Thanks to the author "Woo sha garden" for the authorized sharing
Editor's arrangement: Wikipedia Jun
Coordinates: Tianjin
Most varieties of meat on the market are getting cheaper and cheaper.
This may be a good thing for novice florists, after all, the threshold for raising meat has been lowered. However, the old flower friends who entered the pit a few years ago were entangled: I spent several years and spent tens of thousands of yuan to collect a balcony of meat, and now I only need to spend a quarter of the price to collect all of it, if it is not with the meat of this balcony, I really don't want to raise it.
Woosha knows that even the vast majority of flower lovers who talk about how much meat is worth every day do not want to sell her meat, they just want a digital indicator that can measure the hard work of raising meat.
In this regard, Wusha expressed great understanding. And Woosha also believes that your family's meat, as long as you live, will really become more and more valuable. It wasn't just comforting, it was Woosha's heartfelt words. If you don't believe me, I'll tell you a story.
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As we all know, the Netherlands is famous for its tulips. What you may not know is that turkey, Iran, Kazakhstan and Hungary are also the countries that use tulips as the national flower. For this reason, tulips got a very tall name, called "Flower of the World".
In the 1630s, there was a tulip boom in the Netherlands. According to reliable written records, on February 5, 1637, a tulip bulb called "cheese" was sold for 3600 guilders. Don't underestimate the 3600 guilders, which was definitely a huge sum of money at the time. At that time, with 3600 guilders, it was possible to build a villa or buy more than a dozen tons of real cheese.
Then, on February 5, a tulip called "Augusta Forever" was sold for 5500 guilders, but only a few hours later, the record was refreshed again by a tulip called "Governor", this time with a record of 6700 guilders. This is already the price of two villas.
This is the story of what has been called the "crazy tulip bubble." The reason why I know so much about it is because this story has long become a classic case in the economics, sociology and investment circles, and you can find a lot of information at a glance.
But today, Woosha doesn't want to talk about an investment bubble or economics. I just want to explain from the perspective of a flower farmer why some plants are particularly valuable and where their value comes from.
Let's go back to the story of tulips.
None of the countries that regard tulips as the national flower are the true home of tulips. Where is the home of tulips? Say it to make you proud, it's us In China.
The native land of tulips is in the northern foothills of the Kunlun Mountains and the south of the Tianshan Mountains, separated by a desolate Tarim basin floor. If I say so and you can't establish a visual concept, you can find a map of China and take a look. To the north of the Tarim basin is the Tianshan Mountains, to the south is the Kunlun Mountains, where wild tulips lived in the earliest days.
During the Yuan Dynasty, because the warlike Mongols occupied the entire Eurasian continent, trade to the Middle East through the Silk Road became extremely developed. The Silk Road will be divided into three roads from Dunhuang to the west, the northernmost one is to the current Urumqi direction, and the middle and southern two roads just pass through the native land of tulips.
Although the tulips were beautiful, the merchants at that time definitely did not have the idea of selling tulips. Because the Silk Road is too far away, farther than the Tang monks and western heavens. Such a long and arduous road, you can only bring light and valuable silk, even China's most famous jade ceramics can not bring, otherwise how to call it the Silk Road.
But tulips, in addition to being beautiful, have another characteristic, that is, they grow a scaly stem like an onion underground. At the mention of onions, everyone immediately understands that tulip bulbs are not only rich in water, but also can be preserved for a long time, this thing is a natural water jar. So when the merchants saw the tulips, they would dig them out and take them with them to eat on the road.
Later, when I arrived in Turkey and began to sell goods, a merchant found that there were still a few tulip bulbs that had not been eaten, and they were left behind. One of the bulbs even sprouted. Businessmen, who always seek to maximize their profits, are now in Turkey and there is no shortage of water, so let's try to see if we can sell tulips. Then tell the Turks, I still have a few exotic flowers and grasses from China, do you want it? Then all the remaining tulip bulbs were sold.
The bulbs of these tulips soon bloom into beautiful flowers after they make their home in Turkey. The Turks look at it, ah, this tulip is not only beautiful, but also looks like an Islamic girl wrapped in a turban, which is too in line with the national aesthetic of Turkey. That's how the Latin name for tulip comes from. So the tulips were on fire in Turkey, and all the most luxurious gardens in Turkey had to grow a lot of tulips.
Turkey is a country that is next to Europe, but in the eyes of Europeans, it is definitely a representative of the mysterious oriental culture. Everyone should have seen a movie that reflected the medieval theme of Europe, the European king of that era was basically a very good knight, born and died all day. Although they are called kings, their standard of living is almost a heaven and an earth compared to the sultan of Turkey. The sultans of Turkey had very beautiful and luxurious palaces, accompanied by hordes of servants, and large gardens planted with all kinds of exotic flowers and plants, the most famous of which was tulips.
When tulips spread to Europe, they were basically synonymous with luxury. There was a popular saying in Europe at that time: "A rich man without tulips is never really rich." Doesn't this sentence sound particularly familiar? A similar phrase has been popular in succulent circles: "A garden without ebony is not a real succulent garden." It didn't take long for tulips to become popular in Europe, especially among The Noble Ladies of England and France.
