Firstly, there had been many things going on lately that he hadn’t had a chance to talk about, and secondly, he was also worried about one thing: their family had been drawing attention recently by buying cattle and building houses, so if they bought more land now, it might lead to more gossip.
After some thought, the man told his daughter about his concerns, "Xiaxia, should we wait a bit and not buy land for now? Our house has just been built, and buying more land might attract too much attention."
"Of course, we should buy it now. Dad, even if we don’t buy land, we’ve already drawn attention. Since Shopkeeper Li sent a gift during our banquet, everyone knows we’re doing business with the restaurant. Anyway, we’ve already attracted attention, so it doesn’t matter if we buy a bit more land."
"Alright, if you have an idea, just go ahead and buy it. I’ll go with your granduncle to measure the land tomorrow."
"By the way, Dad, if I plant faba beans on that piece of land this year, do you think it’s feasible?"
"Planting faba beans?" Yang Dachuan thought for a moment and said, "It’s not impossible to plant faba beans there. The land is near the river, so it’s easy to water. The downside is that it’s a wasteland, with lots of weeds, and the soil isn’t very fertile. If we plant this year, we might have to weed constantly next spring. Moreover, it would be labor-intensive for the first couple of years, with lower yields. If we could wait until next year to plant, we could cut the weeds now and burn them when they’re dried up. This could serve as natural fertilizer. We could plow the land with our cattle and turn up the roots of the weeds. After the cold of winter, there would be fewer weeds when planting time comes."
"Dad, we can’t wait until next year to plant the faba beans. Brother An told me that our bean paste is selling very well in the restaurant. So many people went to the restaurant to buy it by the jar to take home. However, the faba beans we bought only produced a few jars, which is not enough even for the restaurant."
"So what should we do? Maybe we could just plant on the wasteland, and I can weed more often next year." Yang Dachuan hesitated for a while, then waved his hand and said.
"Dad, I’m thinking we should plant half of the wasteland and see if we can buy some better land to plant after the autumn harvest. Since faba beans can be planted later, we probably won’t miss the sowing period."
"But, Xiaxia, even if we only plant half of the wasteland, it’s still a lot of work. Plus, it would require a lot of seeds, which are not easy to buy." Yang Dachuan thought to himself that his daughter was being unrealistic; even with the cattle, the wasteland couldn’t be cultivated so quickly. Half of it was about 20 to 30 acres of land.
"Dad, what are you thinking? Are you still planning on clearing the wasteland by yourself?" Yang Chuxia asked in disbelief.
Yang Dachuan nodded seriously, "We can’t hire people to do that, can we? Everyone is busy right now."
"Dad, I don’t plan on clearing the land all at once. I just want to buy it first, and we’ll clear as much as we can on our own. After the autumn harvest, we can hire people from the village to help with the rest of the land. They go to town to work for money anyway, so why not help us with our land? We can pay their wages, and everyone should be happy to do it. As for seeds, I’ll go to other counties or the prefecture town in a few days to look for them. Besides, Brother An told me that Shopkeeper Li is also asking around for seeds and has heard some news. We’ll see how many acres of faba beans we need to plant in the end."
"Alright, as long as you have a plan, I think people in the village would be willing to help clear the land." Yang Dachuan agreed.
When the father and daughter had finished their conversation, Ms. Wang called people over to husk the corn, and she went to cook dinner.
A little later, as it was getting dark, Ye Zi’an and Yang Qingrui, the two brothers, returned home together.