The next morning, Gu Xiaoxia still made breakfast. After the two of them finished eating, Li Long cleaned up and Gu Xiaoxia went to work.
He plans to stay in the county for a few days, but of course it cannot be long, because there is not much fodder in the big yard. He can stay there, but No. 76 cannot.
After cleaning up the kitchen and feeding No. 76, Li Long put on his coat and fur hat, walked out of the yard, locked the door and walked to the seed company.
The county does not yet have all the units, but seed companies focusing on agriculture were established early. The seed company has a small front and back yard, which is different from the front and back yards like the buying stations and supply and marketing cooperatives. There is a row of bungalows facing the street, with offices and seed shops.
Li Long walked into the seed store and found a man sitting behind the counter by the stove reading a book.
The old wooden counter is actually equivalent to the simple square cabinet of later generations. The outside is a panel, just like a table, and the inside is a 20-centimeter square grid, where things can be placed.
There is also a row of cabinets at the back, labeled with various seeds. Of course, there are not many seeds now, mainly common grains and vegetables such as wheat, rice, leeks, and cabbage.
The person reading the book was a woman in her fifties. After taking a look at Li Long, he put down the book in his hand, but did not speak.
"Hello, comrade." Li Long glanced at it and didn't find what he wanted, so he took the initiative to ask:
"I would like to ask if you have any melon seeds here. ?”
"Dating melons? No." The female comrade shook her head, "Do you still know how to beat melons?"
"Well, I heard someone said it." Li Long said nonchalantly, "We don't do that there. The land has been allocated, and I want to try planting it in the spring, so I thought I would come over and ask if you have any seeds here."
"No. , very few people know about this crop, and not many people can grow it. We actually want to collect some such seeds, but no one grows them, and no one sells them."
Li Long's heart moved. Asked:
“If I can find seeds to plant, will you harvest the melon seeds?”
"Of course." The female comrade nodded, "In fact, we have quite few seeds in stock here. Although the experimental station and the state seed company will provide us with some seeds, the gap is still quite big. We need to get them from growers. Collect some high-quality seeds.”
This reminded Li Long that in two years, the accountant’s wheat yield in the village was publicized, and people from all over the country came here to buy seeds. As a result, their family's final public grain payment was wheat bought from other families.
For a long time, the seeds for people's farming were still used together with self-saved seeds and purchased seeds. Especially for vegetables, Li Jianguo's spare house had a special place for seeds. Every year when tomatoes are ripe, the women in the village will specially select some large and good-looking tomatoes to save seeds when making sauce.
Not only tomatoes, but also peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, etc., the seeds of these vegetables were originally saved by themselves, but I don’t know when they became purchased.
Li Long is a bit more stubborn. Until his death in his last life, the tomatoes in the vegetable field were still old seeds. A lot of them didn't look very good, but they tasted really good.
"Then if you collect melon seeds, what's the price?" Li Long asked a key question.
"One or two yuan." The lesbian said uncertainly, "It also depends on the specific quality."
The seeds of the melon are mainly used for roasting and eating. , but Li Long vaguely remembered that one year the school's work-study program also required me to beat melon rinds, saying that they were used to make medicinal materials. As for its specific function, he didn't know.
He remembered that one acre of land could yield one to two hundred kilograms of melons. If calculated as one dollar, one acre of land could earn one to two hundred yuan - for today, this is almost a sky-high price. !
You must know that one acre of wheat now only yields 200 kilograms of good ones. The price of wheat is about 30 cents, and the income from one acre of land is only 60 yuan!
Of course, this is gross income!
The investment in harvesting melons is naturally higher than that in wheat, but how much higher can it be?
Of course, the difficulty in obtaining melon seeds is also a very big hurdle. As long as you can find suitable seeds, you will most likely be able to make money by growing melons.
Make big money!
After confirming this idea, Li Long came out of the seed company and thought about where to find the seeds.
