Taking advantage of the fact that spring plowing hadn't started yet, coupled with the reorganization of officials, Marin ordered Kohler, the freshly-baked Acting Minister of Finance, to send someone to find out the land composition of the Earl of East Frisia. For example, how much arable land, how many forests, how many grasslands, how many...
In addition to sending people to the field to understand the situation, Kohler also asked Jeffrey for old statistics that had been collected by the country. After all, the previous lord must have done this too.
Of course, Marin understands this data for the purpose of planning and adjusting the industrial structure. The former East Frisian did this mainly for the convenience of taxation. After all, the rulers in the feudal era were most afraid that the people below would conceal the amount of cultivated land and population. Because of this, it will lead to the loss of the ruler's tax.
For a country as huge as the Ming Empire, it is estimated that the workload would be enormous if one wanted to conduct a census on the population and land of the whole country. However, East Frisia is different. Leaving aside the semi-independent Jever, East Frisia has a total area of only about 3,200 square kilometers, which is only equivalent to the size of a relatively small prefecture-level city or two or three counties in later China.
It is very easy to carry out a census in such a small place. So, after a month or so, Kohler handed over the report to Marin with reference to the old data...
"What? Kohler, are you right? One-third of the country's land is swampland?" Marin almost lost his footing after seeing the report. 33% of the country's land is swamp, isn't it amazing
Before, when playing "European Universal", Marin also played with East Frisian as the start, and also read the above introduction. In the game, it shows that the East Frisian swamp area is close to 40%. In this regard, Marin obviously did not believe it. Because, if 40% of a country is a swamp, wouldn't it be a water park? "Water Margin" can be staged directly...
However, the actual data tells Marin that although 40% cannot be achieved, there are still 33%...
This is also an important reason why most of the cultivated land in East Frisia is concentrated in Lyle County in the south. Except for Lyle County, there are basically large swamps in the other counties. It is these swamps that divide the north-central region of East Frisia into pieces, which are difficult to connect into pieces. Therefore, in the central and northern regions of East Frisia, there is very little farmland. Even, the development efforts are very small.
Before, the reason why Marin was able to use 5,000 Ugrams of land to replace all the land along the northern coast was because there were too many swamps there.
In fact, the area of the swamps in the north-central region of East Frisia is actually not small. Although some plots are surrounded or blocked by swamps, they still have dozens or even hundreds of acres of land. If they were Huaxia farmers, they would have already settled down in the depths of the swamp to reclaim wasteland, as long as the government allowed it. After all, tens of hundreds of acres of land is not a small area in China. Only rich farmers can have so many fields. Moreover, the fields deep in these swamps have abundant fresh water resources and are convenient for irrigation.
But this is in Europe. Those European lords would not even be interested in developing it if there were no stretches of hundreds of acres of flat land. Because the yield per unit area of European land is low, and serfs also have to keep their own food. Therefore, they believe that the development of those swamps is of little value. Moreover, because of the difficulty of transportation in the deep swamp, horses are prone to sinkholes. Therefore, the lords were unwilling to send people deep into the swamp.
Therefore, those swamps are basically deserted. Only at the edge of the swamp, some lords may raise some cattle and sheep. But the breeding is also very extensive, and they are not good at storing feed for wintering. Therefore, before winter, cattle and sheep are slaughtered on a large scale in many places, and the meat is salted.
Of course, this is also related to their lack of high-quality forage. Marin introduced alfalfa to the Wadden Islands. The alfalfa was harvested well and fed to cattle and sheep in winter to ensure that the cattle and sheep would not lose weight. However, if it is replaced by the local weeds, because they are not nutritious enough, if they are used to feed livestock in winter, it may cause malnutrition in large areas, and a number of livestock may die. Therefore, Europeans simply slaughtered a large number of livestock before winter...
Therefore, Europeans in this era have no shortage of bacon and salted fish, and sausages are very common food. Sailors on long voyages bring a lot of cured meat, eat it every day, and don’t supplement vitamins. It’s strange that they don’t get scurvy…
However, because everyone slaughtered animals before winter. Therefore, there is a lot of cured meat on the market in winter, and the price of meat cannot be sold at all. Even during the intensive slaughter period, the price of meat will drop sharply. Therefore, the little nobles who raise livestock are also very poor, and they don't have much profit, and they are not as good as those nobles who farm land. After all, the aristocrats who farmed the land planted in the spring and harvested in the autumn, and the grain was put in the warehouse, and it would not go bad for two or three years.
Marin knew that there were many swamps in the territories of the small nobles by the North Sea. Therefore, he was able to exchange territories from those lords at a low price. However, he couldn't believe that there were so many swamps in Aurich and Emden counties.
