"According to the data of Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Factory, the number of various types of agricultural machinery in use nationwide is as follows." Outside Dingxibao, Beiyahu District, the secretary of Zheng Bin, deputy minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, held a stack of information and said seriously the data: "72 horse-drawn wheat harvesters, 49 horse-drawn alfalfa harvesters, 35 horse-drawn soybean harvesters, 18 horse-drawn corn harvesters, 145 threshers, 60 Yanggu machines, and 11 seeders, of which 95% of the machinery is animal power, 4% is manual, and only about 1% is steam-powered machinery."

"It's so difficult to make steam power machinery. How to miniaturize the steam engine is really one of the obstacles for us to implement agricultural modernization." Zheng Bin sighed and said, "The steam tractor trial-produced by Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Factory has completely failed and has no practical value at all. Not only do people in our agricultural system look down on it, but also farmers and users."

The steam power machinery mentioned in Zheng Bin mainly refers to steam tractors. Due to the lack of smelting of non-ferrous metals, the materials of both boilers and cylinders in the steam power system of the tractor are not very ideal, so the steam engine cannot be miniaturized and lightweight. Therefore, the steam tractor made of existing materials is not only extremely unreliable, but also stupid, black and thick, and has no practical significance at all. It can be said that the so-called steam tractors created by the Ministry of Agriculture spent a lot of money to be completely failed at present. The two prototype cars created have been locked into the warehouse. It is just to use it to make technical reserves for similar machinery in the future.

In fact, it is not a big blame for the Ministry of Agriculture for making such a failure. They really don’t know the useless image of steam tractors in history. This power machine, which was invented in the mid-to-late 19th century, was a complete failure from the beginning. Negative evaluations such as poor quality, poor reliability, bulkiness, and complex operation were its labels. This machine was not successful until the end of the 19th century on some drier farms in North America. However, it was not favored in most parts of North America - because of its huge self-weight, it could only work on drought-hard land; and in Europe, this power machine was completely failed. Europeans refused to use it because of the bulkiness and inflexibility of this machine. Many people thought it was unrealistic, so it was even less used in Europe than in North America.

Therefore, it can be said that in the early days of tractors, that is, the era of steam tractors, this equipment failed completely and had almost no practical value. But when the tractor was successful, it was already the era of internal combustion engines. The invention of internal combustion engine saved the tractor. It quickly reduced the weight of the tractor, so the machine became more flexible, lighter, and simpler than before. Therefore, it opened up the market in Europe and the Americas, and then gradually became popular all over the world.

The East Coast Ministry of Agriculture did have produced prototypes of steam tractors before, but this equipment was not available in the East Coast Prairie and the Yazi Lake basin where rain was abundant. Wherever the tractor was passing, the cultivated land was often damaged and the losses were large. In addition, there were also a lack of roads for heavy steam tractors to walk in rural areas, and ordinary dirt roads could not withstand such a big guy after walking a few times. Moreover, when used, farmers had to use large carriages to transport large amounts of coal and fresh water to the fields, and then struggled to transport the coal water to the steam tractor for use. The manpower, material and energy consumed during this period was so great that it was extremely costly, and the actual use cost was particularly high. Almost everyone who used it denied it, so this bulky agricultural machinery was quickly thrown into the cold palace, just like it had received cold treatment in Europe and most parts of the United States in history.

However, the steam tractor was cold-touched, but another steam plow that was more primitive than the steam tractor was unexpectedly successful. The principle of this equipment is very simple, that is, the iron plow is pulled into the field by the rope on the winch. The rope can be continuously changed by the anchor pulley, so that the steam engine can be moved for a long time before moving the steam engine. This greatly avoids the disadvantage of inconvenient movement of the steam engine on the soft land, and greatly enhances the practicality of the steam rope pulling the plow.

