Early August 1857

When it is the season of wheat harvest, the endless fields of Wuxing Town on Paradise Island are rolling in the wheat waves, ushering in a gratifying harvest scene.

On the train platform

Wu Erbao and a group of companions drove out a large flock of sheep from the carriage, and he was busy with joy on his face, these are all ewes and sheep imported from Australia, as well as a few breeding rams, used to breed excellent flocks.

Darwin, Australia's northernmost city, is only a day's flight from Eastport, making it very easy to get around. But it's a bit far from New Xi'an, and it takes a week for a cargo ship to make a voyage.

Australia's abundant horses, mules, cattle and sheep and other large livestock, is the most popular bulk products exported to Paradise Island, Paradise Island's canned tropical fruits, beans, canned meat and aquatic products are also hot sellers in Australia, widely welcomed by gold diggers in northern Australia, the value is equivalent to hard currency, another bulk export material is oats, Australia's annual demand for more than 100,000 tons.

"Erbao, have you harvested your wheat?"

"Not yet, sixth brother, I'm not busy buying the cattle and sheep back, I'm waiting for breeding next, I haven't missed it yet!"

"Then you have to hurry, if it rains and the wheat falls, it will be a bad thing."

"I know, I'll take it when I go back."

Warmly answering the greetings of the neighbors, this time Wu Erbao went to New Xi'an City, not only bought 235 sheep, 2 calves, but also bought a harvester that can be hung on the walk-behind tractor, only this harvester is worth 132 yuan.

But with this harvester, Wu Erbao can harvest 40 acres of land by getting up early and dark a day, and the 90 acres of land at home can be harvested in two or three days, and he can also help other people's families to harvest and harvest.

To say that this walk-behind tractor is really an all-rounder in the farmland, cutting wheat, ploughing the ground, pulling wheat oranges, raking all kinds of work, as long as different agricultural machinery and tools are hung, it can top more than 10 strong laborers.

With the help of his neighbors, he drove all the sheep and cattle he bought into his own pen, and fed the cattle and sheep with broken wheat oranges mixed with wheat bran and vegetable leaves, and sweated profusely before stopping.

On his farm

Four large barns have been erected high in the barn, and under the barn are a 50-centimeter-high circular foundation made of solid rock, plastered with cement, and a total of six 4.5-meter-high log pillars are erected, which are connected to each other by thick logs to form a frame, and then enclosed by planks purchased by the town.

These 4.5-meter-high log pillars are all stereotyped products, and the seams on both sides of the pillars are just enough to fit the planks, just like building blocks, and they can be installed upwards piece by piece.

The erected wooden pillars leave a gap with the transversely reinforced wooden columns, as long as they are smashed tightly with a hammer and reinforced with a few iron nails, the overall structure is extremely strong, and the effect of rainproof and moisture-proof is very good.

For more than two years

The barns on Paradise Island are all like this, but the barns of the royal farm are larger, generally divided into three types: 4.5 meters, 6 meters and 8 meters, and most of the barns on the royal farm are large barns of 8 meters, but the basic structure is the same.

After the foundation of the barn was laid, four or five carpenters were hired to work together, and the four barns were completed in five days.

The top of the barn is also a wooden structure, covered with wooden planks, covered with a layer of linoleum, and finally tiled and it is ready to live.

The brothers of the farms in the town are all helping each other, as long as they have a little free time, they will help the handle, my family is built, help your family build, your family will help his family build after you build it, and the five or six families or seven or eight families who have a good relationship spontaneously form a mutual aid group.

That being said, his own labor force is free, but Wu Erbao drives a walk-behind tractor to help cut wheat and help transport wheat straw, which is also an unwritten rule.

on the farm

The four large barns, the huge livestock pen and a row of chicken pens have been formed, and they look very good.

Wu Erbao even built a small shed for his beloved walk-behind tractor to shelter from the wind and rain, and after usually doing work, he wiped the walk-behind tractor spotlessly, and added lubricating oil to maintain it carefully.

But the little shack in which he lived was very shabby, and in it a wooden bed was erected with a few stones, and a quilt and a pillow were lost on the bed, and the bedding was blackened and not washed.

There were some bottles and jars and eating chopsticks in the shack, as well as two iron pots, one large and one small, but a simple stove was cut with stones mixed with mud, because of the frequent cooking, the surroundings were smoked black.

Men, if there is no woman in the house, their own life will be rougher.

After feeding the cows, sheep, chickens and ducks, Wu Erbao carried the basket and picked up a small half basket of eggs in the chicken pen, mixed the noodles with water, beat two eggs into them, and cut them into noodles after waking up the noodles.

Boil water on the stove on the other side, put in the noodles, then cut a few slices of bacon and throw them inside, and put a small green vegetable that has been washed.

