However, the villagers do not understand this. In their view, it is natural for them to keep their own seeds. There are very few farmers who purchase silkworm seeds from outside.
At this time, another ship brought "cloth" to Shen's family. When unloading the ship, everyone found that there were a lot of cloths. The average family only kept two or three cloths, and only five or ten cloths.
.If the silkworm flowers are good, a piece of silkworm seed cloth will require almost ten stones of mulberry leaves to support it "up the mountain". This is a big risk for silkworm farmers who have no mulberry land or little mulberry land.
Although the size and shape of the "cloth" that Shen and his family unloaded from the ship were completely different from those used by everyone else, just looking at the quantity, one could tell that there were far more than those from ordinary farmers - there were dozens of pieces of cloth anyway.
The owner of Shen Da is really rich! How many mulberry leaves are needed to feed these "babies". When everyone was speechless, they heard Duo Duoniang say that these cloths were shipped all the way from Guangdong.
It is said to be "Guangdong species" and is better than the Yuhang species and Huzhou species here - no one believes this. It is better than the local Yuhang species, maybe; but it is better than Huzhou, which is known as the best in the world.
Even better, that's a fantasy - who doesn't know that Huzhou's raw silk is the best in the world. The silk and satin used in the palace are all woven from Huzhou silk.
Although Wang Siniang also said that if you want to raise silkworms grown in Guangdong, you can borrow some silkworm seeds from her house and pay them back after harvesting the cocoons. However, most of the silkworm farmers in the village save their own seeds, so naturally they
This new thing was not recognized. No one wanted any of Wang Siniang’s Guangdong seeds. Shen Da felt relieved when he heard about it.
Since there were many women in Duoduo's family, there was no shortage of manpower, so she simply worked as a "busy month" in Wangsi's family. She didn't care about the wages. She only had enough to eat every day. She could also take some back home.
The cold meal treatment made many people jealous. Daqing's daughter-in-law was even more angry and would scold her father-in-law from time to time.
Duoduoniang seems to be very proud of her job. After returning home every day, she will act as Wang Siniang's mouthpiece as usual, bragging about her family's preparations for sericulture. Therefore, everyone knows the various tricks of sericulture in Shen's family. For example, recently
Painting the silkworm room with lime didn't count, but the doors and windows were closed tightly and a sulfur fumigation room was burned in the silkworm room - it is said that this is called "disinfection".
This is not even a new trick. The latest trick is that the silkworm seeds from Wang Si’s mother’s family have already begun to green as soon as they arrive, and the greening does not require manual labor, but only firepower.
In the process of raising silkworms, greening is particularly important. The so-called greening involves artificially raising the temperature to allow silkworm eggs to hatch. In a natural environment, silkworm eggs can hatch on their own after winter, but the temperature and humidity vary under natural conditions. Silkworms feel
Different temperatures lead to uneven hatching, weak constitutions, more sick and weak silkworms, fewer cocoons and poor quality. Therefore, China has long realized the need to use artificial warming to uniformly hatch silkworms.
The cultivation of native silkworms relies entirely on artificial greening. After the Grain Rain, the "cloth" where the seeds are left gradually begins to show green color - this is a precursor to the development of silkworm seeds that are about to hatch. At this time, the work of greening will begin.
.
The local method of artificial greening relies entirely on "hatching". This is the job of women in the countryside. They put cloth on the body and heat it, relying on the constant temperature of the human body to promote greening.
It is unheard of to use fire to promote greening. Shen Kaibao said privately to Daqing Sanqing: "Fire drives silkworms - not chickens or ducks. I have never heard of such a delicate thing in my more than fifty years of life. Silkworms are so delicate." .If you roast it with fire, won't you dry out the silkworm seeds alive?"
Even if ant silkworms can be hatched without drying, based on his many years of experience, in years when the rain is particularly sparse and dry before and after Grain Rain, the number of ant silkworms that can be hatched will be much less, and a large amount of "dried bud seeds" will be produced. ――Of course, if it is too humid, it will not work. The silkworms that emerge will be puffy, poor in physical condition, and the quality of the cocoons will also be poor.
Shen Kaibao once again made a conclusion - he had said something similar when the Shen family borrowed money to buy Shaoye - "Both Shen and Da are fond of trouble. This time they will make trouble for themselves again."
"It's his business to do this," Daqing didn't care what happened to the Shen family. "It's just that if I raise five species this time, I'm afraid the eight percent of mulberry leaves at home won't be enough."
The Shen family's mulberry land that has been mortgaged can only produce less than ten shi of mulberry leaves. A piece of cloth with silkworm seeds costs about eleven or twelve shi of mulberry leaves. Five sheets of silkworm seeds cost at least fifty or sixty shi of mulberry leaves. .The gap is too different, which means that you will have to buy it from the leaf market when the time comes.
The largest amount of leaves is consumed in raising silkworms after the third sleep. At this time, the price of mulberry leaves skyrockets. A load of leaves can be sold for four or five taels of silver, and the average price is about 3 taels of silver. According to this market price, the price of mulberry leaves will rise and open a Baojia family. It will cost twelve taels of silver.
