentful and said, "You are foolish to expect such a group of people with impure motives to study science."
"Take your time. There are people willing to do research." Zhao Hao laughed and didn't argue with Ma Yilong. It is certainly not an easy task to change the social atmosphere and set off a scientific boom, so it is even more important to cultivate scholars, fight for the right to speak in society, and provide a good environment for science to grow.
"You are too inattentive..." Ma Yilong was just complaining. He was once a high-ranking official in the court and had been persecuted by the Yan Party. How could he not know Zhao Hao's intentions?
"Alas, there is nothing I can do. There are too many things to do, and I can't calm down." Zhao Hao admitted this and said with a smile: "After a few years, when everything is arranged, I will also learn from you, sir, and turn a deaf ear to the outside world and focus on scientific research."
"I won't be able to wait until that day." Ma Yilong sighed. He is already over seventy years old and feels that his time is running out, so he is anxious to teach students and pass on as much of the agronomic knowledge he has accumulated as possible.
"No, Doctor Wan is the same age as you. If you follow his example and keep in good health, you will definitely live a long life." Zhao Hao interrupted and said with a smile: "My grandfather is only one year younger than you, and he went to Guangzhou to find sex appeal... Oh no, he went on a trip."
“Hahaha, OK, I’ll take your kind words.” Ma Yilong smiled as he was coaxed into laughing. “It’s rare for a person to live to be 70. I’m not afraid of death. It’s you who made me feel that time is not enough and I can’t figure out how to farm scientifically. I will not rest in peace until I die.”
"Yes, I will." Zhao Hao nodded heavily.
"Yeah, I think so too. With your help, I have achieved more this year than in the previous ten years!" Ma Yilong didn't care whether his hands were dirty or not, and patted Zhao Hao's shoulder heavily and said, "Maybe we can really rely on men to make sure everyone has food to eat and clothes to wear. This is something that even the ancient saints could not do. If that happens, we will have done a great deed!"
"Oh, what happened?" Zhao Hao asked with shining eyes, not caring about his aching shoulder.
"Come on, I'll take you to have a look." Ma Yilong pulled him and walked excitedly towards a small courtyard surrounded by a red brick wall in the corner of the campus.
A stinky odor could be smelled from afar, and the visitors couldn't help but cover their noses.
"What's so smelly?" Wang Heng asked in a muffled voice, "Are you stewing shit?"
"Remember, baby, without this stink, there will be no fragrance of food." Ma Yilong was used to it and even took a deep breath. His perverted look reminded Zhao Hao of Pan Zhongcheng.
Sister Ma took out a mask from her briefcase. As a super-unparalleled secretary, she must be able to deal with all kinds of emergencies.
Unfortunately, she only brought two masks. After thinking about it, she reluctantly gave them to Wang Heng and Xu Guangqi. Otherwise, it would be too ugly if the adults wore them but the children didn't.
Fortunately, Master Zhao was considerate of women and asked her to wait outside. He walked in fearlessly without wearing a mask and brought his two apprentices.
Damn, it stinks...
Wang Heng was right. There were two rows of stoves under the reed shed in the yard. The students poured baskets of cow and horse manure into large iron pots and boiled them with water.
The taste is indescribable...
The students all covered their mouths and noses with cloth, but the stench was still so bad that it made them feel like they were dying. Young Master Zhao even vomited out the food he had left overnight...
At this time, Shi Jizhi had someone bring a mask and quickly put it on Master Zhao, and he came back to life.
Ma Yilong was unaware of this and introduced with great excitement: "The growth of crops depends entirely on fertilizer, but natural fertilizers have limited fertility and require too much. One acre of land requires several hundred kilograms of fertilizer, and as the farm expands, the supply simply cannot meet the demand. Fortunately, you told me the formula for high-efficiency fertilizer. I tried it last year and it really worked!"
Zhao Hao then came to his senses and realized that they were making "fertilizer powder".
Fertilizer powder is a kind of soil fertilizer prepared four hundred years later. Use 100 kilograms of livestock manure, add 60 kilograms of river water or pond water and put it in a large iron pot, boil for 40 minutes and extract the fertilizer juice. Then add 4 kilograms of alum, 6 kilograms of saltpeter, 4 kilograms of gypsum, and 8 liang of red letter to the pot, heat it over low heat for 1 hour, boil it into a paste, pour it into a basin, cool and dry it through natural ventilation, and it will become a high-efficiency farmyard fertilizer containing the three elements of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and it has a high nitrogen content.
If you replace livestock manure with human manure, the fertilizer effect will last longer...
