In ancient agricultural societies, spring plowing was definitely a top priority. Therefore, Marin, the lord, must be present to participate in the ceremony. Although it's not like using pig's head to sacrifice to heaven like in the East, but we still have to organize everyone to pray or something, hoping for God's blessing.
For this spring plowing, more than 800 horses and 200 oxen were used. The animal power is sufficient, and the labor-saving and efficient curved plow is used, so the plowing speed is very fast.
During the plowing process, Marin discovered a very interesting phenomenon—that is, when Haider was in charge of the plowing, he asked the cattle not to turn as much as possible. Moreover, the length of each plowing is strictly regulated, and cattle are not allowed to turn if the length of plowing is less than the specified length. Because turning too frequently will affect the farming efficiency.
According to Haider, this is to improve the efficiency of farming. Moreover, he told a very interesting thing—that is, the origin of the acre.
It turned out that when Haider was studying in college, a classmate from the UK told him about the origin of Haider’s acre...
The English word acre (acre) is a unit of measurement used by the British. An acre is approximately equal to 6 acres. By definition, the area of an acre is equal to the area of a rectangle whose length is one furlong and width is one chain. A furlong is 660 feet, and a chain is 66 feet. Seeing this, everyone may not feel it, but if we understand the historical origins of units of measurement such as acre (acre), furlong (furlong) and chain (chain), we can understand how long and how big it is.
In ancient England, a pair of oxen were usually used to pull a plow when plowing. The pair of oxen pull the plow without rest, and the distance that can be plowed in one breath is called furlong (wave, also translated as Furlong), which is actually the abbreviation of furrowlong (furrow length). After plowing for a wave of distance in one breath, let the cattle rest for a while, then turn around and plow again, and go back and forth like this until the end of the day, and the area plowed in this day is one acre. If the ox turns around before the length of one wave has been plowed, the number of turns will increase, and the area plowed by the ox will decrease. This is why furlong is used as the side length in the definition of acre.
That is to say, if the farming is properly arranged, the area cultivated by two cows is one acre (6 mu) a day. However, the Wadden Islands use a better curved plow than that of Europe in this era, and the efficiency is much higher. Therefore, although one ox is used to pull it, 5 mu of land can still be cultivated every day.
Of course, this is the standard reached after learning from the British method of plowing a wave and then turning. And if it is a small plot like Huaxia, with frequent turns, a cow can only cultivate about 4 mu of land a day.
And pulling horses to plow the land is more efficient than cattle. For example, after using the one-wave-one-stop farming method, coupled with the use of a curved plow, the French horse in Marin's hand can plow 6 acres of land a day, which is exactly one acre.
However, horses are much more delicate than cows. Although horse-drawn plows are faster than oxen during plowing, they have to rest for a while, otherwise, the horse's body will not be able to bear it. If the horse's body is not cared for, the horse will soon collapse or even die.
Moreover, during the farming period, the horses do not eat forage, but eat oats and more eggs, which is very expensive. As for the cattle, although they are also fed some oats and eggs during the plowing period, they are still mainly forage. Oatmeal and eggs can only be regarded as extra meals to supplement nutrition.
Therefore, there is not much difference between cattle farming and horse farming. Of course, in terms of efficiency, the horse is still faster, and in terms of cost, it is still cheap...
Because there are more than 800 draft horses and more than 200 cattle, these animals can cultivate nearly 1,000 acres of land every day, which is equivalent to 500 Ugrams.
On the archipelago, a total of 11,400 Ugrams of arable land have been developed, and the archipelago has been cultivating land since February. Therefore, by mid-March, all the arable land on the island has been plowed.
Then, Marin happened to purify some potassium salt, mixed it into the septic tank, and applied it as a base fertilizer. There are now a full 16,000 people on the island, but many of them are mercenaries who are not non-residents. Therefore, Marin also kept the fertilizer secret, so as not to spread the fertilization process.
Therefore, during the fertilization period, Marin ordered Schwartz and Frundsberg to pull the army out for training, away from the agricultural area. The army is mainly in the southern half of East Freeland, where there are no freshwater rivers, it is not suitable for farming, and there are no farming scenes. Only the first group of people who followed Marin had their own arable land on the island, and were allowed to stay at home and participate in spring plowing.
