January is the most leisurely time of year for people in the countryside; even Zhou Erlang, who was always busy weaving bamboo baskets, stopped his work. Except for those few days around the Lantern Festival, when he took Eldest and Third to set up a stall in the town to sell bamboo baskets, he was not very busy.
Manbao took the opportunity to bring up the matter of clearing land for her eldest sister.
Before Zhou Xi could refuse, Zhou Dalang quickly finished the rice in his bowl and said, "Alright, once we’re done with breakfast, we’ll all go together. I’ve seen the patch of land Manbao chose; it’s not very big, and there aren’t even any trees. It will be easy to clear."
Ms. Qian glanced at her eldest daughter, who wanted to refuse, and nodded, "Hmm, let’s go with Manbao’s idea."
To Zhou Xi, she said, "That piece of land will be yours, and in the future, you can keep all its yield for yourself."
Zhou Xi felt somewhat uneasy and lowered her head to acknowledge with a sound.
After eating, the whole family headed to the fields, even Old Zhou followed with his hands behind his back to take a look. Ms. Qian called Zhou Xi to stop and said, "Ever since she started studying, your sister has become even smarter. There are many things that we don’t understand, but since she says you should plant ginger, then you should carefully plant it. After all, it’s just some hard work, the land is cleared, and what our family least lacks is people."
Zhou Xi had been home for over ten days now and had noticed the differences. In her memory, Manbao was always the frail little sister, but during this stay at home, she realized that while the family still spoiled her as before, much had changed.
For instance, a couple of days ago, when selecting seeds, Old Zhou called Manbao over to calculate how many pounds of seeds were needed for the fields the family cultivated.
And then a few days ago, during the Lantern Festival, Two wanted to go to town to sell bamboo baskets and even specifically asked Manbao if she wanted to go.
Manbao disliked the cold weather and she still had some homework assigned by her tutor to complete, so she didn’t go. Instead, Silang, Five, and Sixth accompanied Two while upon returning, Two handed all the money to Manbao to count how much to contribute to the family fund and how much he kept for himself. Manbao calculated everything clearly and accurately.
Watching this, Zhou Xi kept a poker face, but inside she was shocked, thinking at night if daughters naturally resembled their fathers—that if the father was smart, the daughter would be the same?
Now that her mother brought it up, she couldn’t help but sit beside her and ask, "Mother, what will we do if Manbao is so smart in the future?"
Ms. Qian paused her needlework briefly, then replied, "It’s good for a child to be smart. What’s there to worry about?"
Zhou Xi wanted to say more, but Ms. Qian instructed, "You should also go take a look at the field. It will be your land. You can’t just let your brothers and sisters-in-law do all the hard work."
Zhou Xi acknowledged and stood up to catch up with Zhou Dalang and the others.
Manbao, Datou, Daya, and the other children rushed ahead, shouting as they plunged into the thicket of wild grass.
Zhou Dalang couldn’t help but scold them, careful not to get pricked by thorns and return covered in them.
The patch of land that Keke, no, that Manbao had chosen for Zhou Xi was right next to the one belonging to Zhou Si. It was only separated by a stretch of stones.
Old Zhou took a look and found that the plot was quite small, only about two fen in size, but there was a good amount of wild grass. Since it was just after winter, the grass was withered and yellow, though there were some new sprouts emerging from the ground.
He took a hoe and discovered that the soil was decent and there were no large trees or big stones; while the plot was somewhat small, two fen was more than enough.
Old Zhou passed the hoe to Dalang and nodded, "Alright, this will do. Start by cutting the grass."
He then spoke to Zhou Si, "Look at yourself and then at your sister. What kind of land did you choose, full of trees and stones? It took two months to clear."
Zhou Si protested, "Mine’s bigger!"
Old Zhou snorted, "What’s the use of it being big if the soil isn’t fertile? Can anything grow on it?"
At this, Old Zhou became angry and said, "From now on, you are not allowed to take any manure from the house. If you want manure, ferment it yourself. Have you seen how much manure you’ve brought to the fields recently? Don’t we need it for spring planting?"
Zhou Si was feeling guilty, so he lowered his head.
Manbao, who was merrily tossing stones out of the cleared area, overheard and took off running away because it was she who had asked her brother to bring the manure.
Junior Ms. Qian clearly knew it was her idea, so when she saw Manbao sprinting over, she just pointed her finger and tapped Manbao on the forehead.
With many hands, land clearance was fast, especially since Zhou Dalang, Zhou Erlang, and Zhou San were all skilled workers, far stronger than their younger brothers. They also had Junior Ms. Qian and others to cut grass and pick stones.
Each of them took a corner and plowed straight through; they finished turning over the soil in the plot in just one day.
Of course, simply turning the soil over wasn’t enough. The next day, they had to shake out the roots and earth clumps, remove them, and then break up the larger clumps again and turn the soil over once more. Ideally, they should spread a layer of manure to nourish it.
However, Old Zhou was now very stingy with the manure, forbidding anyone from using the family’s supply. In his view, nothing was more important than sowing in spring—these crops provided sustenance for the entire family for a year and couldn’t be neglected.
Therefore, Zhou Dalang planned to go to the mountains to dig up a layer of soil for Zhou Xi to spread over the field.
But they clearly didn’t choose a good spot, as the soil they dug up contained many unrotten leaves. Manbao looked at it with disdain, asking, "How can we cultivate the land ?"
Zhou Dalang asked with a smile, "What do you suggest we do?"
Manbao squatted on the ground and asked, "Can’t we ferment it like we do with manure at home?"
"But this isn’t manure," Zhou Dalang said. The manure at home was a mixture of sewage with wheat straw, rice straw, and river mud that was all left to ferment together.
The soil brought from the mountains contained leaves was Manbao’s idea in the first place. However, Zhou Dalang was a skilled farmer, and he observed that the layer of soil dug up was indeed a bit more fertile than the soil from the cleared land.
This was why he was willing to do it.
But Manbao did not have rigid ideas like him. She thought that since Keke said fallen leaves could enrich the soil for trees, it implied that the leaves themselves had fertility.
Hadn’t Keke said so? That the layer of dark soil under the trees came from years of leaves decomposing, adding nutrients to the soil, and the reason the vegetation in the forest grew well without human fertilization was exactly because of the nutrients from fallen leaves and petals.
Since that was the case, they should use them to make manure. After all, isn’t fermenting simply accelerating the decomposition process?
Of course, she didn’t know how to make manure, so she figured she should leave this task to her brothers.
Zhou Dalang then asked her, "Did the books say how to do it? How is the manure fermented?"
"I don’t know," Manbao said. "I haven’t come across such a book yet, but don’t worry, Big Brother, I’ll look into it when we get back. For now, just try fermenting it like we do at home. You don’t need to add sewage; just water it with river water, and throw in more leaves."
It was the first time he heard of fermenting manure without sewage, but rather with a scattering of leaves.
He wasn’t entirely convinced by Manbao, but she was insistent, and there was no way around it. So, he and his brothers ended up digging a big pit next to the field and dumped all the soil mixed with leaves from the mountain into it.