When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1008 Rice and Wheat Co-op
After disembarking, the refugees were all amazed as they looked at the undulating brick and stone houses along the street.

Even in Leia, you can't see so many concentrated and orderly brick houses.

The hunchbacked Worin looked around, then stomped his foot twice on the stone slabs: "Damn it, are the citizens on the border of this empire really that rich?"

Tall Sani, who was usually taciturn, spoke up as he followed Warin, saying, "This place is nice."

“This is just a town. Little Pond City is definitely better.” The hunchbacked Worin looked at the others beside him. “Well, we have to stick together. Where to?”

Anselm's mind wasn't on the town: "I want to go back to where we were, to see that paddy field."

"No way, it's too far. Let's go to the tavern and see if there are any prostitutes there."

"No, let's go to the paddy fields instead."

"Tavern!"

"Paddy!"

Seeing the two sides arguing, Sherley, not wanting to waste time, stepped forward and said, "How about this, you make a bet on whether what you just saw was pasture or not?"

"What do you mean?" Anselm hadn't reacted yet.

Hunchback Worin clapped first: "Great, how about it? If it's not pasture, you'll have to give us back all the money you won on the boat."

Anselm suddenly realized what was going on and snorted coldly, "If you lose, give me another share of the money you win on the ship."

"Okay, let's bet."

Sheryl turned to look at Barto beside her: "Barto, what about you?"

Despite being wary of the two brothers' fists and kicks, Bato gritted his teeth and said, "I also want to see the paddy fields."

Barto originally had fertile farmland in his hometown, but when he was five years old, the nobles seized the land and used it to grow tulips.

His uncle had a good relationship with the estate manager and was kept in care, while he and his parents could only wander around, working as tenant farmers and laborers.

The lords didn't exploit the former public farmers too much, but when they became tenant farmers, the whips were lashed even more fiercely.

Barto, who is only twenty-five years old this year, looks like he is forty, and his body is covered with whip marks.

To be honest, although nominally the French are wealthier and more advanced.

However, the Fran refugees on the refugee ship were noticeably thinner and shorter than the Leia refugees.

Barto had prominent cheekbones and deep-set eyes, making him look like a skeleton.

It's not that the Leia people are more compassionate than the Francans; it's just that the administrative power of the Leia Kingdom is not yet capable of such exploitation.

Sherley had overheard them talking; Barto and his skill in tending olives and wheat were remarkable.

Wherever he tended the land, the yield per acre often increased by half a percent. Barto even pioneered the method of transplanting olive branches by cuttings.

The farmer's reward to him was a piece of salted pork, which Barto ate for a year.

This shows the cruelty of the farmers towards their hired laborers and tenants.

The Kingdom of Fran sent boatloads of refugees to the frontier and Norn, but they still couldn't stop the refugees from taking over the roads.

In two cities, there were even instances where dozens of kilometers of roads were lined with wandering migrants.

In terms of the problem of displaced people alone, Fran was far more serious than Leia.

Sherley shook his head, trying to clear his mind of these random thoughts.

The group walked for a short while before arriving at the fields.

Xie Li stepped forward first and approached an old farmer who was resting under a big tree, asking, "Elder, I have something to ask you."

Hearing Sherley's tone and manner, which didn't sound like that of a local ruffian, the old man, supporting himself on the edge of the field, put on his straw sandals and came over: "What do you want to ask?"

"Is this field planted with pasture grass?" Anselm asked first.

"No, it's rice cake."

“Whoosh—” The two brothers from Eagle Foot Bay clapped their hands.

Anselm, with a dark expression, returned all the money he had won from the Eagle's Foot Brothers that day.

As a moisture-loving crop, rice cakes actually have a relatively high water requirement.

"Is this grassland irrigation?" "Grassland irrigation? What's that? This is rice and wheat intercropping."

The Eaglefoot Brothers erupted in cheers once again, while Anselm's face fell completely as he tossed them a few dinars.

"What is rice-mai-lian-zhong?" Anseren asked angrily as he handed over the money.

The farmer suddenly became wary and looked them up and down: "Which village are you from?"

