From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 42 Slash-and-burn farming

As the old saying goes, “The beginning of the year determines the whole year.”

On the first day of the new year, everything starts anew, which has great symbolic significance.

According to the older generation, one cannot kill, sweep, fetch water or quarrel on this day. If one breaks something, one must say a few words "peace every year" to pray for good luck.

Chen Zhou felt that the meaning of the "year" he set on the "first day of the new year" was already very clear - to put it nicely, it was hard work, to put it bluntly, it was just work.

Hitting the stone wall with a hammer one by one gave very different results.

The adhesion capacity of the loess on the sunny slope is approximately equal to 0, and the stone wall relies entirely on the interlocking support between the stones.

When you hit the middle of the wall, the wall will not deform significantly due to the pressure from the upper stones.

When the upper part of the stone wall was hit, the topmost stone flew out directly, and even caused the surrounding stones to collapse in a chain.

Such a wall is not only earthquake-resistant, but it could also be blown down by a strong wind, crushing people underneath. Chen Zhou immediately removed the loess from the sunny slope.

The second soil to be tested was Yangpo White Soil.

The texture of this soil is extremely fine, and its color is similar to the industrial kaolin that Chen Zhou is familiar with.

The soil is usually condensed into lumps, similar to the white soil in the box of edible soil, and is only distributed on the gravel slopes at the foot of the sunny hillside, near the chinchilla habitat.

If Chen Zhou had not spent a morning on the gravel slope, he would probably have missed the opportunity to see this kind of soil.

He guessed that this kind of soil should contain a certain proportion of montmorillonite powder, but it was not as pure as kaolin. It might also contain a small amount of fine sand and quartzite, which slightly affected the viscosity.

The thin layer of mud and debris on the surface of the stone wall is obviously affected by the fine sand.

If you have a fine sieve to sift out the fine sand in the white clay, the performance of the white clay should be better.

Unfortunately, Chen Zhou didn't have a fine sieve, and he couldn't make such a sieve.

The net for screening soil must be at least two meters long and one meter wide, and needs to be woven with wire.

The cloth cannot support the weight of the soil, the mesh is difficult to clean after being clogged, and it is not resistant to wear.

Before knocking on the stone wall, Chen Zhou tentatively pushed the top layer of stones.

Not moving.

Feeling a little more confident, he hit the center of the stone wall with a heavy hammer.

The dried mud had fallen off a layer of debris, but the overall structure of the stone wall was still very stable, with no deformation or looseness.

With continuous strikes, the square hammer head behind the long-handled axe even broke the uneven edges of the stone, splashing fragments.

Some fine debris had fallen off the thin mud on the surface of the stone wall, but it did not affect the integrity of the entire wall.

The structural strength of the middle part of the wall far exceeded expectations and was many times stronger than the loess stone wall. Chen Zhou was in a good mood.

This feeling is like getting the big guaranteed prize in the second draw. I had prepared several 648s and now I have saved them all. It gives me the illusion that I am making money by not spending anything.

However, the middle part of the wall is already tightly connected, so this performance is normal. The key factor that really determines the nature of the white mud lies in the top layer.

Chen Zhou really hopes that the top part of the wall will also perform well, which means he will save a lot of time looking for testing materials and free up his energy to do other things.

It is already January and the rainy season will begin in mid-February. If you want to eat the first crop of food as early as possible, it is time to sow seeds.

As for the compost pit, the earliest we can have it is next season.

Before the livestock industry was established on a large scale, it was far from enough for him to produce "fertilizer" by himself, unless he spent the whole day picking up dead fish and shrimps on the beach, which would delay other work.

Call ~
Exhaling, Chen Zhou wanted to use all his strength to smash it to see the real performance, but he was also afraid that if he used too much force, he would knock down the wall and get a disappointing result.

With this contradictory mentality, he still put all his strength into hitting the stone wall with the hammer.

clang!
A burning smell caused by the collision of metal and stone came along with crisp knocking sounds.

The wooden axe handle effectively offsets the force of the hammer head rebounding and does not shake the hand.

There were tiny cracks in the solidified white mud on the surface of the top layer of stones, but none of the stones were out of place.

I picked at the cracks with my hands and peeled off a few pieces of solidified white mud. I squeezed them hard and found they were very hard.

Looking inside the cracked white mud, the cracks have not expanded to a deep depth and the structure of the wall has not been seriously damaged.

"Stable!"

Chen Zhou thought.

As long as the wall is not built too high, the strength of the white soil on the sunny slope is sufficient.

The wind from the shady side seldom blows into the cave. The sand and gravel on the top of the cave are very compact and will not fall down easily. The pressure on the walls is limited. If this state is maintained, it will not be a problem to support the cave for thirty to fifty years.

