Allure of a Country Maiden
Chapter 881 - 879_1

Chapter 881: Chapter 879_1

Cooking also needs time, it’s a good opportunity to take a walk in the orchard.

Huzi’s father gave a few instructions to Huzi’s mother, then led the group to see the orchard.

The orchard was not far from their house, there was a small path behind their house leading to it.

Xiao’er saw in the backyard that aside from vegetables, they had chickens, and also grew a yellow bark tree, a carambola tree, and a plum tree near the fence.

After roughly a 15-minute walk, they could see a small hill covered in many lychee trees, with some red fruits vaguely visible on the trees.

The harvest season for lychees was almost over now, and there were only a few lychees left on the trees.

As they approached the orchard, many dogs started barking and rushed towards them.

Huzi’s father scolded them loudly, and the dogs stopped advancing, turned around, and went back to their posts.

"Those dogs are raised by me to guard this orchard. Before I had the dogs, there were always people stealing fruits at night, discarding unripe fruits all over the ground, so I thought of this method to prevent fruit theft."

Ever since he raised the dogs, no one dared to steal the fruits anymore.

They were walking on a small path, which should have been made by Huzi’s father from tending the orchard.

Xiao’er also noticed some pineapple seedlings along the path.

"Uncle, you also plant aloe vera on the mountain? But why are the leaves of this aloe vera so thin?" Zhao Yong bent over to look at the aloe vera on the side of the road, and noted a green fruit growing on it: "Eh? Does aloe vera also yield fruits?"

Xiao’er laughed at Zhao Yong’s words: "That’s not aloe vera, it’s pineapple, known as Fengli."

"Pineapple! I thought it was aloe vera." Zhao Yong said embarrassedly.

His own children work at the flower farm, and he often visits there, where he has seen aloe vera, so he mistook these pineapples for aloe vera.

"Yes, this is a pineapple. The children at home are young, and there isn’t much for them to eat, so I planted some fruits at the edge for the children to eat. I didn’t expect the young lady to also recognize it as pineapple."

While this orchard is primarily used for growing lychees, Huzi’s father also planted a variety of other fruits in some corners for his two children. These included watermelon, melon, loquat, yellow bark, plum, guava, carambola, mango, etc. There might not be a lot, just one or two plants of each kind, but it was enough for the children to satisfy their cravings and for social exchanges. And in years of good harvest, they could even sell some for extra silver.

"I’m also from a farmer’s family, we also have an orchard at home, but the climate there doesn’t allow us to grow pineapples. However, I have seen it in books. Uncle, your orchard is well taken care of. Do you have any plans for the future?"

"Reading really is good, it allows you to know everything. I plan to develop that hill bit by bit, plant more longan trees, earn more silver, and send Huzi to school." While leading the group around, Huzi’s father pointed to the distant hill.

Xiao’er looked over and saw that the trees at the foot of the hill had been cut down, two levels of terraced fields had been cultivated, and a bit of yellow soil could be seen. Every 50 meters or so, there was a longan tree about one meter tall. The longan trees were already looking quite vibrant, indicating that they had taken root successfully.

On the empty ground beneath the longan trees, they had also arranged some beds and planted some vegetables and sweet potatoes.

It was too far away for Xiao’er to see clearly, but just these factors were enough to astonish her.

"Did you guys cultivate this orchard yourselves?" Jingrui was also shocked.

His old home in Shengping County also had two barren hills, so he knew how hard it was to cultivate a barren hill!

Moreover, it was clear that Huzi’s father’s leg was inconvenient.

"Yes, this hill was also barren before. Meizi and I cultivated it together with the children. It took us three whole years to finish, and it took five years to get it to its current state." Looking at the orchard now, Huzi’s father was full of pride.

In three more years, when they finished cultivating the other hill, they would truly live a good life.

Three years later, Meizi could have a dowry when she marries, and in ten more years Huzi could have a new house when he marries!

"Why do you want to plant longans?" Looking at the orchard, Shangguan Xuanyi felt that such a hardworking person deserved his help.

"If we can’t sell all the longans, we can dry them and make longan meat to sell at the medicine shop.

Of course, lychees can also be dried. Some time ago, Huzi’s mother and I would get up at dawn every day, pick three to four hundred pounds of fruit and sell them in the county. Sometimes we had leftovers. The leftover lychees would be dried on our kang bed when we returned home in the evening and made into dried lychees, for the children to snack on."

"It’s so nice to be your child!" Zhao Yong suddenly felt he was neglecting his duties.

"My children are often hungry and cold, what’s so good about that!" Huzi’s father gave a bitter smile when he heard this.

"You’re so hardworking, I’m sure you’ll live a better life in the future. ’Heaven helps those who help themselves’ is the truth! My family used to be very poor too, but now we are getting by. As long as the whole family works together, you can certainly live a better life." Jingrui sincerely comforted him.

"Yes, as long as one is hardworking, anyone can live a better life. Our Imperial Court is good, and our emperor is good, they even announced a policy about planting fruit trees. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to plant so many fruit trees. So as long as one is hardworking, they definitely won’t starve!"

"The Imperial Court is good, but even with the methods they announced, you still need to exert effort, explore, and adapt according to local conditions." Xiao’er chimed in.

She was very familiar with the methods announced by the Imperial Court. From selecting plants to grafting techniques, fertilizing, pruning - although the court had published many cultivation and yield-enhancement methods for various fruit trees, there weren’t many successful fruit farmers in all the states and counties.

Many people gave up halfway, and success often belonged to those who were more persistent than others, not giving up even after several failures.

It can be said that most successes in the world are built on countless failures, but there are few people who can use those failures as stepping-stones to pave the way to success.

However, the court’s policies had already made many people wealthy. In recent years, there have been more and better fruits year by year.

"I had no choice. I had nothing, so I could only clear the wasteland and plant fruit trees." If he had paddy fields, he would also like to plant rice! Two harvests a year, nearly a thousand pounds of yield per acre. Even if he only had one acre of paddy field, he could harvest two thousand pounds of grain a year, which would be nearly one thousand nine hundred pounds after tax. The whole family could eat their fill!

Luckily, his father-in-law had lent him two taels of silver. Otherwise, he wouldn’t even have money to buy fruit seedlings. If so, forget about meals, they wouldn’t even have fruits to eat.

"You also planted peanuts between these fruit trees!" Jingrui pointed to the peanut plants blooming tiny yellow flowers.

"Yes, we plant peanuts to press for oil, and the kids love them. We also planted some sweet potatoes, soybeans, and vegetables. The vegetables grown on this mountain soil are really sweet, you will all get to taste them later."

"Alright." Jingrui agreed with a smile.