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It has to be said that the advantages of the three-crop rotation system are still obvious.

The advantage of this method is that the villagers can raise a large number of livestock in order to obtain as much income as possible, after all, cattle and sheep can be sold more than grain. The East Coast government also collected taxes mainly in cash, and now it has basically stopped collecting taxes in kind. At the same time, large amounts of livestock manure will accumulate in their fallow fields as fertilizer, making the soil more fertile for planting cereals next year. For poorer land, this crop rotation system is more advantageous than fertile land, and the rate of increase in crop yield is higher. In addition, the grain straw harvested on weekdays can also be used as fodder for livestock, so that valuable grains are not used to feed livestock during winter pasture shortages.

To be honest, this kind of thing is not a great black technology. As early as hundreds of years ago, farmers in Europe and China had summed up this system, but later due to various reasons, such as population growth, land shortage, political turmoil, frequent wars, etc., these systems were not well promoted. For example, in the middle of the Middle Ages (12th and 13th centuries) in Europe, some areas (the Rhine region) adopted this method of fallow rotation to maintain soil fertility, but this method was only popular in local areas for a time and was quickly interrupted, and it was not until the arrival of the so-called "agricultural revolution" in the 18th century that it was popularized on a large scale, which is really puzzling.

"I asked the people in Dingyuan Township that even if it is newly reclaimed wasteland, it is not a problem to harvest 4ooo catties a year when planting alfalfa, after all, the climate here is still very suitable for the growth of this crop. With these pastures and some potatoes or sweet potatoes, you can raise ten cows. Once at the door, Anderson jumped out of the car and called her wife out to unload the grass together.

Her wife was taking care of the vegetable cow by the barn, and when she heard this, she immediately hurriedly walked over, and when she saw Wang Youcai also following behind, she immediately blushed. whispered a greeting: "Mr. Wang." ”

Wang Youcai responded with a smile, and then began to help them work together. The cattle Anderson bought looked very emaciated, perhaps having lost too much weight on the way from the south, so they needed to be in dire need of fat. These eight cows only cost a total of 8o yuan, how could it be so cheap if it weren't for the cattle snatched from La Plata! Let's talk about the outcome of this war. At least the low-level farmers on the East Coast have reaped the benefits. Otherwise, even if the upper echelons want to promote the three-crop rotation system across the country, then where will so many livestock be distributed to farmers? Now it is good, Tongguò has taken a large number of cattle and sheep in a war, and a large part of the "start-up capital" for the promotion of these three crop rotations has been put in place immediately.

In fact, the Government Council was originally going to concentrate all the cattle and sheep that had been stolen in the state-run pastures of the pasture townships, but the military department insisted on distributing cattle to the peasants, because these vast numbers of peasants were the main source of the militia. They also pulled the Ministry of Agriculture as an ally. He pointed out that the three-crop rotation system to be promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture requires a large number of cattle, and the non-captive grazing mode adopted by the state-run pastures is too inefficient, and the cattle eat low-quality wild weeds all day long, which grows slowly and produces less manure, which is not conducive to agricultural exhibitions. In the end, the military department was really unable to do so, so the Government Council agreed to take out half of the cattle and sheep and sell them at a low price, and by the way, return some funds.

As for what Anderson said, "I asked the people over there in Dingyuan Township". This is because Dudongfang County has begun to experiment with the three-crop rotation system more than ten years ago. At that time, a group of officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, who were born as farmers, were at a loss in the face of the "ancient agriculture" without chemical fertilizers, improved seeds, pesticides, and agricultural machinery, and the general yield of wheat per mu of seventy or eighty catties almost drove them crazy, which was a heavy blow to the Ministry of Agriculture, which was ambitious to gradually abandon potato cultivation.

They had no choice but to maintain a large amount of potato cultivation and send people to Europe (England, the Netherlands) to learn advanced agricultural techniques, and later Walloon immigrants from the Spanish South Netherlands brought inspiration. After continuously summing up experience, they finally came up with a crop rotation method similar to the Norfolk system of later generations, and officially named it the East Coast three-crop rotation system.

12 years ago. They allocated 15,000 mu of farmland in Dingyuan Township, Dongfang County, as experimental fields, and began to implement the three-crop rotation system. During these 12 years, each acre of land is fallow for an average of four years (during which grass is planted), and the remaining eight years are planted entirely with wheat. The yield per mu of wheat also increased from more than 7o catties (seed harvest ratio 1:4.6) at the beginning (1635) to more than 9o catties (seed harvest ratio 1:5.9) in 1641, an increase of 28%; Then in 1644, the yield of wheat per mu was about 12o catties (seed harvest ratio 1:7.5), an increase of 27% compared with three years earlier; And this year's number jù has just come out of the cage. It is more gratifying, with a yield of more than 14o catties of wheat per mu (seed harvest ratio of 1:8.8), an increase of 13% again compared with the previous cycle.