Moreover, he knew the exact date of the earthquake, so he would move out of the cave a few days before the earthquake and hide in a tent in an open area. He would not risk staying in the cave, so his safety would be guaranteed.

So far, there is nothing wrong with Baini's performance.

Chen Zhou estimated that even if he dug up a few more kinds of soil for comparison, they would not be a match for the white mud, so he decided to use the sunny slope white soil to build the wall.

To confirm his idea, he picked up the hammer and completed the test on the remaining walls.

As expected, they are not on the same level as white clay and are not comparable.

The project, which was originally estimated to take half a month or even two or three months, was completed so easily.

Compared with the box of colorful edible soil, Chen Zhou felt that this was a real "New Year's gift".

……

January 1st is a great start.

That morning, Chen Zhou completed the material testing early and began to calculate the number of stones needed for building materials.

It was discovered that the stones deliberately left behind when clearing the sand and soil were only enough to build the outer walls of the cave, and there were still huge gaps in the wall materials that separated the three rooms inside.

Chen Zhou originally planned to spend half a month moving and accumulating stones.

After carefully comparing the priorities, he still felt that farming was more important, so he decided to postpone building the wall and cultivate the land first.

In his hometown, all the arable land has been used for many years, and children have no idea what the process is for reclaiming large tracts of land.

If we insist on saying that it has anything to do with land reclamation, Chen Zhou has only expanded the vegetable garden at his grandmother's house.

However, it was land where crops were once grown, and it was not wasteland in the strict sense.

In addition to what he saw in life, he also learned about a very primitive farming method when he was in school - slash-and-burn farming.

This type of farming is mainly used in large areas of virgin forest land.

The first step of slash-and-burn farming is to cut down the trees in the target area, cut the herbaceous plants, leave them on the ground to dry, and then set them on fire.

The soil will become loose after burning, and the pest eggs on the surface of the soil will also be burned to death.

With the help of the fertility of wood ash, crops can be planted directly without turning the soil.

This method of planting is quick and easy, but it is highly destructive, consumes a lot of soil fertility, and is not sustainable. Even if it is the best land, it can only be planted for three years at most. After three years, the fertility is completely consumed, and you have to use the old method, move the site, and burn a new field.

Since leaving the Stone Age, the Chinese nation has gradually eliminated slash-and-burn farming and slowly developed methods to increase production such as crop rotation, composting, and weeding.

This is partly because there are more hills than plains in the country, and land suitable for farming is scarce and must be reused repeatedly.

On the other hand, due to slash-and-burn farming, the grain yield is low. There is a saying that "plant one slope and harvest one vine". The yield per mu is only about 100 kilograms, which is not cost-effective.

However, some primitive tribes or economically backward areas in Southeast Asia and South America are still using this method in the 21st century.

In order to make money, they do not hesitate to cut down vast tracts of the Amazon rainforest, burn rare plants, destroy the habitats of endangered animals, and plant rubber trees or tobacco.

In the early days, there was also the practice of cutting down trees to expand arable land in the country.

Later, realizing the importance of environmental protection, rural areas carried out afforestation and returning farmland to forests for decades, returning the mountains and forests to wild animals.

The textbooks do not encourage the backward and unscientific farming method of slash-and-burn agriculture, and questions about environmental protection and the disadvantages of slash-and-burn agriculture often appear in exams.

The pictures of the burned rainforest and the trees emitting black smoke were truly shocking, which is why Chen Zhou had such a deep impression of slash-and-burn farming.

Feng Shui turns.

When he criticized this behavior in class and explained the drawbacks on the test paper, Chen Zhou never thought that one day he would adopt the same method to reclaim land.

But unlike primitive tribes, his main purpose in planting the first crop of grain was to preserve seeds rather than to eat it.

The fertility of reclaimed land will not be constantly depleted.

Since there are no beans suitable for crop rotation, he can choose to make compost or plant one season and leave the land fallow for two seasons to let the land recover on its own.

On the afternoon of January 1st, Chen Zhou selected a suitable piece of land.

This piece of land is located below the platform at the entrance of the cave. In addition to short grass and shrubs, there are also tree roots left over from previous firewood felling, which is exactly the right condition for slash-and-burn farming.

Moreover, this land is located on a shady slope, not far from the cave and the source of the mountain stream.

The sunlight here is not too strong, which can prevent the fragile seedlings from being killed by the sun.

It is also convenient to carry water for irrigation or weeding, and to observe the condition of crops.

On January 1, the farming project officially started.

He spent the day clearing weeds and brush from the land and digging out smaller tree roots to burn.

From January 1 to January 3, he began digging fire-prevention trenches around the target farmland.

