How good are shepherd dogs? A shepherd dog can easily keep an eye on hundreds of sheep. And if you are on foot, it will be troublesome to see dozens of sheep. Because, the ability of a human to run is far inferior to that of a dog. If you ride a horse, you can easily graze hundreds of sheep. After all, it's still easy to drive sheep on horseback.

However, the cost of raising horses, coupled with the wages of people...... Compared to the shepherd dog, the cost difference is too big!

A sheepdog only needs a little food to be loyal to herding your sheep and will never betray. People are different in that they are not as good at herding sheep on foot as sheepdogs, but they need wages that exceed the value of the food they buy. If you are grazing on horseback, the cost is much higher than that of a sheepdog.

Therefore, hiring people to herd is far less cost-effective than raising sheepdogs to herd sheep. As mentioned before, New Zealand's 100,000 acres of family ranch, 28,000 sheep and 26,000 cattle can be managed by 40 sheepdogs, and it doesn't take much to hire people.

Moreover, shepherd dogs are very multiplied. For example, border herders can give birth to two children a year, and one child can give birth to several puppies. As long as the owner has a pair of sheepdogs, it can easily expand to a few dozen in a few years, and then tens of thousands of sheep can be grazed.

Of course, this depends on the locality. If it is in a place with a low degree of development such as the Americas, the border collie, a small and medium-sized dog with poor combat effectiveness, may be relatively weak in the face of the North American wild wolf, and it is not as practical as a fierce shepherd dog like the German herder.

However, if you are in the Netherlands, you don't have to worry about this. The Netherlands is mostly plains and depressions, and it is highly populated and well developed, and there are basically no wild beasts left. In such areas, sheep are raised, and a strong working border herder is sufficient. Moreover, the amount of food eaten by the side herding is very small, and it is enough to eat one meal a day, which is much more cost-effective than people.

40 border herders can control the large pastures of several towns and villages, so how many people can be saved? In the township of Ma Lin's hometown in his last life, there are tens of thousands of people in one town...... If the whole of the Netherlands were to be converted to sheep grazing, most of the Dutch people would lose their jobs...... And that's exactly what Marin wants......

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In addition to the fact that border collies can steal jobs, there is also a very powerful effect - the impact on the forest!

If you raise sheep, you definitely need grassland. Then, in order to expand the area of grassland, woods or something, it is more in the way. Therefore, cutting and planting grass is the right thing. At most, apple trees and other economically valuable fruit trees are planted in front of and behind the farm.

Before Philippe and the Dutch nobles left, Marin took them on a tour of a ranch outside the city of Aurich. This ranch is full of tender green alfalfa grass. And around the houses of the ranch, apple trees are planted. It's September, and the apple trees are full of apples, which is very tempting. If it weren't for the fact that the apples weren't red yet, Marlin would have liked to pick a few and taste them.

It should be pointed out that the apples of later generations in China are all varieties passed down from Europe and the United States. As for the legendary native apple, it is actually a small sour apple called naphthalene, which was later eliminated by the Western variety of red apple. In other words, the apples eaten by the Chinese people in later generations are actually foreign varieties of apples that were only introduced in modern times.

Of course, this is not surprising. With the exchange with the West, we have introduced not only sweet potatoes, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, etc., but also Mexican upland cotton, and the original Indo-Asian cotton has been brought in a comprehensive way.

In this era, European apples were not only eaten, but also an important ingredient in making apple cider vinegar. And European apple cider vinegar, Austrian apple cider vinegar is the most famous.

On the farm, Marin warmly welcomed Prince Philip and his party. During the meal, Marin also asked the chef to cook delicious sweet and sour pork ribs and sweet and sour fish for Prince Philip and his party using apple cider vinegar brewed from apples on the farm, so that the group almost swallowed their tongues.

After eating and drinking, Marin also detailed the superiority of alfalfa grass. Marlin told them that if alfalfa grass were used instead of ordinary weeds, then more than 30 sheep could be raised in one acre of meadow......

Actually, Marin said less. If the alfalfa meadow is fertilized, the grass grows better and can raise up to 60 sheep. But Marin would not provide forage for the Dutch, so there were not as many sheep to feed. However, alfalfa herbs are nitrogen-fixing crops and do not need nitrogen fertilizers. The grassland fertilizers provided by Marin are also mainly potassium and phosphate fertilizers.

Moreover, Holland is originally a fertile and moist place, and an acre of alfalfa should have no problem feeding twenty or thirty sheep. This profit is even higher than the current extensive way of farming. Converted, the output of an acre of grassland sheep raising can reach about one or two gold coins. The most important thing is that it is more labor-saving, and there is no need to feed so many serfs.

Even if the profit is only 1 gold coin, 10,000 acres of pasture land can earn tens of thousands of gold coins. And for Prince Philip and these Dutch nobles, who doesn't have hundreds of thousands of acres of land? If it is to occupy public land, not to mention Prince Philip, the largest landowner and monarch, and several other great nobles, each of whom owns millions of acres of land, is no problem. As for Prince Philip, the largest landowner in the Netherlands, if he also participated in the land encirclement, he would have no problem having millions of acres of land in his hands.

If you raise British sheep and grow all the high-quality alfalfa, everyone will make a fortune......

However, it is also very troublesome to replace all the original weeds with alfalfa. Because, growing alfalfa grass is almost as difficult as growing wheat. Cultivate the land first, then sow the seeds.

In order to kill the original weeds, it is best to plow the land before winter and turn the roots of the weeds out to expose the ground. In this way, after a winter, all these weeds will freeze to death.

Then, when spring arrives, plough it again and sprinkle alfalfa grass to get a pasture that's perfect for raising sheep.

However, if the farmers are driven out in advance, it seems that it will be difficult to grow grass...... Because, even if you use horses, you can plough 1 acre a day...... Moreover, a large number of farmers are needed......

So Marin gave them a bad idea - not to drive out the redundant farmers, but to let them help plough the land before the winter after the autumn harvest, and then sow the alfalfa grass seeds the next spring...... When everything is done, drive out those redundant peasants and "unload the mill and kill the donkey......

Of course, things had to be done step by step, and after the peasants had converted all the noble lands of the Netherlands into alfalfa meadows, they would be dismissed in a centralized manner. Then, Marin acted as a good guy to solicit ...... Ring by link, the hapless Dutch peasants were toyed without......

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To be honest, this kind of "unloading and killing donkeys" behavior of fooling the Dutch peasants to help the nobles transform the land into alfalfa meadows and then abandoning them is very immoral. However, in this era, how many nobles are there who are not lacking in virtue? So, Marlin's suggestion is very much to their taste.

In order to help the Dutch nobles realize this intention, Marin agreed to lend tens of thousands of cattle to help plough the land in the Netherlands after the autumn harvest. Anyway, those cattle don't need to plow the land in winter. In particular, the North Sea country does not grow winter wheat on its own, and it is perfectly fine to lend all its cattle to the Netherlands. However, the next spring was re-ploughed, and Marin was unable to lend his cattle. After all, the Beihai Kingdom itself has to plough the land with oxen......