Yaelle pointed at the chili seedlings.
Then she pointed at the Sichuan pepper seedlings and said, "This is Sichuan pepper. It is used as a spice and can also be used as medicine. The yield is a bit lower, about 200 jin per mu, but these are trees. Once planted, they can be harvested for many years. There should be wild ones in our area. I will take people up the mountain to look for them."
After hearing all this, Michael felt excited. Such good things, if promoted, would be a great blessing. A yield of 3,000 jin per mu means if one person eats 10 jin a day, one mu could feed that person for almost a year.
"Corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes are all drought-resistant. They don't need good soil and can even grow in sandy land. Peanuts can grow too."
Michael was overwhelmed by the information. Drought-resistant? That means it could grow in the Shaanbei area. Even in drought years, it would survive. That could save many people.
"Mengmeng, where did you get these good seeds?"
"A while ago, I met a ship trader on the road. He was robbed and injured. I just happened to save him. His money was stolen, so he couldn't pay me. He only had these seeds, which were not taken. No one recognized them, so he gave the seeds to me and told me how to plant them. I felt sorry for him and gave him some money." Yaelle had already thought of this excuse.
"Do you think he might be lying?"
"I saved him. He probably wouldn't lie to me. Besides, I'll know when the harvest comes if it works. Don't get too excited. There is only a little of each kind. This year's harvest isn't even enough for seed saving."
"Mengmeng, don't tell others about this. Luckily, I signed a contract with Helper Beau, so he won't ask too many questions. I will set aside a piece of land just for you this year. If it works out, next year I'll give you a whole farm and arrange some skilled people to help you breed it. How about that?" Michael said carefully, "We can't let too many people know. These things will definitely attract attention nationwide. We don't know how many will envy it. Innocent people suffer when they hold treasures."
"Don't worry, brother. I understand these matters."
Michael gave Helper Beau more instructions to treat these crops seriously. Whether it works depends on this year's harvest.
Half a month later, the sweet potato seeds planted about twenty days ago had sprouted more than ten centimeters and could be transplanted. The sweet potatoes were quite strong. Three jin of sweet potatoes gave about twenty pieces.
They were small (specifically bought smaller ones to ripen faster), but each produced at least seven or eight small sprouts. About two hundred sprouts were planted on about one mu of land. Soon they could also be propagated by cuttings. The total number would not be small.
The planted seedlings grew lush and green. The back garden looked very different from before. Only the Sichuan pepper seedlings grew poorly.
Out of one or two thousand seeds, it was hard to say if even a hundred sprouted. But she did not lose hope. This was a native plant. When the season comes, she could look for mature ones on the mountain.
As for why she didn't search now, it was because she didn't recognize them yet. She only recognized them when they bore fruit. She had not paid much attention to the non-fruiting trees and had no clear impression now.
Maxim's side had been especially busy lately. They only sent someone to deliver a finely crafted ruby hair ornament, with butterfly and plain patterns carved on it. She liked it very much.
By the way, the jewelry shopkeeper said the design she provided had already been made and was very popular. They asked her to send another design, which was also well received.
She had been feeling quite bored lately and decided to try making soap. The method was simple, but it was important to get the right ratio of lard or oil to wood ash water.
First, prepare the wood ash by sifting out impurities like unburned wood, stones, or clumps of dirt.
Second, make the lye water by mixing wood ash and water in a certain ratio, heating and stirring until the ash dissolves completely. The ideal wood ash to water ratio was about three to seven.
Third, mix the fat such as lard or soybean oil with the lye water, heat and stir until the saponification process is done and the mixture thickens.
Fourth, pour the thick liquid into molds to cool and harden, then let it sit for more than half a month until it fully solidifies.
She experimented several times in the kitchen and found the best ratio to be two parts fat to one part lye water.
After her trial succeeded, she distributed some to the people in the household and they all thought it was good.
So she went to her brother to ask for people and got a carpenter skilled in carving to make soap molds. Two boys who were quick, clean, and detail-oriented helped her make the soap.
To keep the formula secret, the two were kept separate. Two vacant rooms behind the main building were arranged, one for filtering the lye water and one for rendering the lard and mixing.
However, this method was quite expensive. Lard cost about twelve wen per pound, while wood ash was cheap.
She only needed to send a laborer to collect bags of it for just a few wen.
One pound of lard could produce about six to seven taels of oil. With the oil-to-lye ratio at two to one, that amount of oil would need three to four taels of lye water.
This meant one pound of lard could make about one pound of semi-finished soap mixture. After it hardened, it could be divided into five 100-gram bars.
After subtracting the cost of labor and firewood, each bar needed to be sold at five wen to turn a profit. This price was considered reasonable.
She then planned to look for families with newborn calves so she could buy some milk. She wanted to make a special milk soap just for face washing.
This type of soap could be priced higher, around eight wen per bar. She also thought of extracting essential oils from fresh flowers.
If that didn't work, adding some color would still be fine. These tasks would be arranged later and the price would be decided based on the situation.
The most important thing was that she needed to find other sources of oil to replace lard. In this time period, people didn't even have enough lard to eat.
If others found out she was using it to make soap, it would only cause envy and resentment. She would look for oil-producing plants like oil tea trees, olive trees, or palm trees in the mountains.
She had seen oil tea trees while hiking in the past, and the landscaping areas had palm trees. But she wasn't sure if they were native.
She hadn't seen any olive trees before. These plants were all found in the local region. If lucky, she might come across some.
She could transplant them or even buy land if needed. According to her online research, all these trees grew in Sichuan.
Oil tea trees could produce about fifty kilograms of oil per acre. The oil extraction method was simple and didn't require much equipment.
Palm trees produced an impressive amount of oil. Yaelle remembered seeing some educational article before that said oil palms had the highest oil yield per area in the world.
Palm oil yields could reach two hundred kilograms per acre, which was five to six times more than peanuts and ten times more than soybeans.
The method to extract the oil was also simple. First roast the fruit with heat, then press and filter.
This could be done in ancient times without modern machines. The yield might be slightly lower though.