Hearing someone interrupt, the farming experts who were listening raptly became furious and geared up to teach this damn madman a lesson.
"Chen Huan, this is Wang Shangshu of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishery who came from Beijing to inspect Peng County. Come quickly to see me," Liang Shengwen shouted majestically.
"It's the county magistrate," one of the farmers who knew Liang Shengwen said in a low voice. As soon as they heard that it was the county magistrate, the farming experts who were angry just now were silent. In the Ming Dynasty, everything was of low quality, only officials were of high quality. .The common people were afraid of officials to the core. When the county magistrate appeared, they fled one after another.
"Students see Wang Shangshu." Chen Huan was shocked when he heard Liang Shengwen's words and hurriedly stepped forward to salute.
"Don't be too polite." The more Wang Tai looked at the young man, the more he liked it. He encouraged him gently: "You just gave a very good lecture, with many viewpoints and very novel ideas. How often do lectures like this happen? Are there any difficulties in your daily life? ?"
Hearing this, Liang Shengwen winked at Chen Huan vigorously, which meant: OK, you can talk about it; if not, don't say it.
Unfortunately, Chen Huan was an inexperienced person and said truthfully: "The students originally planned to hold lectures five times every ten days to recruit more farming experts for training, but unexpectedly they lacked funds and could only hold lectures once a month. They also wanted to print some training materials and distribute them to the people. I have no money; I want to cultivate some good seeds for the people to plant, but I don’t have the funds."
"No funds? Didn't the imperial court decree that each county allocate two hundred taels of funds every year to be used exclusively for agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery technical service stations? Why don't you even have the money to print training materials?" Wang Tai asked.
"Cough~cough~cough~"
Liang Shengwen was afraid that Chen Huan would say something inappropriate again, so he hurriedly coughed and explained: "I'm reporting to Wang Shangshu, it's like this. Since I received the order from the imperial court to build an agricultural technology station, my subordinates have actively pushed forward and finally completed the agricultural technology station." "As for this fund, several townships in the county were hit by floods a few days ago and were unable to raise it for the time being. But please don't worry, it has been raised and will be distributed immediately."
"Oh", Wang Tai glanced at Liang Shengwen thoughtfully and said no more.
"Is Webmaster Chen here?"
Suddenly a strong man came in a hurry.
"Yes, what's the matter with you?" Chen Huan asked calmly.
"I'm from Longmen Township. The rice grown in my village was infested by borers. The village chief asked me to ask stationmaster Chen to go there."
"There are many kinds of borers, such as heartworms, white threadworms, cutworms, etc., do you know which one it is?" Chen Huan said.
"The chief asked me to catch one." The strong man took out a small jar. There was an insect crawling around in the jar. The head was light gray brown, the forehead was white, round, the top was pointed, and the chest and wings were white. , and was brown, with seven black spots on the outer edges of its forewings. As if it sensed someone coming, the insect banged its head against the tank wall fiercely, like a imprisoned general.
"Seven-star heartworm!" Wang Tai and Chen Huan exclaimed in unison.
This insect is powerful! Among the borers, it is the largest and has the strongest ability to invade rice. In addition to damaging rice, it can also damage wild rice, corn, sorghum, sugar cane, rape, broad beans, wheat, reeds, barnyard grass and other weeds. After hatching , first gather in the leaf sheaths to feed, and then begin to eat the rice stems, which can harm the entire process of rice from seedlings to maturity, causing rice withered sheaths, dead hearts, insect-damaged plants and white ears.
When they saw this kind of insect, Wang Tai and Chen Huan fell into deep thought.
After a long while, Wang Tai said: "I thought we could use Jiacao and Mangcao to smoke out the insects, and then use oyster shells to burn them to produce oyster ash, which can be spread everywhere on the seedlings, rice stalks, and rice ears."
"Wang Shangshu's method is very wonderful, but the insect burrows very deep. The student thought that it is necessary to use three hens of mustard oil per mu (ten hexes equals one liter) or four hens of oil per mu, mix it with water and spray the leaves, stems and roots to get rid of it. "Both borer", Chen Huan also proposed his own method.