He thought he could go to Shicheng Seed Company first. Li Long vaguely remembered that melon planting in this area was first started by a company of the Shicheng Corps, and later spread slowly, but because the acquisition was unstable, unlike wheat, which the National Grain Bureau could directly harvest, so There have never been many people planting it, and the area is not large.
After all, apart from the seed companies, only the seed roasting factories are harvesting. Later, the seed company only took a little bit, and then the seed company stopped taking it.
However, the roasted seed factories closed down, but their production capacity was limited after all. Later, there were privately owned roasted seed factories, and this phenomenon changed.
This is poor information.
Li Long thinks that this melon can still be planted for a few years. At worst, it will be transformed later - such as planting cotton in advance?
Of course, the current yield of cotton is still relatively low, and the price is not high. Only after the application of thin films and new technologies, especially the formation of drip irrigation technology, the yield of cotton made a qualitative leap, and then began to make money.
Otherwise, it would really make no money, and it would lose money for several years.
Li Long looked at the time and thought about going to Shicheng in the afternoon, so he went to the market.
The market now has much more people than yesterday afternoon. He also saw a few fish sellers in the team, such as the Zhao family and his son.
Li Long was a little surprised. Didn't the Zhao family and his son say they were going to Shicheng to sell fish, but they stopped going after just one visit?
Li Long didn't ask in detail, just said hello to them and continued shopping.
Then he saw Yang Xiulan and Han Fang selling soup and rice from a cart. Li Long discovered that the best-selling item at this time was soup rice—that is, soup noodle slices. There are vegetables and hot soup in this thing. The thick noodles will make you hungry and can also warm you up. It uses tomato sauce, which is sour and spicy and has a taste.
Yang Xiulan and Han Fang also saw Li Long. When Li Long walked over, Yang Xiulan took a bowl and wanted to scoop rice for him. Li Long waved her hands hurriedly:
"No, no, no, no, I just had breakfast and I didn't want to eat for a while. Just make more food for noon." ——Are there many people eating?”
"It's not bad." Yang Xiulan said with a smile, "It's cold today and no one has brought hot water. My hot soup and rice are not expensive. Most of them are happy to eat a bowl. It's almost noon. Can sell out a pot.”
"That's good." Li Long smiled. This is considered a formal business. Although there is no stall, the advantage is that there is business and people are willing to eat. And from now on, the reputation has been established.
"Will Han Fang go to school in the future?" Li Long asked again.
"Comrade Gu said that when school starts in the spring, she will be put in a class to see if she can keep up." Yang Xiulan said, "I want her to go to a higher education, even a junior high school."< br>
Li Long nodded, this idea is correct.
Why has China been able to grow from generation to generation? No matter where the Chinese go, they can quickly establish a foothold and develop a small world?
Hard work is a big reason.
Another important reason is that no matter how hard and tired parents are, they will usually provide for their children to go to school as long as they have the conditions.
In the past, some Westernized articles in the public domain and on the Internet talked about how much Jewish people value education. In Li Long’s view, in fact, it would be better to replace the protagonist of that article with a Chinese.
Because even if he is a bad guy among the Chinese, he still hopes that his children can go to school well, and the higher the academic qualifications, the better.
This thing is almost engraved in the genes - there are only a very small number of people who believe that learning is useless.
Li Long remembered that a few years later, some factories were built south of Wuyi Highway in Ma County. The factories advertised for workers on TV stations. For the same job, the salary of high school students was fifty yuan higher than that of junior high school students. In the 1990s, that is, Ten years later, fifty yuan will be a lot.
This is the proper priority for academic qualifications.
I'm going too far again.
"Then you go about your business and I'll take a look around." Li Long said.
Yang Xiulan nodded, then gently pulled Han Fang. Han Fang said shyly:
"Uncle Li, goodbye!" Li Long smiled at her, nodded, turned and left.
Li Long often visited the Shicheng market. He was not very interested in the market here. There were not many things to buy, so he simply turned out and walked to the purchasing station. .