This number basically confirms the success of the three-crop rotation system. Because the fallow land (which is planted with pasture) does not require much care from the farmers, on the contrary, a large amount of manure and livestock (skin, meat, fat, milk can be sold for money). The fertility of the fallow land is also maintained. Wheat yields have also nearly doubled compared to before crop rotation.

This yield increase is huge! Because this means that the same 3o acres of cultivated land, the implementation of the three-crop rotation system will harvest 84oo catties of wheat (not counting miscellaneous grains) and no less than ten cattle (slaughtered in three years) within three years, and the implementation of this system can only harvest about 65oo catties of wheat, at most a few more sheep are very good. If we include the one season of miscellaneous grains planted after the summer harvest of wheat, this harvest gap is even greater, which is enough to prove the great superiority of the three-crop rotation system.

This is only in Dingyuan Township, where the agricultural conditions are not very good, if it is in the Huxi area with superior conditions, I believe that the wheat yield is definitely more than 14o catties. Because in the 17th and 18th centuries, when England and some parts of Western Europe implemented this crop rotation system, the wheat seed harvest ratio could even reach an astonishing height of 1:14 (more than 2oo catties per mu), and the seed harvest ratio of barley was also about 1:8, which is really staggering. At present, the wheat yield per mu on the east bank is only 14o catties, and there is absolutely room for improvement in this yield, and I believe that as long as the land has enough farm manure, it is definitely not just a dream to increase the yield per mu by 3o%-5o%.

Based on the annual production of 6 tons of manure of adult cattle in captivity, it can be enough for 3 acres of wheat field for fertilization. For example, Anderson's family raises 8 cows and produces 48 tons of manure per year, while the 2o acres of wheat fields cultivated at the same time only need 4o tons of manure to fertilize the field every year, and the remaining 8 tons of manure can be sold to the Northern Gunpowder Factory to make nitrate in exchange for some economic income.

Of course, most farmers are reluctant to sell the manure. They usually apply all this manure to the fields so that the fields are more fertile and can harvest more grain each year. Only a very small number of farmers choose to sell their manure to the cotton-growing areas of Zhenyuan Township and Bingtuanbao, knowing that growing cotton is very labor-intensive, just like growing sugarcane and tobacco, which require more fertilizer.

The 12-year-old three-crop rotation system in Dingyuan Township has not been without some shortcomings. For example, experts from the Ministry of Agriculture have calculated that after fertilizing the field with a large amount of manure several times in a row, the seeds will degrade relatively quickly when planting wheat, and if you rotate a crop of oil crops (soybeans, rapeseed) or cash crops such as hops, this adverse effect will be effectively mitigated.

After the success of the experiment in Dingyuan Township, with the approval of the Government Council, the Ministry of Agriculture immediately began to promote the three-crop rotation system in suitable places across the country. Nowadays, the newly built settlements are planned according to a three-crop rotation system and are guided by agricultural technicians at the agricultural technology stations, so as to increase the country's cereal production and increase the income of the farmers.

"On average, more than 1 ton of wheat can be sold to the national grain reserve every year, which is more than 3o yuan even according to last year's purchase price. In addition, there are many miscellaneous grains that are either fed to pigs or sold, and there is an average income of about 15 yuan per year. Finally, it is the income of captive cattle, 15 yuan a head is not a problem to sell to the meat factory, and the average annual benefit is 4o yuan. In this way, the annual pre-tax income of a single farmer is nearly 9o yuan, and he is about to catch up with the soldiers! After a rough calculation, Wang Youcai came up with a number that he was a little admired: "If you raise cattle that use both meat and milk, then there will be some extra income from fresh milk, cheese, and cream." No wonder the state wants to cut the income of the peasants, who wants to go to the factory to work as a worker if this continues? It's not all about swarming to become farmers! ”

"I am now the supervisor of the Northwest Reclamation Bank, and my monthly salary is only 8 yuan, 2 jiao and 5 cents, and the annual pre-tax salary after the year-end bonus will be about 100 yuan, and the income of a farmer in the countryside will be offset by me." Anderson said with a smile, "How much does the average worker in the factory earn a year?" About 65 yuan! I remember a lot of workers complaining that now prices have been rising, wages have been rising, but the increase has lagged behind, and their lives are more difficult than before. ”

"Haven't you taken an economics class? As an unfolding economy, inflation is normal, especially now that we are still at war. When inflation and prices rise, wage increases do not match price increases sometimes; But when deflation and prices fall, wages tend to fall more slowly than prices. Wang Youcai said: "However, in view of the fact that the peasants have more real estate, the state has now begun to seriously implement the collection of property tax, and the income level of peasants and workers will gradually flatten in the future, and even the income of workers will be higher than one line." ”

The two chatted for a while, and after all the alfalfa was unloaded and crushed, Wang Youcai left.