Life in a Simulation - Chapter 14

After his parents were gone, how to support himself and his three-year-old sister became the most realistic problem facing Zhou Ming.

As the son of a farmer, becoming a farmer who makes a living by farming was Zhou Ming’s only choice.

Coincidentally, after this plague, the population of Granling was reduced by more than half, and there was more idle land. The steward Brunold could not bear Zhou Ming’s repeated pleas, and finally agreed to let him choose ten acres of relatively fertile land in a fallow field not far from the river near the town as his arable land.

With ten acres of land, Zhou Ming had his own plan for how to cultivate these ten acres.

Unlike the Eastern farming model mainly combining farmland and mulberry trees, the Western agricultural civilization adopts a farming method combining farmland and pasture.

That is, about half of the land is used to grow cereal crops such as barley, wheat, rye, and oats, and about half of the land is used to grow peas, forage, and raise livestock such as cattle, sheep, and horses.

The West has a smaller population and more idle land. Its agro-pastoral combination planting model can produce staple food for people to eat on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can produce a large number of livestock such as cattle, sheep, and horses.

These livestock can not only provide sufficient animal power, but also provide a large amount of meat, milk, and fur, meeting most of people’s needs for clothing and food.

Moreover, the manure left by livestock on the pastures grazed by livestock is also a good source of fertilizer for the land and has a good effect on fertilizing the land.

From these aspects, the Western agro-pastoral combination planting model is much more time-saving and labor-saving than the Eastern planting model that needs meticulous cultivation and consumes a lot of manpower and time.

After all, in the ancient agricultural civilization where one cow is equivalent to seven laborers, the more livestock there are, the more time-saving and labor-saving it is for farming.

Moreover, these livestock can also provide a large amount of meat. Even in years when the weather is bad and the grain crops are poor, there will not be a large number of people starving to death (of course, these people mainly refer to the owners of the livestock – the lords).

However, the Eastern agricultural and sericulture combination planting model also has its advantages.

For example, relying on meticulous cultivation and reasonable application of manure, the average yield per mu of Eastern agriculture can reach two to four times the average yield per mu of Western agriculture, and the average seed return rate can reach 10-20.

Zhou Ming calculated in his mind that after paying 60% of the land rent, he probably needed to cultivate 5-6 acres of land to support himself and his sister.

The premise is that the average yield per mu of these lands can reach about 450 jin.

In Granling, where the average yield of barley per mu is still less than 120 jin, this is almost an astronomical number…

However, Zhou Ming was very confident!

Because in the “Zhang Ergou” scenario, he who had been farming for hundreds of years, had at least a dozen methods to increase the yield of crops here.

For example, how to plow deeply, how to intercrop, how to maintain crop spacing, how to observe the weather, how to keep water and warmth, how to prevent and control pests and diseases, how to remove weeds quickly, etc.

The most important thing is how to fertilize reasonably.

Fertilizer is one of the most important links in the three treasures of agriculture (water, fertilizer, seed), and any farmer knows what fertilizer means to grain yield.

Fundamental!

Or rather, the basis for high grain yield!

When the changes in water and seed factors are not too large, 90% of agricultural increase in production is achieved by fertilizer.

In this world, although people have a certain vague understanding of the importance of animal manure, they have not yet paid attention to the practice of digging manure pits, collecting human and animal manure in a planned way, fermenting it anaerobically, and then applying it back to the fields.

In daily life, people in this era defecate and urinate indiscriminately, and human and animal manure can be seen everywhere in front of and behind the houses, and places with a stench have become the breeding ground for plagues.

Even the lords and knights living in tall castles, and the kings and princesses living in magnificent royal cities, also defecate and urinate indiscriminately when they need to.

Zhou Ming plans to collect these easily available manure, ferment it in a manure pit, and use it to great effect when farming!

…

In the following half month or so.

The men, women, and children in Rose Town found a very funny and ridiculous thing.

Derek’s son Layne actually carried a wooden bucket, looking for those dirty and smelly manure in the town, happily collected these manure together, and then buried them in a big pit in front of his house like a treasure, and was always happy to do so.

The town was buzzing with discussions, whether Derek’s son Layne had been cast some kind of spell by a witch, or had his brain eaten by the devil, so as to do such absurd and strange things.

“This poor child, both parents have gone to the embrace of the Father God, and no one takes care of him, he actually takes an interest in this kind of thing…” Neighbor Susan aunt couldn’t help but wipe her tears.

“Yes, but we can’t help them, I already have Tom and Jerrick two children, if there are two more… sigh…” Kind-hearted Uncle O’Neil helplessly sighed.

“Shit Layne, Shit Layne, after shoveling the manure into the big pit, he fell into the manure pit next year, and his name is Layne!” The naughty little brats in the town surrounded Zhou Ming and sang the song they had written and directed by themselves.

“Go away, go away, you crazy kid, don’t bring this kind of thing to me in the future!” When Zhou Ming carried a big bucket of manure to the tax office to pay taxes, the tax collector Dirac drove him out in the哄laugh of the onlookers.

“You don’t cherish it, I’m afraid others will抢it in the future.” Zhou Ming carried the bucket of manure with all his might, humming a tune and went home.

…

After the manure in various places in the town was collected, let it ferment in the manure pit, Zhou Ming began to prepare for spring sowing.

He asked the kind Uncle O’Neil for help, and with the help of a heavy plow pulled by six oxen, he plowed six acres of land in half a day according to his requirements.

Then it was seed selection, sowing, and land leveling. Because of his small size and weak strength, he spent a whole week on these six acres of land.

The other four acres of land, because they were originally fallow land, did not need to be sown, and forage could grow.

After the seeds were sown, the next two months became his busiest days.

The manure in the big pit in front of the house was dug out by him, placed on the ground and exposed to the sun for several days, until it all turned into black powdery solid.

Then, he went to the forest outside the town, and dug some humus from under the roots of some very old trees. These humus contain many humic bacteria, which can accelerate the decomposition rate of organic matter.

In addition, because the manure of humans and animals is still slightly acidic after fermentation and drying, which is not conducive to the growth of barley suitable for planting in neutral soil environment, he also dug some river mud from the river to neutralize.

Solid powder of human and animal manure + humus + alkaline river mud, Zhou Ming mixed them in a certain proportion, and thus, the organic fertilizer with strong fertility, easy for crops to absorb, and strong timeliness was made.

This kind of organic fertilizer is the ultimate fertilizer with the widest source of raw materials and the most significant fertilizing effect in the ancient agricultural civilization society, which Zhou Ming spent hundreds of years to explore and formulate!

Even on an extremely barren piece of land, under normal weather conditions, as long as this fertilizer is applied, a bumper harvest can be guaranteed!

“What a pity, if I could go out of this town and find several kinds of rare element-containing ores to bring back, grind these ores into powder, and add them to this fertilizer to make ‘rare ore powder ultimate compound fertilizer’, the fertility level of this fertilizer will be promoted to a new level, and a yield of a thousand jin per acre is not a myth…”

However, even without rare ore powder, relying on this complete version of the ultimate organic fertilizer, it is very easy to achieve the goal of a yield of 450 jin per acre.

The next day, after Zhou Ming applied the “strongest manure” he formulated to the farmland, in a few days, he saw that the wheat seedlings in his field were obviously half a centimeter higher than the wheat seedlings in the adjacent field, and his heart was filled with confidence and confidence!

Life in a Simulation - Chapter 14

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Hate that cliffhanger, don’t you?

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