Normally when I ride a bicycle, I don’t think so, but when I walk here, the market is still quite far away from the purchase station.
Calculating that today is Wednesday, Chen Hongjun should be there. When Li Long arrived at the purchasing station, he saw that the snow in the yard was quite clean and it was half closed, but there must be green smoke coming from the chimney on the roof.
Li Long patted the door, then pushed it in - usually those who came to sell things would just push the door open directly, and there were very few knocks.
Chen Hongjun was squatting at the counter sorting something. He looked up and saw that it was Li Long. He smiled and said:
"Hey, Comrade Li is here when you have time? I heard you got into trouble this time!"
"Comrade Chen, you are so well-informed." Li Long turned around and closed the door, took the chair next to the stove and sat down, looking at Chen. The Red Army was busy there, and he guessed that it was Li Xiang who had revealed the news.
Anyway, I came here to ask this question, so I wasn’t afraid that Chen Hongjun would know.
"Hey, Lao Li is so strong," Chen Hongjun was using a piece of wood to pad the corner of the counter. The counter must have been standing for a long time, and one leg was a little awkward and unstable. Chen Hongjun found a piece of wood to hold the leg up. Pad it up so it's convenient when using it.
"I came here just to ask about the situation." Li Long saw Chen Hongjun standing up, patted the dust on his hands, and went to wash his hands at the washstand in the corner. After he finished his work, he asked:< br>
“How much is this brown bear bile worth?”
“This thing should be in a place where there are more bears. , such as the Northeast, it is really not as valuable as expected. A normal-sized black bear bile costs about five or six hundred. Of course, if you are brave, the price can be slightly higher, but it is only five hundred. It won’t be less than a hundred dollars.”
“It’s pretty much what I guessed,” Li Long said with a smile.
"But that's the place of origin." Chen Hongjun waved his hand, "It's not here. We haven't seen many black bears here, only brown bears, which are what the herdsmen call bears. It's great to be able to get bears. After all, there are few people with the ability, and there are few, or almost none, people here who specialize in hunting, so bear bile, even if it is ordinary, is worth seven to eight hundred, for example. If you are bigger, it will be in the thousands.”
Chen Hongjun sighed:
“Comrade Xiao Li, it’s hard to say whether you are lucky or not. I have been working at this buying station for more than ten years, and I have never seen a bear skin, not to mention bear bile..."
"Is the bear skin valuable?" Li Long asked hurriedly.
“Look at the size. If it’s full leather, the price is about the same as bear bile. If it’s broken, the price will be significantly higher.”
Li Long did the math, and Li Long's leader, Director Wu, gave him a similar price, neither higher nor lower.
After all, this bear is not big, and its skin is still damaged, but with the meat, it’s hard to say who wins and who loses.
“The bear I shot was less than two meters tall and felt less than 200 kilograms, more than 100 kilograms. It should be a young bear.”
“Well, that’s true. It is normal for an adult bear to weigh three to five hundred kilograms, and to be more than two meters tall. Bears this big are usually found deep in the mountains and cannot be seen near the mountains. "Although Chen Hongjun has never seen a bear, he still knows the habits of bears, "You are hunting a young bear, three or four years old. That kind of thing. How big is the bile of a bear?"
Li Long gestured.
"Such a bold thing is worth about seven or eight hundred yuan. The skin must be damaged, right?"
"Well, there are about five, six, seven or eight bullet holes." Li Long was not sure, " At that time, the distance was so close that I was scared. All the bullets from the rifle were shot at me."
"The leather was damaged." Chen Hongjun shook his head, "It can be sold for more than three to five hundred."
Li Long nodded, okay. At least this trip is worth it.
“You are really lucky, you can also encounter a hibernating bear.”
"I even encountered a live bear in the summer," Li Long said, remembering the bear he met at the hot spring. "It ran away when it saw me."
