Peaceful Farm Life

Chapter 664: Chapter 665 Digging a Pit and Burying Oneself_1

The twenty-eight Farmer officials were quite composed at this moment. Indeed, one should never speak too absolutely, otherwise, one might end up slapping one’s own face.

What Tong Nongzhi and Guo Nongzhi feared the most at this moment was silence. The longer the silence lasted, the more they felt they were being laughed at, causing the faces of Tong Nongzhi and Guo Nongzhi to become even redder, as if they were about to bleed.

Deep down, they truly resented An Jing, believing that it was An Jing who intentionally made them embarrassed.

At this moment, they had completely forgotten that they had dug this pit themselves. It was just that, instead of burying An Jing, they had buried themselves.

They really didn’t want to stay any longer, and wished to leave with a sweep of their sleeves, but that was just a thought, which they did not put into action.

They had heard that the Crown Prince seemed to take this matter very seriously, so when their superiors mentioned sending someone here to learn how to make a Nutrition Bowl for cotton planting from An Jing, they took it upon themselves to take on this task.

For the sake of their career, they couldn’t simply walk away no matter what!

An Jing felt it was time to break the silence and spoke again, ”The force required to make a Nutrition Bowl must be moderate, not too strong or too weak. You should still figure out the exact force needed on your own.”

Then, the twenty-eight Farmer officials took turns practicing the Nutrition Bowl with the molder.

Not wanting to be the only ones not to master the Nutrition Bowl while everyone else had, Tong Nongzhi and Guo Nongzhi also had no choice but to join in and take turns practicing with the molder.

In fact, making a Nutrition Bowl wasn’t that hard. It was just a matter of getting the right force at the beginning, which was the hard part. Once that was mastered, it was really very simple.

After only a short practice, everyone could make the Nutrition Bowl very well.

Once Tong Nongzhi and Guo Nongzhi had learned it, they were incredibly frustrated. It was truly very simple!

Once the Nutrition Bowl was formed well, the next step was to place cotton seeds in the small hollow, then cover them with loose soil, followed by making an arched shelter.

The principle of an arched shelter for seedlings was a bit abstruse for the people here, so An Jing simply explained that an arched shelter could protect the Nutrition Bowl from rain, especially when the cotton seeds sprouted and grew into seedlings. If there was a heavy rain, it would surely beat down the seedlings, so making an arched shelter was safer.

Then, a Farmer official asked, ”If the oilcloth is sealed tightly with soil on all sides and is airtight, won’t the seedlings inside get smothered to death when they sprout?”

An Jing replied, ”It’s only sealed like this temporarily. Once they start sprouting, the oilcloth on the sides will be rolled up, and then it will be able to breathe.”

That Farmer official then asked, ”Why seal it now, then? Why not roll it up now and save the trouble later?”

An Jing, not sure if what he was saying was correct, said, ”The weather is still too cold; it makes germination difficult. Being sealed up tight like this should make it a bit warmer inside, which can help the cotton seeds to germinate as quickly as possible.”

The Farmer official immediately showed a look of having learned something, ”I see.”

Half a month passed by in the blink of an eye.

The cotton seedlings in the arched shelters had now grown.

When they saw that the seedlings under the arched shelters were much stronger than those that had been directly planted in the ground, the eyes of the thirty Agricultural Officials shone, as if they were seeing pile upon pile of endless white cotton.

Although everyone had come to learn how to increase cotton production by planting with Nutrition Bowls, they hadn’t really believed it would increase the yield by much. Now, seeing such strong cotton seedlings, they believed it truly could substantially increase the yield.