1850 American Gold Baron

Chapter 360 Bird droppings

As the train slowed down, Liang Yao could clearly see the faces of the farmers along the railway.

Currently, Chinese people in California account for about half of the total population, but the proportion of the agricultural population is far more than half.

Among the farmers Liang Yao met along the way, at least three out of every four were Chinese immigrants.

The remaining one was either a Mexican immigrant or an immigrant from the Eastern United States.

"What is the income of farmers?" Liang Yao asked Chen Baoliang about the income of farmers.

"It's not better than before." Chen Baoliang replied, "Gone are the days in 1850 when you could make a fortune just by clearing away a few acres of land, planting some vegetables and fruits in the land and selling them to gold mining areas. Nowadays, people

If there are more, the output of agricultural products will increase, and the prices will naturally come down."

"Don't compare it to 1850. At that time, the miners in the gold mining areas used nuggets to buy food from you." Liang Yao said with a smile.

In 1850, there was still a lot of gold on both sides of the American River. California had not yet become a state, and the trading methods were very rough. Everyone went to the market to buy food and went to restaurants with a few ounces of gold in their pockets to pay the bill.

Exchanging grain, fruits and livestock for gold from other mining areas was something Liang Yao did a lot at the beginning.

He often used some tools and a small amount of gold to collect grain livestock from the Indians, and then sold the excess grain livestock to mine owners and miners in other mining areas at higher prices.

When prices in Sacramento were at their most outrageous, one ounce of gold could only be exchanged for three hard-boiled eggs.

Therefore, the prices in California in 1850 did not have much reference value except for Los Angeles, which was far away from the gold-producing areas.

At that time, prices in California were more determined by how much gold miners could extract from the ground in a day.

"It's really hard to say how much farmers earn. When farming and raising livestock in California, in addition to looking at the weather, the more important thing is to look at the market. There are price differences for different crops and livestock every year, or even every quarter.

They are all very big." Chen Baoliang said after thinking carefully for a while.

"If a couple manages a farm, after deducting the cost of fertilizer, labor, fodder for animals, and transportation costs of agricultural products, they can have four to five hundred US dollars left a year if they are lucky.

If you don't gamble during slack times and go to other farms to do odd jobs, you can earn more. The land in California is not rare, there are a lot of wastelands waiting to be reclaimed, but the rare thing is the people. As long as they are not lazy and eat well, people will not starve to death.

"

What Chen Baoliang said is that two people can make 400 to 500 US dollars a year by managing a small farm when the weather is good and the market does not fluctuate significantly.

Calculated in detail, he can earn about 20 US dollars per month, which seems to be lower than the Los Angeles oil workers Liang Yao knows.

But the cost of living in Stockton is negligible compared to the cost of living in Los Angeles. Farmers basically eat and live on their own.

It is true that you can save about US$20 every month. You can earn US$30 per month as an oil worker in Los Angeles, but it does not mean that you will have US$30 left every month.

"What if you have bad luck?" Liang Yao asked.

"If you are serious about it, your life is not good, the fields you farm are not harvesting, and the livestock you raise are plagued by plague, it depends on whether you have bought insurance and whether you have done futures trading." Chen Baoliang said.

"Bank of America, Bank of Boston, and even Barings and Banque de France have opened banks in the town of Stockton to sell insurance to farmers. If there is a natural disaster, the bank will compensate for the losses according to the contract.

But this situation is not the worst. You can just work on your own land and do odd jobs for others to earn some money to make ends meet.

The worst situation is to buy futures without buying insurance. Not only do you have to bear the losses yourself, but if you fail to deliver the goods at maturity, you will also have to pay compensation according to the contract.

Of course, if you encounter this situation, you can only accept defeat. After all, you can make money by doing futures, but you have to make a lot more money."

"Are there many farmers in Stockton doing futures?" Liang Yao continued to ask.

"Not many small farmers do futures, but many large farmers do futures. Large farmers have a strong family background, a lot of land, and a lot of manpower. They always want to make more money and are willing to take a chance. Their ability to bear risks is also better than that of small farmers.

He is strong, so he has fun having fun." Chen Baoliang said without thinking.

“With so much land and so many things grown, how can I eat so much? Stockton’s agricultural products are all sold to the city for the people in the city to eat.

In short, compared to the Qing Dynasty, this place is already what the ghosts call paradise. If you farm in the Qing Dynasty for just one year, you will not earn four to five hundred dollars in a lifetime."

Liang Yao stood up and looked out the window at the endless fertile fields and said: "This is our granary. How many people California can feed in the future depends on how much food this granary can produce. If the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Cooperative Association have any difficulties, please feel free to ask.

Tell me, food is the most important thing for the people, and agricultural production must not be taken lightly."

"The difficulties are not without problems. They are just a lack of people and livestock. If there are enough people and livestock, a lot of new land can be reclaimed. However, these cannot be solved overnight." Chen Baoliang said, "The most difficult problem right now is

The problem is fertilizer."

"Fertilizer, I heard that the main fertilizer used by farmers in California is guano imported from South America? Has the price of guano increased?" Liang Yao frowned.

Guano is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and other organic matter. It is the most ideal natural fertilizer at the moment and can greatly increase the yield of agricultural products. Before the advent of chemical fertilizers, agriculture in America and even Europe relied heavily on guano.