Knowing that the old farmer had become suspicious, Sheri quickly stepped forward: "We are refugees from Leia, and these are our identity documents."

Although the old farmer was illiterate, he had seen this pattern before.

He wasn't sure of the people's identities, but considering that Mimerin's homework wasn't a secret—it had been openly published in Pravda—he simply explained it to Sheri.

The so-called rice and wheat intercropping was an agricultural experiment proposed by a priest in County Hotham.

It involves learning grassland irrigation methods commonly used in the Golden Plains region and then replacing pasture with rice cakes.

The key point is that rice seedlings need to be cultivated in advance, and then transplanted directly into paddy fields after the wheat is harvested in late May.

The rice cakes are harvested in late August, by which time the temperature drops and the river level also decreases.

At this moment, the sluice gates are closed, the paddy fields are drained, the river silt is dug out to fertilize the fields, and then the soil is plowed with a heavy plow.

Wait one to two weeks for the wheat fields to dry slightly before rushing to plant winter wheat.

"This is too late, isn't it?" Anselm found it absurd. "You're using sowing?"

"No, we use row seeding, but we have horse-drawn seeders, which are very efficient."

Anselm found it even more outrageous: "If you don't grow pasture, what will the horses eat?"

"The nags of Pingyuan County are fed fermented sweet bean feed exported from Black Snake Bay, along with turnips, grass, and silage from the mountains and fields."

As for the mountain counties, they either eat the golden silk grass from the gravel plains, or they simply graze freely on the mountain meadows.

Sweet peas, a crop that humans cannot digest, are quite suitable for feeding farm horses.

"You're buying horse feed directly? That's incredibly expensive! Will you even recoup your costs?"

"Yes, we can get them back. One pound of wheat can be exchanged for seven or eight pounds of sweet beans and golden hay." The old farmer counted on his fingers. "Usually, the villagers pool their money and go to Enqing Department Store to buy them in bulk, which is cheaper at wholesale prices."

Anselm was momentarily speechless. Buying feed for horses and not losing money? How did he do that?
Sometimes he would secretly lead his own horses to the lord's pasture to graze, and he would often lose money.

What kind of feed hay can be exchanged for seven or eight pounds of wheat for one pound of wheat?

But he didn't notice that Sheryl had been frozen in place for a long time and hadn't even heard the conversation that followed.

Following this method, rice and wheat can be planted together, yielding two harvests a year, and the land may only need to be left fallow once every seven or eight years to restore its fertility.

In Plains County, the average yield of wheat is 120 pounds per acre, and the average yield of rice cakes is 180 pounds per acre. In the Thousand Rivers Valley, the annual yield of grain is 300 pounds per acre!
This is higher than the yield per acre of the most fertile land in the Golden Plains!
This is not just about improving crop yield per acre, but a complete overhaul of the entire production model.

If the Golden Plains are normal swordsmen, then the Thousand Rivers Valley are swordsmen with four arms, wielding chainsaw swords.

According to Sherley’s previous recollection of the Thousand Rivers Valley tax register, County Hotham had over a million hectares of arable land.

If all of these rice and wheat crops were used for this continuous cropping system, a single county could produce over a million tons of grain.

The entire Hortam County alone could supply the entire Holy Alliance with food.

If the remaining land is used to grow cash crops, and the remaining population is used for mining and weapons manufacturing...

Sherley shuddered: "Has this method been implemented throughout the entire County Hotham?"

"No, but..."

Sherley's initial relief turned into anxiety: "But what?"

"However," a middle-aged farmer suddenly appeared beside them, "this continuous cropping method will probably be widely adopted in the next two years."

"Why?!"

"I heard that the priest who was in charge of the experimental rice and wheat cropping project was quickly promoted three ranks and went to South Mande County to become the deputy county head in charge of water conservancy and agriculture."

Therefore, I estimate that priests in various places will do their best to promote the planting of rice and wheat together this year. Who doesn't want to make progress?
The Sheriff of County Hotham has declared that whoever can effectively promote the cultivation of rice and wheat, or has similar achievements, will be the first to receive a promotion recommendation!

(End of this chapter)