The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1367: We want butter! We don’t want cannons!

Insecticide research in the Austrian Empire was relatively successful, and pyrethrum and derris are still the most widely used natural insecticides today.

Since the most correct target was chosen at the beginning, many detours were avoided. However, Derris also began to invade the rural areas of the Austrian Empire as an invasive plant.

In the Austrian Empire, both nobles and commoners liked to use its characteristics to catch fish in small rivers and ditches.

But what really made this plant spread across the Austrian Empire was that it could be used to steal fish from other people's fish ponds.
In terms of crops, apart from the expansion of the planting area of ​​sugar beets, corn and sunflowers, other aspects are not much different from history.

The reason for expanding the planting area of ​​these three crops is mainly that these three crops can provide a large amount of animal feed while exporting sugar, starch and oil.

Sunflowers were first introduced as a flower to the Austrian Empire, but soon hungry peasants began to steal the seeds from their masters' gardens at night.

Later, the masters simply sold the seeds to farmers and let them grow them themselves
Sunflower seeds are an excellent oil crop, but Austrian farmers at the time were not aware of this, and landowners were more accustomed to using rapeseed and flax to extract oil.

It was not until the end of the 19th century that someone finally did a statistical analysis and found that the oil yield of sunflower seeds was quite considerable. They also invented a machine specifically for extracting oil from sunflower seeds. Only then was sunflower truly listed as an agricultural crop.

Because of this, the Austrian Empire had a very limited area of ​​sunflower cultivation in history. However, with the intervention of the Fuoh Cable Car, the Austrian Empire has become the second largest country in Europe in terms of sunflower cultivation area (excluding Russia). After solving the Hungarian issue, it is only a matter of time before it surpasses Spain and becomes the number one in Europe.

The Spaniards in the 19th century did not plant sunflowers for the purpose of extracting oil. In fact, the Spaniards loved to eat sunflower seeds. They might have been the only people in Europe at that time who knew how to eat sunflower seeds.

At that time, most Europeans peeled the seeds by hand. Take the Austrian Empire as an example. The Germans would put sunflower seeds in the oven and roast them together with meat, spices, etc. before eating them.

Italians will fry the sunflower seeds in oil until they are crispy, with the skin and flesh together, and then eat them directly with the skin.

As for other peoples of Transleitania, they usually choose to grind it and mix it with other things to make bread or paste.

In 19th century Spain, sunflowers were like Spanish rice, both of which were considered less serious snacks.

Apart from the health factors that people in the 19th century could not understand, the main advantage of sunflower over rapeseed is its hardiness.

Sunflower itself has extremely strong resistance and adaptability. In addition, it has few diseases and pests, and has strong shading properties, and can effectively fight weeds.

What was most important to Franz was that the by-products of sunflowers could be used as feed, which was very important for the breeding industry of the Austrian Empire.

The animal husbandry of the Austrian Empire became more diverse under Franz's intervention. The rise of pig and chicken farming made eating meat no longer so out of reach.

In particular, the development speed of the poultry industry can even be described as terrifying. It has a short cycle and a high conversion rate. As long as the scale effect is formed, wealth can quickly increase exponentially.

However, the disadvantage is also obvious, that is, the huge risk. Once fowl plague or avian infectious diseases occur, the entire chicken farm can be infected overnight, causing tens of thousands of chickens to die.

In the past, there was an old saying in the countryside: "Even if you have a million dollars, the chickens don't count," which describes the cruelty of the chicken farming industry.

The huge risk can make investors lose all their money in one go, and the price of chicken is relatively low, so it is difficult to make big money without forming economies of scale.

Fortunately, Franz was not short of money, and several team wipes in the early days also allowed him to accumulate experience. Franz recalled a folk remedy: white wine + garlic juice. Basically, it can be considered as an antibiotic for chickens, and in fact it is the case.

This method was still in use until the early 21st century. Not only are the materials easily available and the production simple, but the effect is also outstanding.

In addition, Franz also invited experts from the Vienna Veterinary School to establish a design and maintenance plan suitable for chicken farms.

The Austrian Empire had already established a veterinary school in 1765, but this veterinary school had a weak presence. Most of the students were children sent by large landowners to study there, and the content taught was cobbled together.

Franz directly merged the Veterinary College and several other agricultural colleges into the Austrian Imperial Agricultural University, making it easier for these agronomists to communicate, while establishing strict review standards to ensure the quality of talent.

There was no major change in the sheep and cattle farming industries of the Austrian Empire. If there was any change, it was in the feed.

Due to Franz's intervention, the scale of the Austrian Empire's animal husbandry expanded significantly, but the cost was that the required feed also had to increase.

Modern animal husbandry, especially the use of corn and soybeans as feed like the United States, was simply impossible in the Austrian Empire at that time.

After all, some people still can't afford corn and soybeans.

As a result, beet residues from sugar factories, lees from wineries, and waste from oil presses all became new feed, which on the one hand avoided waste and on the other hand promoted the commercial cycle and actually reduced production costs.

The centrifuge was originally invented to separate impurities from liquids in chemical experiments. The inventor could never have imagined that his invention would be used to make butter.

In the past, people had to put the milk in a huge shallow dish, wait for all the fat to float up, scoop it up with a special colander and put it in a jar to ferment, and finally stir it into butter.

Now the process was greatly simplified, and because the cost was low enough, the entire European market was filled with butter from the Austrian Empire.

Franz himself was not very interested in butter, but butter was an indispensable commodity in the Austrian Empire and even in Europe.

Even the mustache would say "Cannons! Not butter!" when he swore.

In short, butter could definitely be considered a hard currency in Europe at that time. Franz never expected that even an Austrian economist would propose to anchor butter as a general equivalent and issue currency to the whole of Europe.

Although it seems a bit ridiculous, in fact, the money Franz earned from butter was much higher than any of the other items, including cigarettes, alcohol, sugar and tea.

Let’s not talk about cigarettes, as the cigarette market had not yet opened up. Franz wanted to follow the example of the United States in 1848 and give cigarettes to soldiers to spread the word, but because there were many royal family members in the army, no one dared to smoke.

After all, most Austrians had heard the rumor, and Vienna was in chaos at the time. Anyone with a normal brain would not show themselves at this critical juncture.

In terms of beer, the Austrian Empire's Pilsner beer completely conquered all markets from northern Germany to southern Italy.

However, it is still slightly inferior to the butter that conquered the whole of Europe.