It is now the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Although the temperature is slightly warmer than in previous days, it is still very cold. There are frosts and even ice in the morning and evening. There is no hint of early spring at all. In addition, according to experience, even if it is the beginning of spring
, Temperatures are still likely to fluctuate violently.
It would not be surprising at all to have a few snowfalls in the late spring.
The grass and trees on the hillside are still withered, and the woods are still lonely and cold. Except for wild birds and squirrels, there are almost no snakes and insects. However, if you look carefully, you can already see the slender branches held high.
I saw some tiny young buds, dyed with a slight hint of green.
Spring is indeed coming!
Xu Chen was panting as he walked through the mountain forest. Looking at the plants that had begun to sprout, he couldn't help but feel a lot of emotion in his heart.
I thought this winter would be very difficult.
But I didn't expect that after a big house was repaired, it passed by silently.
Although they experienced hunger twice a day and felt the deep cold in the middle of the night, the entire tribe finally made it through unscathed.
Even a young family member was added.
This is something worthy of pride and joy, both for him and for the entire tribe.
The various trees in the woods were dazzling. Xu Chen and Gu Heju carefully distinguished and communicated with each other.
Planting trees in the courtyard must have value, either economic value, ornamental value, or practical value. If these three can be integrated into one, then it is naturally the best choice.
Therefore, Xu Chen’s first choice was naturally fruit trees.
There are many wild fruit trees on the mountain, but most of them are inedible, or have very low edible value. However, after more than an hour of searching, he still dug out three fruit trees under Gu Heju's guidance.
Although these trees have all lost their leaves, Xu Chen can still roughly identify two types.
One should look like a plum or apple tree.
The other tree he was sure was a peach tree because there was peach gum on the trunk, which he collected and sold when he was a child.
The remaining one is completely impossible to tell based on its branches.
Although these are all fruit trees, Xu Chen also knows that they are the most primitive wild varieties, which are basically not very delicious. Just like peach trees, wild peach trees that have not been cultivated and grafted are all hairy peaches, with less meat and larger stones, although they are edible.
, but the taste and taste are very average.
However, any domestication involves a process of continuous artificial cultivation and selection. If you don’t cultivate them, they will always remain wild species.
Just like taming a wolf cub, he knew that the possibility of success was almost zero, but he still persisted and would not give up easily.
What's more, these wild fruit trees are everywhere, and there is no need to spend money at all. If they don't taste good or they don't survive, you can just pull them out and keep planting them.
Just like raising fish, you are not afraid of death. Anyway, it is very convenient and simple to change fish.
The three of them digged out three nearly two-meter-high fruit trees and carried them down the mountain. Then they dug holes in the yard to plant them. After planting, they watered the trees and fixed the roots. After resting for a while, they went up the mountain to continue digging in the afternoon.
After two busy days, a circle of plants was finally planted in the yard. Although they were all bare branches, the whole yard looked much more lively.
After the trees in the yard were planted, he worked another day and planted several evergreen plants on the left and right sides in front of the gate.
In this way, his courtyard beautification work came to an end.
In front of and behind the house, melons and beans are planted.
Having lived in a rural area since childhood, he has inherited the ancient habits of China's thousands of years of agricultural civilization.
That is, whenever I see some open space, I always feel like planting something.
And the huge courtyard that had just been built now had open spaces inside and out, like a huge blank drawing paper, waiting for him to splash ink on it, so just planting trees couldn't satisfy his appetite.
In the next few days, he again set his sights on the large open space in front and behind the house. This time he did not do it with Gu Ju and the other three, but instead found a group of men who had nothing to do after moving and did it together.
Some of the messy seeds such as thorn melon, wild beans, and hemp that I had collected before were planted at once.
As the items in the cave were slowly evacuated, and the cleaning and beautification work inside and outside the compound was completed, the Ba people began to officially settle down under the mountain, and the entire tribe began to slowly return to their previous living conditions.
The kiln workers returned to the kiln factory to continue making pottery and firing the kiln.
The wind took a group of hunters to continue fishing and hunting.
The two tool men are still gnawing at each other every day to make various tools such as stone knives, stone axes, stone hoes, wood hoes, etc., or they are twisting bark ropes to make rattan baskets, etc.