So speaking of which, tulips and the Netherlands have not yet had a little to do with each other, why did the Dutch tulips sell for a sky-high price later? Yes, if someone likes tulips, someone will grow them. So when tulips were popular, tulips were grown in many parts of Europe, and the Netherlands was nothing special until a very rare virus helped the Dutch.
This virus is called mosaic virus. Mosaic virus, as the name suggests, is a virus that can cause discoloration and spots in plant leaves, and many crops will cause leaf spots to appear after infection, and even wither to death. But tulips seem to have a natural resistance to the mosaic virus, they will not die after being infected with the mosaic virus, but will fight the virus, the existence of the virus directly affects the color of the tulip petals, resulting in the diseased tulip produced a very strange variant, some of which are gorgeous and abnormal, colorful and fragrant.
As a result, the Dutch tulip suddenly became the most popular tulip. Many European aristocrats personally went to the Netherlands to buy tulips and named mutant tulips that had no name. You think, with the free publicity of famous aristocrats, it is equivalent to today's Internet celebrity recommendation, so how can the Dutch tulips not be popular?
But even so, for a tulip bulb to sell for as much as a house, it is not enough to rely on beauty and aristocratic recommendations.
It is very important that the seeds of these gorgeous and abnormal tulips are not infected by the virus. So the tulips sown with these seeds can only be ordinary tulips. This makes these mutated tulips very rare.
The mosaic virus will also cause the germination of the lateral buds on the tulip bulb, which cannot be propagated by seeds and do not like to burst the side buds, which further increases the rarity of the mutated tulip.
The third reason is even more important. As we said earlier, tulips are naturally resistant to mosaic viruses. The flowers of tulip bulbs infected with the mosaic virus do not always remain gorgeous. In about five to ten years, tulips can completely defeat the mosaic virus and eventually return to ordinary tulips. Therefore, even the bulb of the most primitive mutant tulip cannot bloom beautiful flowers indefinitely. In this way, mutant tulips become more and more scarce.
Therefore, many of the precious varieties of tulips at that time were not actually quantitative varieties, and often only a few plants. Moreover, most varieties of tulips bloom once a year, and only one flower can bloom at a time. When a princess of a certain country has just bought the flower and named the tulip herself, the flower farmer will auction off the bulb of the tulip. At that time, a top tulip – note, I mean a cut flower – could sell for as much as 1500 guilders, so wouldn't it be an exaggeration to produce 5 to 10 such tulip bulbs for thousands of guilders?
So, why did those noble ladies have to buy a flower that can only bloom for 10 days at a high price of thousands of yuan? There are many explanations for this problem. One of the most convincing explanations that Woosha finds is the plague hypothesis.
In 1636, plague broke out throughout Europe. In that era, people could not do anything with the plague. Nobles and commoners alike can see the people around them fall every day, and then they can't wake up, and it seems that only constant prayer can help people survive the tragic years of the plague epidemic. However, it was discovered that few noble ladies with tulips pinned to their chests died of plague, and there were rumors that tulips could save suffering humanity. At that time, people did not know that plague was transmitted between humans and rats through fleas, so it was entirely possible that noble women with better hygiene habits died less of the plague thanks to tulips. Therefore, it is easy to understand that the price of tulips, especially those beautiful mutant tulips, has soared in an instant. After all, I don't even know if I can live in the human world tomorrow, what does a few thousand yuan to buy a tulip mean for the nobles?
Of course, with the departure of the plague, the price of tulips also quickly fell back to normal levels. But those precious mutant tulips, even those with only one orphan, can still sell at super high prices.
After the story is told, I believe everyone understands that if a plant is beautiful enough, and rare enough, even rare enough to the point that there is only one plant in the world, then this plant is priceless. Or rather, she's worth the highest price anyone who likes her can afford.
So, let's get back to the topic of meat. You spent 50 yuan last year to buy meat, this year the same variety can be bought for only 30 yuan, your family's pot of meat depreciation? I don't think so. Because one thing is immutable, that is, "flower age". The meat you bought last year will always be a year older than the meat you bought this year.
In the era when there was no large amount of meat cultivation in China, we imported a lot of meat from Korea. However, the scale of meat cultivation in China is already the largest in the world, and we are still importing a large amount of meat from South Korea, for only one reason, that is, South Korea's meat is older than domestic meat. This gap cannot be made up by the scale of planting.
The most valuable meat is not meat in the succulent greenhouse with a price waiting to be sold, but the private collection of flower lovers. There will always be meat that will die with the passage of time, and the meat of older people will surely become more and more rare. Therefore, regardless of the variety, as long as the meat survives the summer again and again, the meat becomes more and more valuable.
I'm not encouraging people to think of meat as an investment, but a sense of value is certainly something in everyone's heart, even if we never thought of selling our own meat one day, but no one wants their meat to become more valuable. After all, this number, which may never materialize, is the result of our meticulous care for flesh.
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