There were also half-pulled cut noodles on the board, and Wu Erbao covered them with a towel, which was reserved for the evening.

Not for a while

The hot egg noodles are good, there are green vegetables, crystal clear salted meat, pick a chopsticks to put the fat into it, and then pour some soy sauce, and the small fragrance will come out with a "squeak".

Just this bowl of egg noodles, Wu Erbao has been in the Shenzhou Continent for 19 years, and he can't eat such good food during the New Year, which is unthinkable.

Now, I can eat it every day, and it's not unusual at all.

What is happiness, this is it!

A large bowl of noodles with salted meat, after Wu Erbao ate it fragrantly, he burped with satisfaction, touched his belly and smiled happily.

He was much stronger now, and as soon as he lay down in bed after eating, he thought in his heart that tomorrow he would simply go to the town to find a few wheat customers, and help him work for seven or eight days, and harvest all the wheat in the field and return it to the grain.

He drove a walk-behind tractor to cut the wheat very quickly, and he could finish his work in about two and a half days, but the threshing of the wheat, drying the field, and returning to the warehouse were all heavy physical work, and 90 acres of land could not be completed by one person.

Nowadays on Paradise Island, the wheat is returned to the warehouse with a belt car.

This thing is a long conveyor belt welded by a steel frame, about 7.2 meters long, with rubber wheels in the middle, which can be pushed by several people or pulled by a hand-held tractor.

When you use it

One end of it is fixed with a belt with the tractor, and the power of the hand-held tractor is used to drive the conveyor belt to rotate, the low end is placed on the ground, and the high end is placed at the entrance above the barn, and then several people use a shovel to load it on the conveyor belt.

Filling a barn, three strong laborers are almost a day's work.

The price of such a belt car is very expensive, the main price is on natural rubber, a set of belts made of natural rubber will cost more than 300 yuan, the belt car welded by the steel frame is also 76 yuan, and the whole set of belt cars is close to 400 yuan.

Someone in the town bought a few belt cars for rent, the rent is 4 yuan 2 a day, the rent is quite high, I have to rent it for almost 5 days, that is 21 yuan.

In the long run, belt trucks are indispensable to any farm.

After a wheat season, the rent alone is enough to return to the capital, and it will be pure profit in the future, which is quite a cost-effective deal.

It's a pity that Wu Erbao can't afford it now, he estimates that more than 90 acres of wheat in his home can be sold for about 320~330 yuan, if it is ground into wheat flour after threshing, the value is as high as more than 1500 yuan.

Of course, he can only think about that kind of good thing for himself.

A set of equipment for the flour mill is not a joke, only those big farmers with great wealth can afford to buy tens of thousands of acres of land or even more at home, and of course they can make more money.

Small farmers like Wu Erbao can only honestly sell wheat to make a hard-earned profit.

Pinch your fingers and count them down;

90 acres of wheat can be sold for 320 yuan, two seasons a year, rape rotation in the middle, and the gross income of a year is about 880~900 yuan.

Excluding the cost of hired workers and the cost of wheat seeds, it is about half of the net income, which does not calculate the sweat and hard work paid by Wu Erbao himself, nor does it calculate the cost of the walk-behind tractor that works for his own family.

If you count them all, it is less than 300 yuan.

But the account can't be calculated like this, because wheat husk and wheat skin plus rape leaves are all cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks love to eat feed. The chickens and ducks that were raised a few months ago are now ready to lay eggs.

Even if an egg or a duck egg costs 1 cent, it can't hold up the quantity, and picking it up casually every day is also a two-triangle income, and it will earn sixty or seventy yuan a year.

Sell some more chickens and ducks, and make an extra twenty or thirty yuan for a small problem.

In addition to these, there are so many sheep!

Therefore, after a farm is operated, coupled with Wu Erbao's help with a walk-behind tractor when he is busy, it is not a problem to make a net profit of more than 1,000 yuan a year.

If it goes on like this, it won't take two years, build a house and marry a daughter-in-law, and you will be able to live a happy life.

"Is Erbao at home?"

"Yes, ouch, what kind of wind is blowing the Tang family's aunt today?" Wu Erbao heard the sound and got out of the shack, and saw that it was a twenty-seven or eighteen-year-old woman, who was five months pregnant with her belly, and another woman stood outside and looked at her with a smile.

The aunt of the Tang family is a businessman who opened a grain and oil shop in the town, and the man is a native of Fujian Province who immigrated to North America in the early years.

The industrious nature of Chinese businessmen, no matter how far away or remote the township, as long as there is money to be made, there are people willing to go.

"I see that your wheat has not been confiscated, so come and ask, there is no one waiting for anyone in the agricultural season!"

"Thank you, sister-in-law of the Tang family, I will be ready to harvest tomorrow, and I am about to go to the town to find a few wheat customers to help, and it will take a few days to put it away, very fast."