In fact, there are many swamps in the two counties. It's just that Marin took the road from Emden County to Aurich County before. The avenue itself chose a route with fewer swamps, and it was developed along the way, so Marin naturally didn't see many swamps. But in fact, there are also many swamps in these two counties...
Marin didn't believe it, so he rode out of the city with a large group of people to see the swamp...
Sure enough, when Marin's horse team left the avenue between Aurich and Emden, it didn't take long to see swamps and pools here and there...
Looking at so many swamps, Marin muttered to himself:
"So much land, if the swamp is drained, wouldn't it be possible to turn it into fertile land? Wouldn't it be a shame for me?"
"Master, this, I'm afraid it's difficult..." Kohler interjected, interrupting Marin's YY.
"Why? What's so difficult about it? Dig an irrigation canal, pump the water from the swamp pool into the irrigation canal, and the swamp will gradually dry up soon? Then, you can cultivate good fields..."
"Master, it's not difficult to dig an irrigation canal, nor is it difficult to divert water. The difficult thing is how to drain the water in the swamp pool..."
If you want to develop the swamp, you not only need to dig irrigation canals to divert water, but you must also drain the water from those pools. Otherwise, there will be too much water in those lands, and they will still be swamps, which cannot be cultivated into fields.
"Is it difficult to pump water? Isn't it just a water pump..." Marin suddenly stopped talking. He suddenly remembered that this is the Middle Ages, not modern times, and he could just get a diesel water pump to pump water violently "chug chug". It is very, very troublesome, very costly, and extremely difficult to drain the water in the swamp pool...
Marin got off his horse silently, walked to the edge of a swamp pool, squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil, looked at it, but was attracted...
It turned out that the soil beside the swamp pool was gray-black. He knows this kind of soil... because, in later generations, this kind of soil has a name called peat...
Peat soil, also known as peat or peat. Its material is mainly composed of incompletely decomposed plant residues and completely humified humus and minerals. It generally spawns in swampy areas and develops in conditions of abundant water and lack of air. Because it is rich in organic matter, it is considered to be a very high-quality natural fertile soil, and it can also be used as a natural fertilizer.
In the previous life, Marin didn't know what peat soil was at first. However, after he started working, the landlady of the rental house he rented was a flower lover and liked to plant flowers and plants on the roof.
When Marin is not at work on weekends, he sometimes goes to the roof to bask in the sun. If he meets the landlady who is tending the flower pots, he can chat with her.
The landlady is a bad-mouthed lady, and she likes to chatter for a long time when she catches Marin. In addition to the shortcomings of the parents, it is to instill the knowledge of growing flowers into Marin.
The old lady is a demolition household. There are many houses and she can collect a lot of rent every month. Therefore, she is very leisurely to grow flowers, and she is willing to spend money...
For example, ordinary people grow flowers, just find some soil to cultivate them. But the old lady pays attention to grades, and even specially bought peat soil, which is said to be imported, to use as flowerpot soil, which is very luxurious. Moreover, the old lady had a broken mouth, and often showed off with Marin, showing Marin the imported peat soil and even the plastic bags filled with English in which the peat soil was packaged.
So, Marin knew about the peat soil, and was dragged by the old lady to feel the imported peat soil. It is said that the peat soil bought by the old lady was imported from Ireland...
Moreover, Marin also knows that peat soil is high-quality peat soil if it is held tightly for a minute when it is dry, and if it can spread out after loosening. These were all taught to Marin by the landlady in her previous life...
Seeing the mud at the edge of the swamp, which was obviously peat soil, Marin squeezed a handful of dry peat soil in his hand... After about a minute, Marin let go of his hand, and the peat soil slowly dispersed. Although it's not top-notch, Marin knows that this is considered high-grade peat soil...
And Marin took a look, these swamp areas that have existed for tens of millions of years, this kind of peat soil seems to be very much, everywhere...
So, it seems that these swamps are not all useless. If the water is drained, the fertile peat soil here can definitely be transformed into a high-quality farmland!
Moreover, peat soil is not only fertile planting soil, but also can be used as fuel. In Scotland, it is said that during the manufacture of Scotch whiskey, peat is used as fuel to roast germinated barley.
Although the calorific value of peat is not high, it is much lower than that of coal. However, it has the same calorific value as firewood, or even exceeds the calorific value of firewood. So, peat is also an excellent fuel…
Of course, mining this fuel is not easy and requires deep swampy areas...
In short, these swamps are not useless. It is these peaty soils that are valuable both as fertilizer and as fuel.
Even, Marin plans to add some peat soil when making dung fertilizer...