The men who were originally responsible for building the house and laying bricks suddenly became idle and were a little overwhelmed. They walked in and out of the yard every day, walked around in the room, or stood in the yard and looked at the wide
The courtyard and the busy women were in a daze, or they were just looking at the mud pits and grass with mud and bricks on the river beach and felt sad.
The scene of working lively with a group of foreigners in the past seems to still be in front of my eyes, and the laughter seems to still be echoing in my ears.
But Xu Chen would not let them remain so depressed.
His grand cause has just taken a small step forward.
What is the purpose of building a house at the foot of the mountain? It is for farming.
Now that spring has begun, this matter must be put on the agenda as soon as possible.
So Xu Chen quickly gathered a group of idle men, carried wooden and stone hoes, and went out to work.
Not far from the courtyard, just outside the entrance of Wild Wolf Valley, is a large area of bare wasteland filled with ashes left after burning.
More than a month has passed since the last time the wasteland was burned. After the wind, sun and several rains and snows, the wasteland looks even more messy.
In the clearing after the burning, some trees and thorn bushes that were burned black still stood sparsely.
There are also a lot of stones inside.
If you want to farm well, you need to dig up and clean up all these messy things.
The open space is relatively large and distributed on a small undulating mound. In order to facilitate farming, it is not only necessary to clear tree roots and stones, but also to plan the field ridges in pieces and dig some simple drainage ditches according to local conditions.
Although he has never done any of this himself.
But since he grew up in the countryside, he still knows a lot about it.
After a brief observation while standing on the burned mound, Xu Chen divided a group of men into several groups, each group was responsible for one piece. The stronger ones were responsible for digging and clearing the thorns and roots of the trees, and the weaker ones were responsible for picking up the stones and roots inside.
Dig ditches.
Because the area is so large, it is impossible to transport all the cleared stones and throw them outside. They can only be piled into field ridges according to a simple plan.
Before the taming of cattle and horses and the invention of farm tools, human farming methods were simple and primitive.
The so-called slash-and-burn farming means setting a fire in the farmland to burn all the grass and straw in the winter. When the spring sowing season comes, sticks or knives are used to dig holes in the farmland and bury the seeds.
This method is still popular in Yunnan and Myanmar.
Because deep plowing and weeding are impossible, farmland is generally overgrown with weeds, which compete with crops for the fertility of the land, causing crops to grow miserable.
The grass is abundant and the bean sprouts are sparse, which is the best portrayal of this kind of primitive farming.
Precisely because the planting method is simple and crude, the yield is also horribly low. In order to increase the harvest, the planting area can only be continuously expanded.
By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, human civilization was already considered a highly developed period, but this ancient farming method was still adopted on a large scale.
A family of five can manage one hundred acres.
If the land was plowed deeply and intensively, it would be impossible to cultivate such a large area.
Although this method originally made Xu Chen miserable, at the moment, it is still the best method.
Dig a hole, bury the seeds, and hope for the harvest.
Therefore, the role and value of gods are undoubtedly reflected.
In order to have good weather and a good harvest, if you encounter a natural disaster, you can only kneel down and pray to the wind god, rain god, river god, and sun god for blessings.
Xu Chen didn't know if he would be able to kowtow to the gods and beg for mercy.
But the most important task at hand is to clear the wasteland first, plant the seeds, and then solve the difficulties step by step depending on the situation.
In the future, we will dam rivers, dig ditches, cultivate improved seeds, domesticate cattle and horses, and invent rakes and agricultural tools. There is still a long way to go before we can really complete the task of leading mankind on the road to agricultural civilization.
Clearing wasteland is much easier than cutting down trees, laying bricks, and collecting stones to build a house.
On more than one hundred acres of land, seven or eight men worked at sunrise and rested at sunset. They were busy every day, and after a few days they had some appearance.
Since I moved to the foot of the mountain, my working time has been greatly extended. I start working when I leave the house, and I can go home to eat after finishing work, so that my physical strength is not wasted in vain by going up and down the mountain.
While a group of women were taking care of the old and young, some began to spin and weave, some began to weave straw mats, and slowly continued to tidy up the rooms and courtyards.
Men go out early and come home late to concentrate on their work.
Under this clear division of labor between inside and outside, this piece of wasteland measuring a hundred acres is becoming more tidy and beautiful day by day.