Wild North America 1846

Early August 1857

It’s the wheat harvest season, and waves of wheat are rolling in the endless fields of Wuxing Town on Paradise Island, ushering in a gratifying harvest scene.

On the train platform

Wu Erbao and a group of friends drove out a large group of sheep from the carriage. He was busy with his face full of joy. These were ewes and lambs imported from Australia, as well as a small number of breeding rams, used to breed fine sheep.

group.

Darwin, the northernmost city in Australia, is only a day's sail from Donggang, making travel very convenient. However, it is a bit far from New Xi'an, and it takes a week for a cargo ship to sail.

Australia's abundant large livestock, such as horses, mules, cattle and sheep, are the most popular bulk products exported to Paradise Island. Paradise Island's canned tropical fruits, beans, meat and canned aquatic products are also hot-sellers in Australia and are widely popular.

The popularity of gold diggers in northern Australia is worth the equivalent of hard currency. Another bulk export material is oats, and Australia's annual demand reaches hundreds of thousands of tons.

"Erbao, have you harvested your wheat?"

"Not yet, Sixth Brother. I'm busy buying the cattle and sheep. I'm waiting for the next step to breed them. I haven't missed it yet!"

"Then you have to hurry up. If it rains and the wheat falls, it will be a waste."

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

Answering the greetings from his neighbors enthusiastically, Wu Erbao went to Xinxi'an this time. Not only did he buy 235 sheep and 2 calves, but he also bought a harvester that could be hung on a walking tractor. This was the only harvester.

It’s worth 132 yuan.

But with this harvester, Wu Erbao can harvest 40 acres of land from early in the morning to late at night, and the 90 acres of land at home can be harvested in two or three days. He can also help other people harvest.

This walking tractor is truly an all-rounder in the farmland. It is good at cutting wheat, plowing the ground, pulling wheat tangerines, and raking the ground. As long as it is equipped with different farm machinery, it can support more than 10 strong laborers.

Now Wu Erbao is full of energy. With the help of his neighbors, he drove all the sheep and cattle he bought into his own pen, and used feed made from crushed wheat oranges mixed with wheat bran and vegetable leaves.

After feeding the cows and sheep, I stopped and started sweating profusely.

on his farm

Four large wheat barns have been erected high. Below the barns, a 50-centimeter-high circular foundation is built with solid rocks, plastered with cement, and a total of six 4.5-meter-high log pillars are erected, with thick wooden pillars between them.

The logs were connected into a frame and then enclosed with wooden boards purchased in the town.

These 4.5-meter-high log pillars are all shaped products. The slits on both sides of the pillars are just right for the wooden boards to be inserted. Just like building blocks, you just need to install them one by one.

The upright wooden pillars and the horizontally reinforced wooden pillars leave matching gaps. As long as they are tightened with a hammer and then reinforced with a few iron nails, the overall structure will be extremely strong and very effective in preventing rain and moisture.

Over the past two years

The barns on Paradise Island are all made like this, but the barns on the Royal Farm are larger in size, generally divided into three types: 4.5 meters, 6 meters and 8 meters. Most of the barns on the Royal Farm are 8 meters tall.

warehouse, but the basic structure is the same.

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

The roof of the barn is also a wooden structure, covered with wooden boards, covered with a layer of linoleum, and finally added with tiles.

The brothers in the various farms in the town all help each other. Whenever they have a little free time, they will help. After my house is built, I will help you build it. After your house is built, I will help others build it. They have a good relationship.

Five or six or seven or eight families spontaneously formed a mutual aid group.

Having said that, his own labor is free, but Wu Erbao drives a walking tractor to help cut wheat and transport wheat straw, but he has to charge money, which is also an unwritten rule.

on the farm

Four large barns, huge livestock pens and a row of chicken pens have all been formed and look very similar.

Wu Erbao even built a small shed for his beloved walking tractor to protect it from wind and rain. After daily work, he would wipe the walking tractor spotlessly and add lubricating oil to maintain it carefully.

But the small shack he lived in was very shabby. There was a wooden bed built with a few stones. There was a quilt and a pillow missing from the bed. The quilt was black in color and had not been removed or washed.

There were some bottles and cans, eating utensils, and two iron pots, one large and one small, in the shack. It was just a simple stove made of stones mixed with mud. Because of the frequent cooking, the surroundings were darkened.

Men, if there is no woman to take care of the house, their life will be rough.

After feeding the cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks, Wu Erbao carried a basket and picked up half a basket of eggs from the chicken pen. He mixed the noodles with water, cracked two eggs in, and cut the noodles into noodles after they were ready.