Twelve taels of silver was the annual expense of a middle-class family in the city. It was an extremely considerable amount for a family like Shen Kaibao. But if the silkworm flowers were still available in those days, a piece of cloth could collect a stone cocoon, and the silkworms could be reeled. The finished silk weighs about ten kilograms, and five pieces of cloth equals fifty kilograms. In an average year, you can earn thirty or forty taels of silver. After excluding taxes, debt principal and interest, and various expenses, you can still earn about ten taels of silver. It is a simple species. How many times the yield of the earth.
"You must buy mulberry leaves..." Shen Kaibao said.
It's as if he didn't say anything, because Daqing asked where the money came from. The few coins left at home can't buy many mulberry leaves.
"If it doesn't work, I can only borrow it from Mr. Cao." Shen Kaibao said helplessly what he didn't want to say.
"Master Cao may not be willing to-"
"Why are you saying these discouraging words?" Shen Kaibao finally got angry, "When the time comes, go and ask for help. The folks in the countryside will always be sympathetic to us farmers..." In fact, he himself was not very sure that Mr. Cao would be willing to do so. To borrow this money, his land has long been mortgaged to Mr. Cao. Although there will be income from collecting silkworm cocoons, it is hard to say whether he will be willing to do so - although the time of raising silkworms is not long, it is the same as farming. Even if there is some kind of natural disaster, it is not uncommon for nothing to be harvested.
Daqing did not argue again, but there was a disapproving expression on his face.
Shen Kaibao's family just passed by day by day amid doubts about the future. Fortunately, spring was a busy time for farming, and everyone was so busy that they didn't have time to think too much. As soon as the Grain Rain passed, each family's silkworms The seeds are beginning to turn green, and women in every household are beginning to turn green.
At this time of year, every house is closed to the public. No neighbors, relatives or friends come to the door. Even the menacing officials in the county government are missing. At night, a married woman will never sleep with her husband. Not only
At this time, different beds are used, and the husband and wife sleep in separate rooms during the entire sericulture period - it is said that silkworms love cleanliness most, and there will be conflicts between husband and wife.
Duoduoniang was still busy at Wang Siniang's house, and Wang Siniang also wanted to win her over, so she asked her to move to his house to help, and promised her to work for a month and gave her one tael of silver. She just said that she could not go home until the silkworms were born. Duoduoniang was very happy.
She agreed: her family has two unmarried sisters-in-law, and her eldest daughter is in her teens and can help. The family has a large population, and she is one of them.
Wang Si's family's sericulture was really an eye-opener for her: she had helped her family raise sericulture since she was a child, and it has been almost 30 years now, and she has never seen anything like this!
The room used for greening is large and bright, and the walls and ceiling are painted white. When greening, the lighting requirements are very high, and light and dark must be orderly, that is, it cannot be always bright or always bright, otherwise silkworms will breed
The hatches were uneven, so the windows were opened wide to let in enough light. At night, there were straw curtains to avoid being disturbed by natural light. There was a fire dragon against the wall of the Qingqing room - she had to ask Wang Siniang about this.
You know, during the greening process, people light fires outside the house regularly every day to gradually increase the room temperature.
Although there is a fire dragon, the house is not dry at all: a shallow copper basin is placed on the ground of the fire dragon, and wet cloths are hung along the wall. One of the main tasks of Tadonna's chores is to add water to the copper basin and put dry water in it.
Re-soak the damp cloth.
There is a glass object slightly longer than chopsticks hanging on the wall of the room. There are many horizontal lines carved on it, and there is a symbol every few lines. But there is a red line in the middle of the glass tube. This red line is really strange.
, unexpectedly sometimes being long and sometimes being short. In addition to this thing, there is another glassware, inlaid on a wooden board, also hanging on the wall. There is also a ball of cotton-like thing inside, and there is also a thread that moves by itself.
Pointing up and down at some symbols she couldn't understand.
In Wang Siniang's house, there is a maid who will look at these things every one or two hours, write something on the book, and then instruct Duo Duo Niang to add water, soak the cloth or add firewood, and sometimes she will do the opposite:
Remove the water basin and turn off the fire. Take the trouble.
Every morning, this maid would come to Qingqing City, carefully take out a few silkworm eggs, put them on paper, and take them to a small room in the backyard. An hour later, Duoduoniang would follow her instructions again
I was busy doing this set of work. In the afternoon, I had to open the window for ventilation according to her instructions.
It is very mysterious to promote greening in this way. Duoduoniang has never known how it is done. In fact, Jixian Village Sericulture Co., Ltd. uses the gentle and gentle method to promote greening.
This maid is actually a student from Hangzhou Station who was trained by Li Yaoer, named Li Zheng. She comes to pick up the silkworm seeds at eight o'clock every morning. After shelling, she uses a microscope to observe the development of the embryos in the silkworm eggs.
to adjust daily temperature and humidity.
Compared with the method where silkworm farmers let silkworms turn green by themselves and then use artificial incubation, this greening method is not only faster, but also can hatch neatly, with a high hatch rate. The ant silkworms have good physique and strong resistance. Therefore, the silkworms in the entire village
Before the eggs turned green, Wang Si's silkworm eggs had been moved from the greening room to the silkworm breeding room, waiting for the final hatching.