The climate in the north is dry, and forests are very prone to fire in spring, autumn, or during solar terms such as Qingming and Mid-Autumn Festival.

Especially the Xing'an Mountains fire in 87, which burned for a full 28 days and required the deployment of tens of thousands of people to continuously put out the fire, shocking the entire country.

Influenced by this incident, Chen Zhou's hometown has had fire prevention education every half a semester since elementary school. Not only fire drills are conducted, but also teaching on how to use fire extinguishers and dig fire trenches.

Knowing how terrible a forest fire could be once it spread, Chen Zhou dug the firebreak ditch very carefully, not daring to be careless in the slightest.

The entire piece of land used for farming is 30 meters long and 50 meters wide, about two acres, which is more than enough to plant the seeds in the sacks.

Before lighting the fire, Chen Zhou first made two wooden shovels and two wooden rakes out of the iron tree for future use. Since he obtained two axes, he basically did not use any other wood to make tools in his daily life.

Even the fishing rod used that day was made of ironwood, with the main purpose of displaying luxury.

If the ironwood forest wasn't so small, he would even like to build a wooden house entirely with ironwood.

On January 1, the firebreak ditch was dug, the weeds and thin shrub branches had been dried sufficiently, and there was almost no wind, so Chen Zhou lit a fire.

The tiny flame created by the flint looked extremely fragile. It began to grow from a corner of the farmland, gnawing at the fuel and growing rapidly.

When the fire expands to a certain extent, the speed at which it spreads is beyond human cognition.

It seemed like it only took a breath to run a long way, and in the blink of an eye it rushed from one end of the land to the other.

This was the first time Chen Zhou had set such a big fire, so he couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. He was worried that the surrounding firebreaks would not be able to control the fire.

Standing at the foot of the mountain, he held a wooden shovel and ran from time to time, observing the direction of the flames so that he could cover the fire with soil and extinguish it in time.

Fortunately, the weather was good and there was no inexplicable strong wind, so everything went smoothly during the weed burning process.

After losing the fuel, the fire quickly subsided and gradually died out.

The grass, which originally had some greenness, turned completely black.

Hot, dry, and filled with a smell of destruction.

There was still fire in the burnt ashes, and Chen Zhou watched over it patiently until dark.

At dusk, a slight breeze blew some charred twigs across the firebreak, frightening him so much that he hurried to intercept them and cover them up with soil for fear of causing a forest fire.

After a whole afternoon of fear, Chen Zhou watched over the platform for a while until the sun set and the wind died down. After dinner, he still watched over the platform for a while.

Maybe he was exaggerating, or maybe it was because of the high humidity on the island, but until bedtime, the extinguished wasteland had not rekindled, not even a small flame had started.

Of course, for Chen Zhou, no news from the wasteland is the best news.

On January 1, he got up early, found the sacks of rice and wheat, picked out all the full seeds, and prepared to plant them.

He walked down the platform and came to the wasteland not far away. He carefully tested the temperature of the ashes to make sure they were completely cool.

Chen Zhou brought a bucket, picked up a wooden shovel and a rake, and began to tidy up the land.

After burning, only the surface of the soil becomes soft, which is actually far less effective than deep plowing with a sled. When digging down, you can occasionally find small stones or dead tree roots.

These hard objects will affect the growth of crops and must be cleared out of the fields.

The land on the shady slopes is less affected by wind and rain erosion, and the soil is relatively thick, much softer than the hillside land in Chen Zhou's hometown. Even with a wooden shovel without metal inlays, the progress is not slow.

After all, he grew up in the countryside. Although he hadn't done farm work for a long time, he quickly got back to the basics once he picked up the shovel.

They turned the soil over, picked out stones and tree roots, dug ridges and trenches, and mixed wood ash and soil together.

The dark land gradually became well-defined with ridges and furrows, resembling farmland.

Chen Zhou estimated that all the seeds added together would not be enough to plant the two acres of land, so he only turned over four ridges and put down the wooden shovel.

He took out a small wooden box containing selected seeds, put the bucket aside, and began to plant them one by one.

The large-scale crops in Chen Zhou's hometown are usually corn, millet, sorghum and sunflower, and rice and wheat are basically not grown.

He had no idea about the spacing and characteristics of these two unfamiliar crops, so he could only plant them as far apart as possible based on his feeling, then cover them with soil and water them.

Robinson Crusoe could make the seeds sprout wherever he poured them. If he had failed after all his careful cultivation, it would only be because of bad luck.

Due to his lack of confidence in his farming skills, Chen Zhou did not put all his eggs in one basket.

After planting two rows of rice and two rows of wheat, he collected the remaining seeds and planned to plant them on better land after the first batch of fertilizer had fermented, so as to avoid losing everything after going all out.

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(End of this chapter)