Although the renovation of the plow has not been completed yet, Song Xuan has already begun to train the animals in the tribe.
The easiest ones to train are naturally Uncle Deer and his three wives. They are relatively docile in character and have experience in working as draft animals. When the children in the tribe are fishing, they will take one or two out from time to time to help pull goods. .
Although there is a big difference between carrying things and pulling, these are both physical activities. Just keep your head down and move forward.
The main training was on their coordination ability. There were exactly four adult deer in groups of two and two. The lasso shared a main rope and was then tied to a log, allowing them to drag the log forward.
As Song Xuan imagined, except for Uncle Lu, the other three animals were not very adaptable at first. Fortunately, Uncle Lu was there to comfort them, and they slowly lowered their heads and pulled forward with force.
Although the two cows in the tribe have not been trained, they were already quite obedient when they were exchanged from the cow tribe. However, after they became Soaring Snakes, the heroes had no place to play, and they never played any role.
Now even if the noose is put on them, the two cows just snort and don't struggle like other deer.
Song Xuan was worried at the beginning that they might not be used to the feeling of being "tied up", but after some training, the results were quite good, and it basically didn't take much effort.
Now everyone is not too busy, and the land has melted. Except for the occasional colder and freezing weather, it has basically returned to its usual state.
Song Xuan took advantage of this time and took everyone to start processing the unfinished tree roots. These tree roots are the things that affect farming the most.
Although letting them rot in the ground is a good thing for the fertility of the land, the surface rhizomes still affect planting too much. Making the soil looser will have a great impact on the yield.
However, it is definitely impossible to clean such a large area of land. After the main roots are removed, the remaining roots will probably be rotten clean within a year or two.
And the fewer tree roots on the surface, the easier it will be to use the plow later, otherwise it will be like the previous plowing trial, and you will encounter obstacles from time to time.
Everyone is very experienced in digging tree roots. Whether we opened a small piece of land last year or at the end of the year, we dug out a lot of tree roots.
After peeling it open, you can set it on fire after it dries a little. You don't have to burn it too much. You just need to burn off the surface layer. However, the more you burn, the better.
The fertility of the land is the least of Song Xuan's worries. The land around the tribe can be regarded as black soil. At least the surface of the soil is 20 to 30 centimeters, and the color is gray and black.
Not to mention that the forest above had been burned to ashes by the fire, and many places still had a thick layer of ash accumulated until now.
Although the land was flooded several times last year, it is obvious that it is difficult to completely absorb so much plant ash.
Song Xuan was even a little worried that the fertilization of the land was too strong and would burn the roots of the rice. However, considering that the land was treated in this way last year, there shouldn't be any big problem.
In addition to digging tree roots, it is also very important to provide an irrigation system for this land.
Such a large area must be divided up, so that it will be more convenient to deal with. How to divert water is very important. Water is naturally diverted from upstream, just like the small piece of land last year.
But last year, it was just a small piece of land and a ditch was enough. This year, for such a large piece of land, it is necessary to design a water flow route so that it can irrigate each field relatively quickly.
Whether it is irrigation or water release, ditches are required to participate.
Song Xuan had not considered this matter before, but now that he thought about it, this seemed to be a very large project, and he regretted building such a large piece of land at once.
Just digging a ditch around the field would take several miles, not to mention extending into the interior. The most important thing is that the ditch must have a certain depth.
It is convenient if it is too shallow, but it will be difficult to drain the water when the time comes. Not to mention half a meter deep, thirty or forty centimeters is still necessary.
Song Xuan was also glad that winter allowed everyone to build a lot of tools, otherwise it would be really dark to be busy at this time.
Compared with clearing tree roots, digging trenches is obviously more important. Even if these tree roots are not treated, this year's yield will be slightly lower.
But if there is no reasonable irrigation system, it will be inconvenient when the rice is in urgent need of water, which will have devastating consequences for the rice.
However, the tree roots still have to be dealt with. Song Xuan still left twenty people to deal with the conspicuous large tree roots. As for the smaller ones, it depends on whether there is time. If there is time, then continue to deal with it. If there is no time, you can only do whatever it takes. As he rots in the ground, he will have to trust the speed of the decomposers.
When Song Xuan remembered the importance of ditches, he immediately rearranged his manpower without even thinking about the design of the entire irrigation system.
