The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 409 - 398: Yield per Acre

Chapter 409: Chapter 398: Yield per Acre

Old Zhou’s family had a habit of keeping records, but they generally only recorded the best and the worst plots of land.

The reason they did this was because of Ms. Qian.

Zhou Dalang quietly told them that when he was young, his parents would fight every year during the spring planting and the autumn harvest.

The arguments during the spring were because Ms. Qian complained that Old Zhou was lazy. She wanted him to break up the large clumps of earth and refine them. He never listened.

And the arguments during the harvest were due to the fact that, with many mouths to feed and not enough land, no matter how Ms. Qian crunched the numbers, the harvested grains were never enough to last the family throughout the year, prompting her to bring up the accounts from the spring planting again.

Back then, Zhou Dalang and his siblings were too young to divide the fields among themselves, but a boy halfway to becoming an adult can eat his father out of house and home, especially a boy of eleven or twelve who’s growing, consuming more than Old Zhou himself, not to mention that he had so many sons.

Ms. Qian was almost driven mad with worry.

So, Ms. Qian learned on her own how to keep accounts and compare them. Using symbols that both she and Old Zhou could understand, she recorded for each plot of land how much seed was sown in the spring, how much fertilizer was used, the extent of the watering, and how much grain each plot yielded in the autumn harvest by weight.

The paper used was the yellow paper commonly used for tomb-sweeping, and the pen was a piece of black charcoal from the stove. The page was full of all kinds of odd symbols—a circle, a wavy line—as inscrutable to Manbao as an arcane text.

Yet Old Zhou and Ms. Qian could understand what was recorded on it.

At the end of the year, when Manbao was going through all sorts of trouble to exchange for wheat seeds, he came across these materials, and Ms. Qian, while flipping through these yellow papers, dictated the information, and Manbao took down the data all over again.

Now, Old Zhou’s family also keeps the tradition of recording the yield for the best and worst plots of land with every harvest, except that now it is Manbao who does the recording, and he uses universally understood characters.

Manbao did not only record their own data, but also the figures from their own farmstead, and he recorded everything.

He kept records for each plot, calculated totals, and even figured out the average yield per acre.

Of course, the average yield per acre was still calculated with the friendly help of Mr. Zhuang; there was no helping it, as although both Manbao and Bai Shanbao considered themselves smart, their calculations of the yield for the twenty-odd acres didn’t match.

Both were convinced they learned how to calculate the average yield per acre, but neither could persuade the other, so they brought their dispute before Mr. Zhuang.

Mr. Zhuang did the calculations for them once, and, curiously, neither child had got it right. Since they were evenly matched, no fight ensued.

But Mr. Zhuang was astounded.

Although he was not very familiar with agricultural matters, he knew such yields were quite high.

Mr. Zhuang looked again at the arithmetic on the paper, then at the two children still pondering where they went wrong, and asked, "What about your wheat? Have you sold it?"

"Not yet," Bai Shanbao finally found his mistake and, while mentally calculating, said nonchalantly, "I had Manor Head Bai inquire at the grain store. They’re indeed profiteers—they sell for a high price, but offer us a low one, so I’ve decided to wait for Bai Er’s Uncle Wu to come before making a decision."

Manbao nodded in agreement, "If Uncle Wu also offers a low price, it’s better to give our grain to my second brother to sell in the market."

Bai Shanbao exclaimed, "Can we sell grain on the main street?"

"Well, there’s no rule against selling, right..."

Mr. Zhuang cleared his throat and said, "A little bit is no problem; a few bags of grain won’t be checked by the County Governmental Office. But if you want to sell the wheat from all twenty-odd acres, you’ll definitely need a document from the office."

Manbao’s eyes swiveled as he said, "What about selling a few bags a day?"

Mr. Zhuang: "If it’s the same person..."

"It’s not the same person," Manbao replied gleefully. "I have six brothers, plus nephews and nieces, and the three of us. If each person sells a few bags, that settles it."

Mr. Zhuang found himself momentarily speechless and unable to refute, but it seemed that wasn’t what he wanted to say...

Mr. Zhuang coughed lightly, finally remembering his original intention, and earnestly advised the two children, "Don’t rush to sell your wheat just yet, wait a little. Right, have you stored your wheat properly? There’s been a lot of rain lately, heavy too. Make sure it doesn’t get damp."

"Don’t worry, sir, it won’t get damp," Bai Shanbao said. "Those bags of wheat are all stocked at my house. My home’s roof has only been built a few years ago; how could it possibly leak?"

Bai Shanbao turned to Manbao and said, "We don’t have a storage, so we should pay for the use of my family’s storage."

Manbao said, "You are so stingy!"

"This is treating public affairs impartially."

"Fine, then. How much do you want to charge?"

Bai Shanbao, who had no idea about the going rates, thought for a bit and said, "Let me have Manor Head Bai inquire about the market price in the county town first."

"Can the rent in the village be the same as that in the county?" Manbao argued on behalf of their interests, "Moreover, your house would be wasted sitting empty. Renting it to us is making the most out of it, so you should charge less."

"How much less?"

"One-tenth of the county town’s rate."

Bai Shanbao wasn’t looking to make much money but rather wanted to proudly tell his grandmother and mother that he hadn’t taken advantage of the family, and that they had paid for using the family’s space. Without much consideration, he agreed, "Okay."

Watching the two children complete another transaction with back-and-forth negotiations, Mr. Zhuang collected the papers on the table and said, "If you two are free these next few days, go into town and buy a set of calculation tokens. I’m going to start teaching you how to use them."

Manbao and Bai Shanbao both opened their mouths wide in shock, recalling when they saw Mr. Zhuang teaching the senior brothers to use calculation tokens at the school and feeling somewhat worried and insecure, "Sir, aren’t we too young to learn calculation tokens?"

"Not at all. Besides, learning isn’t about age, but about ability and need. You need to learn calculation tokens now, and you’re capable of learning, so why not?"

Bai Shanbao’s shoulders slumped, "Alright then, I’ll tell Bai Er when I get back."

Not too thrilled about having an additional subject to study.

But Mr. Zhuang, stroking his beard, smiled and said, "Bai Er doesn’t need to rush to learn calculation tokens. You two start first."

Manbao and Bai Shanbao: ...

The two dejectedly walked out, and Manbao took the opportunity to glance at the money box in the system, asking, "How much does a set of calculation tokens cost?"

"Don’t know." Bai Shanbao wasn’t worried about that. What he was concerned about was, "We have to learn calculation tokens now. Will our homework increase? Can we still go out to play afterwards?"

Ever since they started to run the farm, they seldom had time for fun. This year, during the spring floods, they didn’t even go fishing, or rather, didn’t even go near the river. By the time he realized it, the flood, possibly teeming with little fish, had passed.

But Manbao suddenly stopped, "I forgot to ask the teacher when we have a holiday. Since we’re going to town to buy calculation tokens, that counts as a holiday, right?"

The two looked at each other and turned around, running back to the small courtyard.

Since the wheat was harvested, and after the last batch of rice seedlings were planted, Mr. Zhuang, using the excuse of making up for lessons missed due to the busy spring, said there would be no holidays for a long while.