Text: Zhang Kunping
If people want to survive, they must have food, if they want food, they must plough the land, and if they want to plough the land, they must have the tools to turn the soil. Therefore, on the wall of the farmhouse, a row of hoes, ploughs, knives, etc. are often placed in the corner behind the door, which becomes a scene of the farmhouse.
Mankind has long understood a truth: in order for the land to grow crops, the soil must first be turned over. Turning the soil can loosen the soil, breathe and permeate the water, and the seeds can grow; Turning over the soil also allows weeds to turn underneath and turn them into fertilizer as nutrients for seeds; You can also turn harmful pests such as bugs and bacteria to the surface and let the sunlight kill them.
We can speculate that the earliest tools used by humans to turn the earth must have been very rudimentary. Because there were no metals such as copper and iron at that time, our ancestors must have used two hands to dig the soil and wooden chariots to turn the soil. That must be very inefficient. Later, metal was smelted, iron and copper were produced, and the hoe with metal was invented.
The hoe is composed of two parts: the hoe handle and the hoe handle. The handle of the hoe is made of iron, and it is divided into digging hoe and digging hoe. The digging hoe is used to turn the soil, and the hoe is used to dig the soil and pound the fine soil. The hoe is rectangular, about 30 cm long and 5 cm wide, the front side gradually thins, and the two ends are slightly pointed, which is conducive to penetrating into the soil layer. A hole is drilled in the back, slightly curved on the back, and used to put on the hoe. The hoe is made of hard and solid wood, two or three feet long, and the front end is put into the hole of the hoe handle, and a wooden plug is put on it, and the hoe handle is tightly connected to the hoe handle so that it does not fall off. In this way, as long as you swing the hoe handle, push the tip of the hoe handle into the soil layer with great force, and then skid upward, the soil will turn out. The deeper the handle of the hoe is pierced, the more soil will be turned. After the soil is turned over, it is moistened by sunlight, rain, and frost, and gradually changes from the original lumpy to loose granularity, laying the foundation for sowing.
The angle between the handle and the handle of the hoe is different in the mountains and the plains. In mountainous areas, it is less than 90 degrees and roughly around 60 degrees. This is because most of the mountainous areas are steep slopes, and the angle between the hoe handle and the plot is small when hoeing. Once the soil is turned out of the steep slope, it is easy to roll down from the high place to the low place, causing the soil layer in the high place to gradually become thinner and thinner until it is abandoned. Therefore, when some old farmers hoe the ground, people stand on top, dig from the top down, lift the soil up, and try not to let the loose soil drain. In this way, the hoe plays a role in cultivating steep slopes, small plots, irregular fields, etc.
Although the hoe plays a role in turning the soil, it requires one person to use a hoe, and there is not much land to hoe every day, which is inefficient and labor-intensive. Therefore, another tool was invented, and that was the plowshare.
The ploughshare is a mechanical system in which people control the direction, the ox provides the power, and the plough turns the soil. It can be seen that the power provided directly by people to the power provided by livestock is a great invention. The ploughshare is mainly composed of two parts, one part is used for ploughing, a pointed plough is cut from hard wood, and a layer of iron hoop is set on the outside, called a ploughshare, which is arc-shaped and pointed, and is used to drill into the soil layer for grounding. The other part is mainly attached to the neck of the cow, and after being fastened, it is pulled by the ox. It is also made of hard wood, one end of the hoop is at one end of the plough handle, the other end is slightly warped, the end is perforated, the hole is covered with a brown rope, the brown rope is set with a wooden frame that plays a balancing role, the two ends of the wooden frame are each pulled out of a brown rope, and the brown rope is then drawn out to connect with a semi-arc wooden flail, put on the neck of the ox, and then set it steadily. When the plough is to be ploughed, the ploughman carries the plough and leads the oxen to the plough. First settle the oxen, stand at the starting place, put the wooden flail around the neck of the ox, straighten the plowshare, drill the ploughshare into the soil layer with a little force, take the whip, shout "coffee", and start the ox to start in front, and then start plowing the land.
The tamed oxen pulled the plough in front and walked hard, and then turned over the earth, and went from one end to the other, and from one end to the other, and from one end to the other, in a row, in a circle, and in a long time a piece of raw land was ploughed. By comparison, ox ploughing is much more efficient than human digging. People can only dig a few points a day, and cattle can plow more than two acres a day, and the efficiency is several times. As long as the plot is in a single piece, flat land and gentle slopes can be ploughed with oxen. According to research, plough ploughing began in primitive society. The earliest ploughshares consisted of just a few branches connected by vines and kudzu, pulled by human power in front. Later, the plough wheel was improved, reinforced, and oxen ploughing was used. By the Tang Dynasty, the iron-smelting industry was developed, and metal ploughshares were made, which were more durable, and the depth of ploughing was increased, which could not only cultivate dry land, but also paddy fields. Cattle farming was greatly promoted, and it was a revolution for agriculture. So cattle farming continues to this day.
Now there is a new situation in the countryside, and cattle farming has encountered difficulties. One is that there are not many cattle in the countryside anymore, especially the able-bodied farming cattle. Farmers have to plough the land and rent cattle everywhere, and the rent is very expensive. The other is that most of the farmers who can plough the land are old, while the young people do not know how to plow at all and do not want to learn. We have seen the strange sight of some elderly women ploughing the land.
But young people have a way, they are active in thinking, knowledgeable, and bought back the novice cultivator - rotary tiller, so that the remote villages and villages are refreshing, and see the appearance of mechanization. The rotary tiller is not large and does not weigh much, like a small walk-behind tractor. Before ploughing the land, the operator should go to the agricultural technical school for training as required. But the young man was smart, and when he read the manual, he fiddled with it in the courtyard and dam, and he actually learned it. When it is time to plough the land, a person carries the rotary tiller to the ground, loads it with diesel, holds the handle, ignites it, pushes it, and the machine starts to operate. I saw the leaves spinning and flying, drilling into the soil layer, the hard and heavy soil was lifted, and then turned over, and the weeds were buried at the bottom together. According to calculations, a rotary tiller works for one hour, only consumes less than 10 liters of diesel, costs 60 yuan, can cultivate 3 acres, if working for 1 day according to 10 hours can cultivate 30 acres. It is precisely because of the geometric improvement of efficiency that rotary tiller cultivation has been widely promoted in rural areas, and every household is equipped with rotary tiller. In autumn and winter, the sound of rotary tillers sounded in the fields, and within a few days, all the fields would be ploughed. The land is ploughed in autumn and winter, and after frost and snow freezing in winter, all the clods are scattered in spring, soft, flat, and ripe, and only need to be planted and sown.
From hoe digging, to ploughing cattle and ploughing the land, to rotary tillage ploughing, from digging a few points a day to plowing a few acres a day and then to dozens of acres a day, the efficiency has been improved linearly. This realizes the concentration of cultivated land, saves time, arranges agricultural affairs more reasonably, and better divides labor and cooperation. Unlike before, almost every season is hoeing, every day is hoeing, and the agricultural time is missed, disrupting the rhythm.
After thousands of years of change, it has only come to today's new era, vigorously revitalizing the countryside, vigorously developing agriculture, encouraging rural areas to promote mechanization, and agriculture has taken on a new look. In addition, the state encourages farmers to use new machinery and dedicates considerable funds to give incentives and subsidies to farmers. The agricultural machinery represented by the rotary tiller has a place to use, and it will surely improve agricultural efficiency again, make agriculture a promising industry, and make the countryside a vast world with great achievements.
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