Fortunately, no matter what, a circle around this field still needs to be done, so Song Xuan still has a lot of time to slowly plan the internal route.
"..."
Seeing Song Xuan wave his hand, everyone was speechless.
The amount of work done in just one circle was already beyond everyone's imagination. Shi Meng and his men had just returned not long ago, and were about to come over to join in the fun, but they were caught by Song Xuan. At this time, his mouth was wide open. He confirmed to Song Xuan in disbelief:
"Angel, do you really want to dig so much?"
"Well, you guys dig in first, there will be more later!"
"?!"
Fortunately, although everyone was shocked, their execution was still quite good. After assigning tasks, they all returned to the tribe and took out the tools that had been polished long ago.
In addition to plowing the ground, grass can be used to dig ditches, which is more effective. One can dig up the land, and the other, like a shovel, can shovel the loosened soil to both sides and tamp it down.
While everyone was digging trenches, Song Xuan began to plan the internal routes and divide the land. Hundreds of acres was just a rough estimate by Song Xuan. He could only rely on this guess to guess how big the area would be. .
There is no need to make a piece of land too small, especially now that the tribe operates as a group and does not fight alone, but the area is too large and it is inconvenient for subsequent processing.
Song Xuan is still planning to refer to the small field dug out for the first time, or even make it smaller, three or four acres is good, so that one person can usually irrigate and pull weeds and be responsible for a small area.
If the area is too large, it will be overwhelming.
A piece of land is forty meters wide and fifty meters long, which is basically a little over three acres. Although the unit of meter is not popular among the tribe, Song Xuan has made several rulers based on the length in his memory.
It is mainly calculated from my own height. Although it is not a special standard, the error is not too big. Anyway, there is no unified weights and measures in this era, so it is what you say.
Although being more casual would make it easier to divide the fields, Song Xuan decided to be a little more rigorous. Otherwise, everyone might still complain when assigning tasks, and it would also be inconvenient to record the output of each piece of land.
Although the seeds in the tribe now mainly come from last year's harvest, many of them are collected from other tribes.
Naturally, these seeds cannot be mixed together for planting. No one knows whether the characteristics of different seeds are the same, and Song Xuan also wants to select the outstanding ones for breeding.
Starting from this year, all the rice harvested will no longer be used as seeds like before. Song Xuan will definitely have to select the stronger ones, and he will also have a demonstration field by then.
With the area uniform, it will be more convenient whether it is calculating output or allocating tasks.
Song Xuan simply took a piece of bamboo and bent it. A triangle was fixed in the middle with a rope. The distance between the two ends was exactly one meter. Using this, he could easily determine the length.
It just so happens that the height difference in this piece of land is not particularly large. It is estimated that it is less than one meter from the highest point to the lowest point. Generally speaking, the error after measurement is still very small.
In the end, it was divided into exactly thirty-five pieces. Although the last few pieces were smaller due to terrain restrictions, they were similar to Song Xuan's initial estimate, which was more than 100 acres.
After determining the area of each piece of land, Song Xuan also used small wooden sticks to mark the places where trenches needed to be dug. When the time comes, everyone can dig along the wood.
The outermost ditch has the most stringent requirements. It must not only be deep, but also wide enough to accommodate enough water. As for the inner ditch, it is not so strict. It should be almost enough.
After the arrangements were made, Song Xuan also joined the trench digging team.
After only doing it for a long time, Song Xuan already felt sore in his back and back. Last year, these tasks were all completed by the prisoners at that time. Due to the high pressure of Teng She, they themselves had no complaints, but now all the personnel were involved. , each one began to understand how hard the prisoners worked last year.
Even during today's meal, there was more food left for the prisoners. Although Teng She didn't make any demands, it was obvious that they were determined to work faster than Teng She's people. This was also It will be quite tiring.
Fortunately, from the day they were taken as prisoners, they had done rough work, so after digging a trench all day, the performance of the prisoners was actually worse than that of Teng She. Unlike people like Teng She, who were all rubbing their waists. Walked back sighing.
"Angel, this is much more tiring than hunting!"
Seeing that Shi Meng still had the energy to complain, Song Xuan could only give him a look. At this time, he was too tired to say anything. He just wanted to have a full meal and then go back to rest.
