Crost is a small village in Lair County, Friesland Province, East North Sea Country. Because it is close to the Ames River, it has developed agriculture and is one of the richest rural areas in the North Sea Country.
When the morning sun shines, this small village with only 300 people is already boiling. It is March when the busy farming begins. Although the northern part of Germany is still a little cold and the best planting period is not reached, the farming in Beihai has already begun.
The matter of loosening the soil in arable land can be done in advance. Of course, it cannot be too long in advance. Otherwise, after a few rains, the land will be solid again.
However, because in this era, oxen and horses were used to plow the land, it was too late to plow the land when it was sowing. Therefore, in March early spring, farmers took oxen to the ground and plowed the soil.
The Beihai Kingdom is not short of cattle. Although the 10,000 cattle imported from the Crimean Khanate every year are killed and eaten by meat, most of them are still left and cultivated into plowing oxes.
Marin's plan to kill cows is very meticulous. First of all, he will not order the killing of cows. Unless the cow is old and cannot give birth. Or, there are obvious defects and cannot leave healthy offspring. Therefore, every time a cow is imported, most of the cows will be retained and distributed to various villages.
As for bulls, it's a bit miserable. Marin will first select the strongest batch of bulls, and the most breeding cattle will be retained. In addition, the hornless bulls will be selected first as breeding cattle. As for the remaining bulls, Marin will also ask someone to do a test, that is, whether they listen or not...
First of all, Marin would put a nose ring on the bulls. If they resist fiercely when putting on the nose ring, they would directly slaughter them on the spot. After putting on the nose ring, the cows would be pulled into the ground to see if they were listening to hello.
Those who listen to hello will naturally stay as plowing oxes. Those who don’t listen to hello will let their subordinates make another choice. However, the selection process this time is a bit cruel - this group of bulls will be castrated... The bullwhip will be processed uniformly and handed over to the nobles for the bullwhip soup to nourish...
After castration, these bulls will be imprisoned for a month. At that time, they will be pulled out again to try to cultivate the land. If they are no longer irritable at this time and are willing to obey the command honestly, they will stay and be assigned to be plowing oxes. Those who continue to resist can only give a knife...
After layers of screening, the thorns were slaughtered, and the remaining bulls and cows, including eunuchs and cows, were basically cows who worked very honestly.
For example, the 50 plowing oxen in Crost Village include 35 cows, 6 bulls and 9 eunuch cows. These 35 cows not only have the obligation to make real information, but also are responsible for reproduction and raising calves.
Of course, once the cow is pregnant with a calf, it will definitely not be allowed to work. But what should I do if I encounter spring plowing? Well, Franz, the manager of the village manor, is busy with this...
"Geno, go and call a few people who are good at driving cattle, and follow me to the cattle farm in Mormerland town to borrow three cows. The three cows in the manor are pregnant and cannot go to the field. We have to borrow three cows to the top of the cattle farm in the town temporarily!"
The young man named Geno immediately ran away and called a few middle-aged farmers who were good at driving cattle. Then, Franz took a few people to a carriage and rushed from the country road to the town of Mormerland.
...
It should be pointed out that since Marin started the live cattle trade with the Crimean Khanate, he gradually replaced the plowing horses with plowing oxen in East Friesland and other areas. Originally, horse farming and oxen plowing were parallel, but horse farming was the mainstream. Because most of the farmlands in the German region belonged to nobles and Junker landlords, and these people had wealth in their families and naturally advocated horse farming. Only a small number of poor little landlords used cheap oxen plowing. This was mainly because there was no cattle nose ring before, and it was difficult to train cattle, so they could only use a small number of obedient oxen plowing land, and most of the oxen plowing was unusable. After Marin brought the oxen plowing technology, taming cattle became much simpler, and oxen plowing could naturally be vigorously promoted.
As for the former plowing horses, most of them were harvested by Marin. The plowing horses with excellent physical conditions were arranged by Marin to go to the breeding center and continue to breed horses. The inferior horses were more miserable. Marin also arranged to go to the breeding center, but they went to breed with donkeys and cultivate another kind of animal - mule...
Of course, each manor usually reserves two to three horses for pulling carts. For example, in the village, there are three horse carts in the village. One of them has a very novel purpose - it is the "school bus" for the children in the village. The task is to send the children in the village to the only primary school in Mormerland town to go to school on school days. It is sent to people in the morning and picked them up in the evening. There is no way. Now there are few Beihai National Schools, a town with dozens or hundreds of square kilometers, and there is usually only one school.
The other two are usually used to send villagers to the town to the market when they are in the market. Every 10 days, a rural market will be opened in Mormolan Town, allowing the people of the town to purchase materials.
When there is no township market, it is mainly subject to the management of the manor. For example, now that the village is short of cows, Franz will take people to the town's cattle farm to second a few cows.
This cattle secondment system is also a new thing created by Marin. It mainly considers the problem that cows cannot cultivate the land after they become pregnant. Anyway, setting up a cattle farm in the town does not require too much money. After all, cows can eat grass.
There are rural roads between each village and the town. Of course, this kind of rural road is not the rural cement roads of later generations. After all, the cement production is not high now. These rural roads are basically built by the slack season. The rural roads are organized by officials from each town to build rural roads from the village to the town. Although there is no cement, a lot of stones and pebbles fished out from the river are sprinkled. After being crushed by oxidou stone skewers, they are usually very flat. Unless it is in the rainy season, they will be soaked by abundant rainwater and then deformed. However, during the slack season, the town will send people to repair and press them again with stone skewers, which is no problem.
Franz took a few cattle steers and took advantage of the carriage to arrive at the town's cattle farm. After grading and showing the identity and name tag of the manor, Franz finally borrowed three cows. Then, he asked a few cattle to put a bridle on the cow and began to rush back along the country road.
When I returned to the village, it happened to be noon that the village canteen had a meal...
Then, when I entered the village, Franz and his party, I saw a line of elders standing outside the canteen in the middle of the village...
A village canteen is a major feature of Beihai Kingdom Manor. It is a bit like a collective farm in later generations, but it is different.
Although the farmers in Crost Village went to the cafeteria to queue up to collect food at noon, they were free to choose whether to stay in the cafeteria for dinner.
Chapter completed!