The guano used in California is mainly produced from the Lobos Islands not far from Peru, and the Atacama Desert at the junction of Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. These three countries all claim sovereignty over the Atacama Desert.

The dispute over the sovereignty of the Atacama Desert between Peru, Bolivia, and Chile also occurred after the discovery of rich reserves of guano and saltpeter resources in the Atacama Desert.

Liang Yao was not interested in who among the three countries owned the sovereignty of the Atacama Desert. He was more interested in who could provide him with more guano and saltpeter.

After all, these three countries are not powerful countries. Without the intervention of external forces, it is not difficult to deal with these small South American countries.

However, it is impossible without the intervention of external forces. In the 19th century, Britain could be said to be pervasive all over the world. As long as there was money to be made, the British Empire was indispensable.

After rich reserves of guano and saltpeter were discovered on the west coast of South America, the situation in this area became complicated.

Taking the Lobos Islands, which is rich in guano, as an example, the British subsequently announced that this island was first discovered by a British captain named Lawson, so this island should belong to the British Empire.

The Americans later claimed that in September 1828, Captain Morell of the New York merchant ship "Bumblebee" was the first person to discover the island. According to the principle of "first right of discovery", this island should belong to the United States, including the island.

Guano resources on.

But let’s talk about the matter, the most shameless person in this matter is not the United Kingdom or the United States, but Spain.

At that time, Peru had just become independent from Spain. Such valuable resources had been discovered just after Peru became independent, which made the Spanish government feel a loss.

Therefore, the Spanish government jumped out and said that this is their former colony. If the Peruvian government wants to mine the guano on the island, it must pay the Spanish government a so-called mining fee.

But in the end, no one paid attention to Spain, and even Peru did not take the former sovereign country seriously.

After all, Spain was already in a coffin in the 19th century, and it was up to the United States to close the coffin and hammer in the nails before the end of the 19th century.

Peru’s guano resources were eventually “jointly” developed by the British, American and Peruvian governments after consultations between the British, American and Peruvian governments.

The situation in Bolivia and Chile is not much better, and is basically the same as in Peru.

"Yes, in 1852, Peru alone sold guano for US$5.5 million, and we in California spent US$2.8 million buying guano from them."

After being the Minister of Agriculture for almost four years, Chen Baoliang's horizons have broadened a lot. He reads books and newspapers eagerly on weekdays, giving him a general understanding of the situation in America.

"Originally, this was a very good deal. The Peruvians got the gold and we got the guano. But at the beginning of this year, the Hudson's Bay Company persuaded the Peruvians to sell the guano to us at a higher price. The farmers in California were miserable.

.”

"He's a damn British guy again. British guys specialize in doing things like this that harm others and don't benefit oneself." Freemont couldn't help but interjected.

When Chen Baoliang heard this, he became even more angry: "It's not about harming others but benefiting yourself! The stupid British guys, 70% of the money they earn from raising prices belongs to the British, and the remaining 30% belongs to Peru. There is no British to give.

With their backing, they dare to sit down and raise the price?"

Liang Yao also has a headache about this problem. Guano is currently the most cost-effective fertilizer, and California’s agriculture will still be inseparable from guano for a while.

Unless you can tinker with chemical fertilizers, but tinkering with chemical fertilizers in a laboratory and mass-producing chemical fertilizers are two different things.

Even if some chemical fertilizers can be synthesized in the laboratory, it will be of great significance in the field of chemistry, but if chemical fertilizers cannot be mass-produced, for agriculture, it will only quench the thirst for plum blossoms.

The chemical industry in California has just started, and mass production of fertilizers is obviously something that cannot be shown.

"You can take my Roland and Yang Wei to the Peruvian coastline, then get off the ship and negotiate the price with the Peruvians," Liang Yao said.

He has three readily available warships of over 1,000 tons. Except for the Chao Yong, which was sent to Nagasaki to frighten the Russians, the other two are still in California.

Of course, putting pressure on the Peruvian government is nothing more than a temporary measure.

The British may be busy dealing with the Russians now and have no time to deal with matters in South America, but the Crimean War will not last for a few more years, and he will feel uncomfortable when the British come to their senses.

The best way is to find a few islands that the British haven't touched yet.

In this way, enough bird droppings can be obtained without offending the British.

Nauru, the name of this island came to Liang Yao's mind.

This island in the Marshall Islands is also rich in guano, and although this island was discovered in the 18th century, it was discovered by both the Dutch and the British.

However, because the Western colonists did not realize the value of the island at the time, it was not until 1888 that Nauru was officially colonized by Germany.

After Germany's defeat in World War I, Nauru was assigned to Japan along with the Marshall Islands at the Allied Powers' Spoils Division Conference in Paris.

Liang Yao is going to send Sven, the president of Global Shipping Company, to search for this island in the waters near the Marshall Islands. As long as he finds this island, he can reasonably and legally occupy it according to the so-called "right of first discovery" principle of Western powers.

.

Take the island of Nauru and the guano on the island as your own.

Although Liang Yao knows nothing about engineering, he has considerable geographical knowledge. He remembers the approximate location of Nauru.

With the current level of navigation, it is not impossible to find this island in a short time.

(End of chapter)