Chapter 387 - 376: A Loan?
Manbao asked Yang Heshu curiously, "Aren’t the family-allotted fields in your area divided from the mountains?"
"...No," he replied carefully, "the division is of wasteland."
Manbao then expressed sympathy, "Wasteland is even worse than the mountains. Look at the stretch of wasteland at the foot of this mountain, which was also assigned to my brother. It’s nothing but a swath of rocks and a jumble of weeds and bushes. The trees on the mountain can be used for firewood; good trees can be used for building houses, making furniture, and making farming tools, but this wasteland is basically useless."
Yang Heshu opened his mouth, wanting to say that the wasteland he spoke of was not like this and could actually be cultivated.
But as the newly appointed prefect, he felt he couldn’t incite dissatisfaction among the subjects under his rule, so he kept silent.
He adjusted his emotion and asked, "Where do you plant mulberry and sesame then?"
Generally speaking, family-allotted lands tend to be infertile. If there is enough labor, beans would be planted; if not, mostly mulberry and sesame.
Bai Shanbao said, "We don’t plant mulberry here, just sesame."
Manbao nodded, "At the edge of the fields, planting sesame at the foot of the mountain is just about enough for our own use."
"Sesame isn’t valuable, why don’t you plant mulberry?"
Manbao’s eyes spun around. She hadn’t collected mulberry trees, nor had she even seen silkworms; she had only read about them in agricultural books. The teacher had also said that the people in Yizhou commonly planted mulberry trees.