The man they had summoned was nad Lin Ahshui, appearing to be in his early forties. He hailed from the Prefecture of Fuzhou and possessed exceptional Color Painting skills, which is why he was called up to work in the mountains. He also owned a bit more than ten acres of land and had experience growing sweet potatoes back in his hotown.
As such a person, the Lian Manman family naturally treated him as an honored guest. They started by serving him good tea and good water, and then Lian Shouxin asked Lin Ahshui for advice on how to germinate sweet potato seedlings and cultivate them.
Lian Manman had only these few dozen pounds of sweet potatoes. Although Lin Ahshui claid he knew the process, to be on the safe side, they still needed to verify that Lin Ahshui genuinely had the expertise before letting him begin.
Lin Ahshui spoke in his local dialect, which Lian Manman found quite challenging to understand. Fortunately, as they had been running their shop for so ti and encountered people from all over, she had gained so understanding of the southern dialects. Moreover, as Lin Ahshui explained with gestures, Lian Shouxin, an experienced farr, believed that understanding one thing led to understanding another. After ironing out so initial misunderstandings, they eventually comprehended Lin Ahshui’s explanations.
Lian Shouxin also raised nurous questions and suggestions, discussing with Lin Ahshui the most suitable ways to nurture sweet potato seedlings. Lian Manman, combining her own mory, cautiously offered so advice as well. Finally, everyone agreed on a seedling cultivation plan.
The first step was seed soaking, a suggestion made by Lian Manman. The sweet potatoes had to be imrsed in warm water at around 40 degrees Celsius for roughly ten minutes. Many crops require seed soaking before planting, so no one found Lian Manman’s proposal surprising.
Without a thermoter, Lian Manman knew that human skin is in the thirties degrees Celsius. By testing the water with her hand if it felt warm but not too hot for the season, then the temperature was about right. During soaking, the sweet potatoes needed to be turned constantly to ensure they were heated evenly.
After soaking ca the cutting of the sweet potatoes. This was similar to preparing potato seed pieces, where a potato of about fifty grams could be cut into four or five pieces.
Cutting was a delicate task, perford only by Lian Shouxin and Lin Ahshui, with even Lady Zhang simply watching. They used a specialized tool that Lian Shouxin took great care to keep. It was a small knife about an inch long, equally wide, and lacked a handle; the dull edge was set into a block of wood, which was wrapped with coarse cloth and thick cow tendon for grip. The blade was very sharp, and Shouxin only used it for preparing potato seed pieces during germination, storing it away at other tis to prevent accidental injuries.
Once the seed pieces were cut, the next step was to bed them for germination. Lin Ahshui ntioned that in their area, they usually used outdoor seedbeds for germination. However, at Thirty Mile Camp, the current climate was evidently much colder than in the Prefecture of Fuzhou. Under such conditions, germination would be later.
"Then how about we lay a seedbed on the kang?" suggested Lian Manman.
They had previously used the heated brick bed for drying peanuts, and had also successfully germinated various vegetable seeds with its warmth. Therefore, what was there against using the heated brick bed for cultivating sweet potato seedlings?
Lin Ahshui wasn’t familiar with heated brick beds in the Prefecture of Fuzhou. After spending several months in the mountains and witnessing the many wonders of the heated brick bed, he pondered for a mont and then agreed that the thod should be feasible.
"Alright, we’ll use the heated brick bed," nodded Lian Shouxin.
Lian Shouxin’s nod was based on experience. Their family’s potato seedbed this year was laid inside on the ground, which resulted in slower sprouting. So other families germinated seeds later and ended up using the heated brick bed, which sprouted much quicker but required regulating the temperature. The bed needed to be heated several tis a day, demanding attentive care.
Lian Shouxin was quite confident in controlling the temperature of the heated brick bed.
"It’s just right; our new house’s heated brick bed has just been set up and should be heated to eliminate the moisture," said Lady Zhang.
In the end, they established the sweet potato seedling bed on the newly set heated brick bed of the new house, using the finest sand available, which was also mixed with carefully sifted fine manure for fertilization.
Once the seedbed was prepared, Lady Zhang and Lian Manman were responsible for stoking the fire and tending to the bed during the dayti. At night, Shouxin simply slept in the new house, getting up in the middle of the night to feed Little Yellow Ox, maintain the fire in the brick bed, and watch over the seedlings. The hardship was self-evident, but the prospect of a yield of one thousand kilograms per acre made even the toughest toil worthwhile in the hearts of the husband and wife.
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