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

On the chopping board were half-cut noodles, which Wu Erbao covered with a towel, saving enough for dinner.

After a while

Hot egg noodles will be ready, with green vegetables and crystal clear bacon. Pick a chopstick and put some fat into it, then pour some soy sauce, and the little fragrance will come out with a "squeak".

Just this bowl of egg noodles. In his 19 years of life experience in mainland China, Wu Erbao never dared to think that he would not be able to eat such good food during the Chinese New Year.

Now, we can eat it every day, and it’s not a strange thing at all.

What is happiness? This is it!

After eating a large bowl of noodles with bacon, Wu Erbao burped with satisfaction, touched his belly and smiled happily.

He was much stronger now. As soon as he lay down on the bed after eating, he was thinking that he would go to the town tomorrow to find a few wheat merchants to help him work for seven or eight days, harvesting all the wheat in the fields and returning it to the grain.

He drove the walking tractor to cut the wheat very quickly, and could finish the work in almost two and a half days. However, threshing, drying, and returning the wheat to the warehouse were all strenuous labor, and one person could not finish the 90 acres of land.

Nowadays, in Paradise Island, belt trucks are used to return wheat to the warehouse.

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

when using

Fix one end of it and the tractor with a belt, and use the power of the hand-held tractor to drive the conveyor belt to rotate. Place the low end on the ground and the high end at the entrance above the barn. Then several people can load the conveyor belt with straight pipes using shovels.

.

It takes three strong laborers almost a day to fill a barn.

Such a belt cart is very expensive. The main cost lies in the natural rubber. A set of belts made of natural rubber costs more than 300 yuan. A belt cart with a steel frame welded also costs 76 yuan. The entire set of belt carts is close to 400 yuan.

.

Someone in town bought several belt trucks for rent. The rent was 4.2 yuan per day. The rent was quite high. I had to rent it for almost 5 days, which was 21 yuan.

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

After one wheat season, the rent alone is enough to cover the cost, and it will be pure profit from now on. It is a very cost-effective business.

It's a pity that Wu Erbao can't afford it now. He estimates that the wheat harvested from more than 90 acres at home can be sold for about 320 to 330 yuan. If it is ground into wheat flour after threshing, the value will be as high as more than 1,500 yuan.

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

A set of flour mill equipment is not for fun. Only those wealthy and powerful farmers with tens of thousands of acres of land or more can afford it, and of course they can make more money.

Small farmers like Wu Erbao can only earn hard-earned money by selling wheat honestly.

Count with your fingers;

90 acres of wheat can be sold for 320 yuan. There are two crops every year, with rapeseed in between. The annual gross income is about 880 to 900 yuan.

Excluding the cost of labor and wheat seeds, the net profit is about half. This does not include Wu Erbao's own sweat and hard work, nor does it include the cost of the walking tractor used to work for his family.

If all is included, it would be less than 300 yuan.

But the account cannot be calculated like this, because wheat skin, wheat skin and rape leaves are all favorite feeds for cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks. The chickens and ducks raised a few months ago are now mature enough to lay eggs.

Even if an egg or a duck egg costs 1 cent, the quantity is too much. If you just pick it up every day, you can earn two or three cents. In a year, you will still make sixty or seventy yuan.

Sell ​​some more chickens and ducks and earn an extra twenty or thirty yuan.

In addition to these, there are so many sheep!

Therefore, after running a farm, and with Wu Erbao bringing a walking tractor to help with the work during busy farming hours, it is not a problem to make a net profit of more than a thousand yuan a year.

If this continues, it will take less than two years to build a house, marry a wife, and live a happy life.

"Is Erbao at home?"

"Yes, oh, what kind of wind brought Aunt Tang here today?" Wu Erbao got out of the shack after hearing the sound, and saw a woman in her twenties or eighties, with a bulging belly that was already five months old.

Months pregnant, I stood outside with another woman looking over with a smile.

The Tang family's aunt is a businessman who runs a grain and oil shop in the town. The man is a Fujianese who immigrated to North America a few years ago. In the past two years, he sensed an opportunity to make a fortune. He followed many local North American businessmen to Paradise Island with his savings and started a business.

Got into the grain and oil business.

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

"I see that your wheat has not been confiscated, so I came here to ask. You don't wait for anyone during the farming season!"

"Thank you, sister-in-law of the Tang family. I will be harvesting tomorrow. I am going to the town to find a few wheat collectors to help. It only takes a few days to harvest, so it is very fast."

"Isn't it easy to find help from Mai Ke? It's up to my aunt to take care of it. The dozen or so Mai Ke who went to the back town to help will have almost finished their work in the past two days. I'll save a few for you."