A few days later, the smell of the manure almost dissipated, and the seeds could be planted on demand, and Marin asked people to bring the army back to Tenburg...
Of course, Marin supplies food every day to support these soldiers, and will not let them be too idle. There is no need for them to go to the fields, but it is no problem for these big soldiers to help build roads. For this reason, Marin sent a boat to the mainland to buy a lot of stones and wooden hammers, and let these soldiers participate in road construction. It is mainly to build passages between the newly built farms and to the wharf.
The soldiers watered the ground first, softening the ground. Then, he rammed the ground with a wooden hammer vigorously to tamp the foundation. Then, sprinkle stones, water again, and then use a wooden hammer to smash the soil and stones together as much as possible to make the road stronger...
In this regard, Marin also called it a good name-this is to practice arm strength, and it is also a kind of military training...
Hitting the ground with a hammer is considered military training? People in the 21st century would have been dissatisfied for a long time. But those who served in the army these days are basically illiterate and have little knowledge, so they can only listen to Marin's fooling around. They really thought that this was also a kind of military training. After all, swinging the hammer too much is really good for practicing arm strength... Besides, Marin is shameless, and he fooled them into saying that when hitting the ground with the hammer, the ground and the The stones are all imagined as enemies wearing plate armor, and the duty of the soldiers is to overturn the enemy, stun or even kill the enemy knights in the plate armor...
Then, this group of uneducated and stupid soldiers really believed it. When you hit the ground with a hammer, that's called hard work... and shouted while hitting the ground-"What about the knight, I smashed you with a hammer!"
Schwartz and Frundsberg, who were acting as supervisors, rolled their eyes when they heard this—paralyzed, I am a knight, you really want to hit me? I remember you, I want you to look good in the next training...
Because there was no seed drill, sowing in this era was done by hand. Of course, sowing is not very good. After all, it is easy to "shake the hand" when spreading, and then spread unevenly. Therefore, the most reliable thing is to dig a pit and broadcast on demand.
But there are only so many serfs on the island, and the land of more than 10,000 Ugrams is quite laborious. Therefore, Marin ordered that all the strong men and strong women of the fishermen's families on the island come to help sow the wheat grains.
These rye grains are all selected and soaked in salt water under the arrangement of Marin, and they are all good seeds with full grains. Under the arrangement of Marin, most of the strong men on the island came to participate in the on-demand wheat grains.
The specific process is that every small straight-line distance, a strong man will take a sharpened wooden stick and poke a not too deep hole in the plowed land. Then, the women following behind will throw the wheat seeds into the hole, and pull them with their hands, cover the wheat seeds with soil, and press them briefly, neither too tightly nor loosely...and so on and on...
Although there is no seed drill, Marin still requires that the seeds be planted in rows. The spacing is similar to that of rice planting in Marin's hometown in later generations, but it should be denser.
Because, Marin knows, the denser the seeding is, the better it is, and some spacing must be maintained. Because each plant of wheat has its own root system and needs a certain space to grow and take root. If several stalks of wheat grow together, there will be serious competition. Their root systems will become tangled and compete for territory and nutrients in this small area. The end result is that none of these wheat plants grow well, or only one plant barely grows better.
Therefore, it is better to separate the plants to avoid competition among the plants for root sites and nutrients, causing everyone to fail to grow well. However, more than one grain of wheat is sown in each pit. Because, you can't guarantee that every seed will germinate.
Because there is more than one seed in each hole, more than one wheat seedling will emerge from these spots after germination. At that time, according to the growth of the wheat seedlings, the wheat seedlings that are too poor and entangled with other wheat seedlings can be pulled out as weeds, so as to give enough space for the excellent wheat seedlings to survive and absorb nutrients...
During spring plowing, Marin gathered the serfs together for dinner every night, and every time after dinner, he would publicize these agricultural knowledge to everyone, and the serfs were taken aback for a while. Even a college student like Haider was stunned when he heard this. However, as an official in charge of government affairs, Haider understands that he must also master agricultural knowledge, otherwise, he will not be able to guide others. Therefore, Haider always took out his notebook and recorded Marin's quotations when Marin was bragging about the knowledge of later generations...
Later, relying on this notebook, Haider also changed from a purely legal official to a senior official proficient in agriculture, and even became Marin's Minister of Agriculture...