Mustard oil is extracted from mustard seeds, and oil was named by Shen Kuo of the Northern Song Dynasty. It was not a rare thing in this era.
"I know that mustard oil kills insects, but does this oil also have the effect of killing insects?" Wang Tai asked Chen Huan.
"Students have done experiments and it is indeed effective," Chen Huan replied firmly.
"Yes," Wang Tai nodded, "Even so, this moth has a very strong reproductive capacity. Manpower should also be deployed to light gauze lamps at night to trap the adult moths and kill them. Without the adults, there will be fewer eggs. , it’s easy to govern.”
"Wang Shangshu's eloquent remarks are admired by students," Chen Huan praised sincerely.
The two talked loudly and soon formulated a method to eliminate pests, which kept everyone fascinated.
Liang Shengwen finally found a chance to show off, and said loudly to Wang Tai: "I will follow Wang Shangshu's ingenious advice and have people prepare grass, grass, oyster shells, mustard oil, petroleum and other materials, and then send people to attack Longmen." The villagers of the township organized themselves and lit gauze lanterns every night to get rid of moths. Xiaguan stayed in Longmen Township during this period. He vowed not to return to the city until the pests were eliminated!"
"Okay! Magistrate Liang is interested." Wang Tai praised him lightly.
Being praised by his superior, Liang Shengwen felt that all the bones in his body were lighter, and he happily organized his troops to work.
When everyone came to Longmen Township, they saw patches of rice fields filled with withered rice. Some of the leaf sheaths were withered and yellow, some of the rice stalks were hollow, some of the plants were drooping, and some of the wheat ears were withered and white.
Wang Tai pulled out a piece of rice with withered and yellow sheaths, peeled off the sheath, and searched carefully. Finally, he found a larva in the sheath with only a black head and other parts of the body that were very similar to the yellow color of the sheath. He said slowly : "This field has just been infested by borer larvae, so we sprayed pesticides quickly, and the farmers' losses are not huge."
Chen Huan also pulled out a rice stalk in another field and found that the rice stalk was already withered and there was a fat insect about to turn into a moth inside. He sighed: "This farmer's family has suffered a huge loss!"
Under the command of two agricultural experts, Longmen Township's anti-pest disaster work went very smoothly. The two classified the damage levels according to the condition of the rice in the field. For low levels, only Jia grass, Mang grass fumigation was used, and then oyster shells were used
Calcined to produce oyster ash, which is spread throughout the rice. For high-grade rice, in addition to using jiacao, ragweed and oyster ash to resist insects, mustard oil and petroleum mixed with water are also sprayed on the rice leaves, stems and roots.
The government also organized people to take action and lit gauze lanterns every ten feet on the edge of the fields to kill moths and reduce the eggs of adult moths.
After ten days of hard work, the disaster was successfully controlled.
Wang Tai was about to return to Beijing, and Liang Shengwen led the county officials to hold a farewell banquet.
"Wang Shangshu led us to fight against the insect disaster and saved the people of Longmen Township from floods and fires. Your hard work has been great. I will prepare a small amount of wine to see you off," he said to Wang Tai flatteringly.
Wang Tai's smile was like a breath of fresh air, "Everyone has worked hard to fight this disaster, and I will report it to the court one by one."
Hearing what he said, Liang Shengwen's bones went numb. If he could get a good word from the dignified minister, he would probably be promoted to a higher official position.
After eating and drinking, Wang Tai returned to Nanjing and immediately recommended Chen Huan as the Sichuan chief of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishery, taking charge of the agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery technical service stations in Sichuan Province. He also impeached Liang Shengwen, the magistrate of Peng County, for embezzling and refusing to issue Peng County officials.
Office expenses of the Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishery Technical Service Station.
Chen Huan was promoted and Liang Shengwen lost his official position. The hearts of high-ranking officials are unfathomable!