"It's a good relationship, and it saves me the trouble of running errands. I have to work here tomorrow morning, and I need at least four or five people."

"No problem, just one sentence."

"Then thank you Aunt Tang. My place is cramped and I can't invite you to sit in the shack. How about I pour you two bowls of water?"

"Stop working so hard. Isn't every house like this now? The farm has been taken care of, and when the house is built, it will look like a good one." As the Tang family's aunt spoke, she looked up and down. Wu Erbao nodded with satisfaction and changed the subject.

He said, "People say that you can be stable only after you have a family and start a business. Brother Erbao, your farm is pretty much the same. It's just that there is no caring person in the house to ask for help. It's not a problem. Life is miserable.

There is no one to sew the quilt and no one to cook the food, how about my aunt introduce you to a wife?"

Wu Erbao is considered outstanding among the new immigrants. Others only have 60 acres of land, while his family has 90 acres. In addition, he bought a walking tractor because of his quick thinking, and he is catching up with the craze of opening up wasteland. Basically, in the past two years,

Can't even rest.

If you do some math on your fingers, you can make much more than others.

No, there was someone who fell in love with Wu Erbao and asked someone to help him find a matchmaker.

There are quite a few people who immigrated to Paradise Island with their families. Generally speaking, as long as they have worked as bonded workers for two years, both adult men and women will be given a share of 60 acres of land.

If you have a family of 6, then you have 360 ​​acres of land, which is a proper small farm.

The problem is that women always have to marry, and the people can leave, but the fields cannot. They still remain in the family account.

Moreover, there are more men than women on Paradise Island. To marry a wife, you have to spend a large sum of money as a gift, basically between 300 and 400 yuan. For pretty girls, the price is higher.

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

Running a farm requires a lot of subsidies at the beginning. Even with preferential loans, money is still tight. You need to build a house, build a barn, build a stable, build a chicken and duck shed, buy farm machinery, buy fruit seedlings, and buy cattle.

Everything about lambs costs money.

Therefore, families with girls usually plan to marry off the girl as soon as they settle down in exchange for a generous dowry to build a farm. The sooner the farm is built, the more beneficial it will be. Everyone will settle this account.

Not to mention anything else, if you use this dowry to buy a belt truck, the monthly rent is more than 100 yuan. After a busy day, you can earn at least 200 yuan, and you will be back in one year, and you will make a net profit in two years.

After settling down, the girl will lose money if she is kept at home. It is better to get married as soon as possible in exchange for a generous dowry, and the son-in-law can help with the work when the farm is busy.

For example, if a young man like Wu Erbao, who has a walking tractor at home, goes to his father-in-law's house to help cut wheat and pull wheat straw during busy farming days, can he still collect money?

If you shout while building the barn, won't you come to help?

When a family member is short of money, there are many benefits to being able to provide some relief.

The money shortage mentioned here does not mean that the family can't take the blame, but that when you don't have enough money to buy farm machinery or cattle, you can ask your son-in-law to get some, but the father-in-law doesn't have any psychological burden.

Wu Erbao's heart was moved after hearing this. They are all young and vigorous young men. It is not shameful to want to marry a wife. However, he managed to maintain his composure and asked carefully: "Aunt Tang, which girl are you talking about?"

?”

"What my aunt told you is still wrong. The eldest daughter of Zheng Youcai's family in Zhengjiabao Village is 15 years old this year. She is also a hardworking girl. She is just a little thin. Just marry her and raise her.

Already."

"The eldest girl from Zheng Youcai's family...isn't she a little lame?" Wu Erbao carefully recalled the people he knew, and suddenly his face darkened and he said unhappily.

Aunt Tang didn't expect that Wu Erbao actually knew each other, so she suddenly seemed a little embarrassed. Qiqi Ai Ai replied: "It's not lame, it's just that my foot was crushed on the immigration ship. People said that the bride price is only 288 yuan, 4

Just put on the bedding and use an ox cart..."

"Okay, okay, don't give me any gifts, even if you give them to me." Wu Erbao suddenly felt a fire in his heart, interrupted Aunt Tang's words, and retorted with a black head and a black face: "You think I'm a fool?

?This is not a serious and good girl's family, but there is an ox cart...why not have a cavalry regiment? If you have nothing to do, go quickly, I have a lot of things to do, and I don't have time to greet you."

This was obviously an attempt to chase people away, and if he continued to speak, he was really going to start scolding. Aunt Tang's face immediately turned red, and she dragged the woman beside her and left in a hurry.