Looking at the thriving experimental base in front of him, being built at a speed visible to the naked eye, Anton Peruz was quite satisfied.

Anton Peruz and his party are the strange strangers in the eyes of the residents of Second Town.

After all, compared with immigrants, Anton Peruz and his party were all dressed in suits and leather shoes, and they were accompanied by people sent by the colonial government of East Africa.

The second town was also told to cooperate with Anton Peruz and others in order to build an experimental base for the East African Institute of Tropical Agriculture.

In fact, Anton Peruz, who had just arrived in the second town, was also taken aback at first, and from the time he passed through the urban area of the first town, Anton Peruz wondered if this was an overseas branch of the Kingdom of Prussia.

The Prussian military uniform shocked every scientific researcher in Anton Peruz's team.

Fortunately, there were accompanying East African colonial government personnel who acted as guides, and solved many doubts of Anton Peruz and others.

Still, Anton Peruz and his team were struck by Ernst's generosity in the East African colonies.

The costumes of one million people alone must have cost a lot of money, which is absolutely astronomical for ordinary people in this era.

This is indeed the case, in addition to the early Ernst from the Prussian government to buy a large number of Prussian second-hand military uniforms, later simply found a factory to produce "monkey version" Prussian military uniforms for East Africa.

After all, the Prussian army is only a few hundred thousand people, how can there be so many second-hand military uniforms for Ernst to prostitute in vain, and he was not close to the Austrian royal family at the beginning, so Ernst didn't expect to buy some second-hand goods from Austria-Hungary to save some costs, and Austria's big white military uniform is not resistant to dirt, and immigrants can still look at it when they wear that thing when they work in the field?

The "monkey version" of Prussian military uniforms has also made many transformations for East Africa, where the weather is like summer all year round, and there is no need for so many fabrics, which is saved; The strange pointed helmet of Prussia, not to mention whether it was useful or not, Ernst did not like it purely from the aesthetic aspect, and was discontinued; What's the use of so many buttons? Cut; Sash? What kind of belt do you want, unify the hair rope......

The revamped "monkey version" of the Prussian military uniform was unrecognizable, but it was still very conservative, after all, the strong ultraviolet rays in East Africa did not turn it into a short sleeve, and Ernst did not save these fabrics.

Therefore, the "monkey version" of Prussian military uniforms, as a whole, there are three points of appearance to see the appearance of Prussian military uniforms, plus the second-hand Prussian military uniforms of early immigrants are mixed in it, Anton Peruz and others still see at first glance the Prussian military uniforms of almost all people in the East African colonies.

In the past month, Anton Peruz and others have slowly become accustomed to the dress of East African residents.

Anton Peruz's experimental base was built on the east bank of the Lower Rhine, and directly occupied many of the cultivated land developed by the second town, plus the undeveloped land, which alone covered more than 700 acres of fertile land.

Covering the southern hills and the northern plains as well as the depressions on the banks of the Lower Rhine, the natural conditions and topography are very superior.

The Little Rhine guarantees a water supply, and hills, plains, and depressions provide a variety of topographical materials.

Windmills were built on the shore to supply a steady stream of water to the fields, which were made of stones and earth to form water-retaining ridges according to Anton Peruz's requirements, and were divided into plots of different sizes to facilitate the observation of the growth traits of crops at different planting scales.

There is also a sluice gate for discharging water in the field to control the amount of water in the field and realize the transition between paddy field and dry field at any time.

Laboratories, archives, warehouses and staff quarters were built around the base, and all the equipment in the laboratory was imported from Europe, microscopes, petri dishes, calipers...... Everything but the kitchen sink.

Botanical gardens, vegetable plots and gardens are attached, and a portion of the land is also planned for tree planting.

This is the main place where Anton Peruz will work and research in the future, and in fact, throughout East Africa, Anton Peruz's team can take the initiative to go to the field.

In Germany, Anton Peruz has better facilities, but East Africa is the paradise of Anton Peruz, a tropical botanist.

Plants that were previously only visible through materials and specimens can now be found locally, and East Africa is a vast area of rainforests, grasslands, mountains, deserts, ...... Tropical climates are diverse.

……

Anton Peruz's experimental base has not yet opened, but it does not prevent him from teaching the cadets first.

"The local conditions in East Africa are very strong for agricultural development, and of course it is the shortcomings that determine the agricultural potential of a region.

Agriculture and plant growth are inseparable from the four factors of land, heat, water and light.

Take East Africa as an example, the shortcoming that determines the agricultural potential of East Africa is the land of East Africa, of course, the terrain of East Africa is relatively flat, and the problem is mainly soil. ”

The cadets followed behind Anton Peruz and tried to record his words.

"Land energy production in the tropics is actually much higher than in the middle and high latitudes, but this energy is not effectively absorbed by the soil, but is stored in plants and animals in the tropics.

This is why the vegetation in the tropics is dense, but the soil fertility is not as good as that of the temperate and cold zones.

Tropical land is not barren, but these nutrients do not penetrate into the soil, which our crops need. Anton Peruz said his opinion.

"Professor, since you said that tropical soils can't store nutrients, isn't this land still barren?" Some students questioned.

"That's what I'm going to tell you next, what is the soil? In my understanding, it is 'sand' with impurities, but these 'sand' are more delicate and can be connected to the sand in the desert, and there are nutrients in the soil that we cannot observe with the naked eye, and the amount of these nutrients determines the fertility of the soil. ”

Anton Peruz grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground and put it in his hand and said: "You see, the soil here is dark red, and many places in the lower latitudes are red, and in the middle latitudes it is white, and in the high latitudes it becomes black soil.

So latitude changes, soil color changes, soil fertility changes, but we know that vegetation at higher latitudes is actually not as good as in the tropics.

This in turn involves sunlight and precipitation, which are needed for plants to grow, without which most plants would die.

The presence of tropical rainforests just shows that the nutrients produced in the tropics are much higher than those in the cold zone, but if we use the red soil of the tropics to grow food crops, the effect is not as good as that of the black soil in the middle and high latitudes.

This shows that a large amount of nutrients in the tropical soil are taken away, which is certainly not a pot of vegetation, because there are still large areas of vegetation at high latitudes, and many plants cannot grow at high latitudes because of low temperatures, and the temperature factor should not be the main culprit, so it can only be considered from the aspect of water.

Early civilizations were born in silted up rivers, like agriculture in ancient Egypt, which thrived on the flooding of the Nile.

Rainforest rivers are denser and have more water, but why don't they have these effects?

This is because rivers in tropical rainforests do not accumulate mud and carry nutrients from the soil along their banks.

Although East Africa is also tropical, precipitation is average, but this situation does not exist, so the study of soil fertility is less than the study of the relationship between soil and water.

Of course, this is just my guess, and the follow-up will be verified by experiments.

Only by mastering the rules can we better prescribe the right medicine to improve the soil fertility of East Africa. ”

(End of chapter)