"Isn't it easy to find a helper? It's wrapped up in my aunt, and the dozen or so wheat customers who went to the Houzhen helpers should be done in the past two days, so I'll leave a few for you. ”

"That's a good feeling, and it saves me from running errands, I have to work here tomorrow morning, at least four or five people."

"No problem, a matter of words."

"Then thank you Aunt Tang, my place is cramped, and it's not good to invite you to sit in the shack, why don't I pour you two bowls of water?"

"Don't be busy, which one isn't like this now? The farm is all ready, and when the house is built, it will be like a whole. As the aunt of the Tang family spoke, she looked Wu Erbao up and down and nodded with satisfaction, and said with a twist of words; People say that only when you start a family can you settle down, Brother Erbao, your farm is also very different. It's just that there is no intimate person in the house to ask for warmth, it will not be a problem, the days are stumbling, no one sews the bedding, and no one does the food, or how about the aunt introduce you to a daughter-in-law? ”

Wu Erbao is an outstanding among the new immigrants, others only have 60 acres of land, and his family has 90 acres, plus he bought a walk-behind tractor with a clever brain, and is catching up with the upsurge of land reclamation, basically he can't stop for the past two years.

Pinch your fingers and calculate, you can earn a lot more than others.

No, some people fell in love with Wu Erbao and held someone to say that the matchmaker was coming.

Generally speaking, as long as you have worked for two years, as long as you are an adult man and woman, you will have a 60 acres of land.

If it is a family of 6, then it is 360 acres of land, a proper small farm.

The problem is that women always have to get married, and people can go, but the fields can't go, and they still stay in the family's account.

Moreover, the situation of more men and fewer women on Paradise Island is more serious, and the bride price for marrying a daughter-in-law is basically between 300~400 yuan, and the beautiful girl is higher.

This bride price money is enough for the mother's family to take better care of the farm.

At the beginning of running a farm, you have to subsidize a lot of money, even if you have preferential loans, the money is still very tight, you have to build a house, build a barn, build a corral, build a chicken and duck shed, buy agricultural machinery, buy fruit seedlings, buy cows and lambs, everything has to spend money.

Therefore, generally people with girls, as long as they settle down, they want to marry the girl in exchange for a rich dowry to build a farm, and the sooner it is built, the more benefits will be benefited, and everyone will calculate this account.

Not to mention anything else, take this dowry to buy a belt car, the monthly rent is more than 100 yuan, a farmer is busy, at least 200 yuan can be earned, and he will turn back in one year, and he will make a net profit in two years.

After settling down, the girl is losing money at home, so it is better to marry out as soon as possible in exchange for a rich dowry, and the son-in-law can still help work when he is busy with the farm.

Just like Wu Erbao, a young man with a hand-held tractor at home, when he is busy with farming, he goes to his father-in-law's house to help cut wheat and help pull wheat and orange poles, can he still collect money?

When you shout when you build a barn, don't you come to help?

When there is a shortage of money at home, no matter what, you can help one or two, which is simply a lot of benefits.

The shortage of money here is not that the family can't open the pot, but that when you buy agricultural machinery or buy cattle, you don't have enough money, and you can find your son-in-law to take a little bit in your hand, but the father-in-law doesn't have the slightest psychological burden.

Wu Erbao's heart moved when he heard this, they were all young and vigorous young men, and he was not ashamed to marry a daughter-in-law, but he finally stabilized his strength and asked more carefully; "Aunt Tang, which girl are you talking about?"

"What my aunt told you can still be bad, the eldest daughter of Zheng Youcai's family in Zhengjiabao Village will be 15 this year, and she is also a girl who works neatly, but she has grown a little thinner, so it would be good to marry her and raise her."

"Zheng Youcai's big girl...... Isn't it a little lame? Wu Erbao carefully recalled the people he knew, suddenly his face darkened, and he said unhappily.

The aunt of the Tang family didn't expect Wu Erbao to really know each other, and she seemed a little embarrassed at this time, and Ai Ai replied; "It's not lame, it's just that I broke my foot on the migrant boat, and they said that the bride price is only 288 yuan, 4 sets of bedding, and an ox cart......

"It's okay, it's okay, don't give me any gifts, don't stick it to me." Wu Erbao suddenly burst out of his heart with a fire in his heart, interrupting the words of the Tang family's aunt, and retorted with a black head and a black face; "Are you taking me for a fool? It's not a serious good girl's house, and it's an ox cart...... Why don't you want a cavalry regiment? Let's go, I have a lot of things to do, and I don't have time to greet you. ”

This is obviously a scolding, and if she continues to talk about it, she is really going to scold, the aunt of the Tang family suddenly blushed, dragged the woman next to her and left in a hurry.

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