"Once the fertilizer powder is applied to the field, it will take effect in seven days. The leaves will be black and shiny, and the ears of rice will be fuller. But you have to water the field immediately, otherwise the crops will be burned." Ma Yilong was very satisfied. He whispered to Zhao Hao, "Last year, I used the fertilizer powder to plant a crop of late rice. Guess what the harvest was?"
"How much?" Zhao Hao asked.
"Seven stones." Ma Yilong lowered his voice for fear of causing trouble.
"How many stones?" Zhao Hao widened his eyes, raised his voice suddenly, and took off his mask.
Ma Yilong made the number seven.
"Oh my god!" Zhao Hao was so shocked that he couldn't close his mouth. He finally understood why Mr. Menghe didn't think the smell was bad.
Last year, the Kunkaisi Farm worked very hard and achieved a yield of 3.5 kg per mu, which shocked Jiangnan and made all the counties bow down and beg Big Brother to lead the way...
Mr. Menghe actually managed to double his earnings from last year. How much money must he make! Why bother with all this? Just focus on farming...
He remembered that the rice yield per mu in Jiangnan in later generations was about 1,400 jin, and seven stones was about 1,000 jin. Ma Yilong actually achieved a result close to modern agriculture in the Ming Dynasty!
“Don’t be happy too soon. When I was in Liyang, the yield of rice I planted myself exceeded five stones per mu.” Ma Yilong arrogantly poured a basin of cold water on him.
The implication is that if someone else were to do the same, the yield would definitely not reach seven stones.
"Even if they can get five stones, they will make a fortune." Mr. Zhao didn't care at all and said happily: "It seems that they need to vigorously promote the fertilizer powder!"
"That's true. But other things are easy to deal with. Can you keep up with the supply of alum and saltpeter?" Ma Yilong asked again.
"Uh, this..." Master Zhao was suddenly speechless.
Saltpeter is easy to come by, there is plenty of it in the damp caves by the sea. If it is not enough, there is also the urine of 30 million people in Jiangnan...
Alum comes from the Fan Mountain in Wenzhou, where alum stone has been mined since the Song Dynasty. Its alum reserves account for about 60% of the world's and 80% of my country's, which is definitely enough for use. However, Wenzhou is not in the Jiangnan Economic Zone, and if it continues to purchase in large quantities, it will definitely cause a surge in prices.
It seems that only by incorporating it into the Jiangnan economic integration can the stability of both price and supply be guaranteed.
But the problem is that there is Ningshaotai in the middle. Do we have to drag all four prefectures into the group just for an alum mine? That would be too big a spread... But fortunately, they are all along the sea.
This was obviously a matter that needed careful consideration. Mr. Zhao had no way to answer Ma Yilong for a moment. He pulled him into an empty room and closed the door to teach him how to make 12 other kinds of homemade mixed fertilizers. He also taught him how to make 30 kinds of homemade nitrogen fertilizers, 20 kinds of homemade phosphorus fertilizers, and 12 kinds of homemade potash fertilizers. He hoped that he could make a variety of fertilizers in a multi-pronged way, so as to avoid being stuck in a shortage of any one raw material.
Ma Yilong was so shocked that his jaw almost dropped. "Where did you learn so many tricks from?"
Zhao Hao could only smile without saying anything, pretending to be mysterious. He couldn't tell him that because he had no books to read when he was a child, he read his grandfather's books "Earth Fertilizer", "Making Earth Pesticides", and "How to Masturbate" many times.
Of course, Mr. Zhao has also read some high-end books, such as his father's "How to Repair Submarines" and "Missile Submarine Launch Technology", but I think they are useless...
Most of these recipes do not require alum, and the ingredients are also very common... He filtered out the unusual ones to prevent Lao Ma from giving him any more problems.
But Mr. Meng He still needs to explore slowly. In addition to enduring the intoxicating smell of different fertilizers, he also has to use scientific methods to test the effect of each fertilizer. It is estimated that this work will not be completed for ten or eight years.
In addition, he ordered Sakai Sho Co., Ltd. to collect guano from Japanese islands. The first batch has been shipped to Tamra Island and is waiting to be transported back to Japan. It is a high-quality phosphate fertilizer!
Agriculture is the fairest industry. The more nutrients you give to the land, the more harvest you will get in return.
A good harvest is achieved by piling up fertilizers! Before the chemical industry was able to produce fertilizers, this was the only clumsy way to pile them up.
But the good thing is that using this crudely processed natural fertilizer will only make the land more fertile, instead of gradually making the soil compacted like using chemical fertilizers...
(End of this chapter)