"Under normal circumstances, bears are not Those who are willing to provoke people." Chen Hongjun said, "Except for special circumstances, such as being extremely hungry. Of course, you are right to carry a gun with you when you go into the mountains... By the way, there are no such things this time. Got something good?”
Li Long thought of the leather that Harimu gave him when he delivered food last time, but thinking that he still needed to save something, he said:
“It’s gone this time, wait until next time. "
"That's okay... Mainly because I'm always surprised every time I see you, so I'm used to it," Chen Hongjun said with a smile, "It's time for you to have a good rest, right? Year?”
"It should be okay. I'll be asking some questions in the county these two days, and I'll be back to the team in two days to celebrate the New Year." Li Long said.
Chen Hongjun stood up and poured a jar of water for Li Long and asked:
"What are you asking about? Tell me, let me see if I know."
Li Long took the enamel jar with "Serve the People" written on it, drank two mouthfuls of water and said:
< br>"I plan to plant some melons next year and want to get some melon seeds. The seed company in our county doesn't have this stuff, so I have to go to Shicheng to ask. The seed company in our county does harvest it, but I guess There aren’t many, so I would like to ask where this thing is sold.”
"Peeling melon seeds - you have thought of a good project." Chen Hongjun thought for a moment, "I can get melon seeds, but the quantity will not be much, only a dozen kilograms. But this thing is not enough for one acre of land. It doesn’t take much to plant just one or two thousand seeds—a dozen kilograms is more than forty or fifty acres of land—do you have that much land?”
“You will need land next year. It’s okay to contract dozens of acres of land,” Li Long said. He said, "I'm just afraid that I won't be able to plant it, and in the first year of planting, I plan to plant only ten acres. It's hard to support it. Of course, I can leave more seeds, and I raise pigs at home, so that stuff The pigs can be eaten after they come out."
"That's good, kill two birds with one stone." Chen Hongjun said, "The seed company told you there is no such thing."
"Two yuan? They are not sure either," Li Long said.
“I can also collect some here,” Chen Hongjun said, “because not many people have grown this before and they haven’t confiscated it. I will have to ask the state then, and it should be more than two yuan.”
"It's okay. I heard that the yield of this thing is only more than 100 kilograms of melon seeds per acre. If it doesn't work by then, I can find a roaster to sell it."
Li Long feels that he has no worries about sales. This stuff has always been a niche agricultural product, and there have always been people growing it, but not many. There are also some units that are collecting it, especially those roasted seed factories, including small roasted seed shops.
After chatting for a while, Li Long left. Chen Hongjun walked him to the door. Looking at the young man's back, he felt that Li Long was even more different.
Dare to think, dare to do, and have a bit of whimsical ability. I have never heard of anyone talking about planting melons. Is this what it means to have a try?
After chatting at the buying station for almost an hour, Li Long found out after coming out that no one came to sell anything at the buying station during this hour.
Is there nothing good to sell this winter?
When Li Long thought about it, it seemed that there really wasn’t. If I hadn't gone hunting in the mountains to get some wild animals and come here occasionally, I probably wouldn't have visited this place very much in winter.
This is just a thought. When Li Long was walking to the yard where Yang Xiulan lived, he was planning to go to the bus station and take a bus to Shicheng after dinner to see what was going on at the Shicheng Seed Company. Sample.
There is a roasted seed factory in Shicheng, you can also ask to see if they accept it.
When Li Long thought about this clearly, he had already passed the Wuyi Highway and was almost at the yard where Yang Xiulan lived.
The snow on both sides of the courtyard entrance was very clean, including the snow on the road outside the courtyard, and the snow on the roof was also shoveled. Li Long nodded, this is a person who lives a good life.
But I have to remind Yang Xiulan, when you sweep the snow on the roof, you have to move slowly to avoid sliding down. Every few years there are people who fall off roofs - mostly it's okay, but if something happens it's a big deal.
Gu Xiaoxia came over happily on her bicycle. (End of this chapter)