According to statistics from the East Coast Ministry of Agriculture, the farmland efficiency of this steam plow is three to five times that of horses. If it is deep plowing, the efficiency will be higher, and the cost consumed is almost the same as that of horses, and may even be less. This undoubtedly attracted the attention of many people. Currently, several sets of such equipment are used in the large state-owned enterprise in Dingyuan Township, Dongfang County, the capital. After use, it is very good to use, because this equipment does not require wheels to drive in the fields, and the equipment itself will not crush and destroy the soil. The efficiency of plowing the ground is very high, so it has been favored by everyone since it was launched.

Perhaps the only disadvantage of this kind of equipment is that it is too expensive, so small farmers and small households cannot afford it. At present, only wealthy units like state-owned farms can be purchased. However, with the in-depth promotion of the Ministry of Agriculture's "Agricultural Machinery Going to the Countryside" activity, perhaps a considerable number of agricultural machinery rental companies will appear to purchase this kind of equipment in the near future.

Historically, this kind of equipment was invented in the mid-to-late 18th century immediately in the UK. Germany, two countries that used a large amount of agricultural machinery, were promoted, especially Germany. In 1882, there were only 836 steam plows, and by 1895, there were 1,696, and by 1907, the number had soared to 2,995. In France during the same period, there were about a few hundred. Austria's survey data in 1902 showed that 383 farms used steam plows. In contrast, the use of steam tractors in these countries was very small, and other countries except for some of the UK had almost completely forgotten this machinery.

"Steam plows are considered to be a very cost-effective invention in the ministry." Hearing his boss sighed at the difficulties in the production of steam power machinery and research and development, Zheng Bin's secretary couldn't help but mention the steam plow, and he said: "This kind of machine has a very wide applicability. A few days ago, I heard that the Ministry of Transport and the State Railway Administration were also very interested in this new machine, because they found that this equipment was also very 'talented' when digging drainage ditches and cleaning up ground debris. It used to require a lot of manual work. Now it only takes a short time to start the machine. Therefore, they decided to buy some of this equipment to use it in urban construction and railway/highway construction, which would probably save their workload."

"Haha." Zheng Bin smiled slightly and said, "After all, our Ministry of Agriculture has finally exported equipment to the brother departments. It's not easy. Forget it, let's not talk about this anymore. Let's continue to move forward and take a boat on the dock to the northern botanical garden on the other side to take a look."

Today, Zheng Bin came to the north with his secretary, entourage and others to inspect the agricultural harvest here. They had just come from Ping'an County. Although it is an industrial center, there is still some farmland being cultivated. Due to the local fertile land and good irrigation conditions, even without the strict implementation of the three-crop rotation system, the wheat yield per mu in the area still reached about 100 kilograms, which is quite gratifying.

After leaving Ping'an County, Zheng Bin and others came to the Dingxi Fort area. This year, the Executive Committee planned several towns here. In addition to planning a large number of villages in the Northern Botanical Garden (San Geronimo) to form a settlement, they also set up settlements in the town of General Kamala, Takuri along the Takuri River in the later generations, and named it Pingxi Fort Takuri and Rat Fort (Ratos Translated).

These three new settlements will each have 2,000 new immigrants. The agricultural conditions here are acceptable - even good - and irrigation and water withdrawal are very convenient. After the East Coast people have finished cleaning up these three places and taken root, these new settlements are connected with the original Dingxi Fort and the Northern Botanical Garden, and the prototype of Dingxi County will emerge in the future. After Dingxi County can be self-sufficient and has a certain industrial and agricultural foundation, the East Coast people can serve as a springboard and continue to expand to the Yakui River, Takuri River, and Rat River basins, completely controlling this large area of ​​fertile land in the hands of the East Coast people.

Zheng Bin and others soon crossed the river to the Northern Botanical Garden. In recent years, the Ministry of Agriculture has invested about 5,000 yuan in funds here almost every month to maintain its daily scientific research and breeding work. It can be said that they are willing to spend a lot of money, but the achievements they have made are still sloppy. In addition to simulated cultivation of a large number of plant seeds collected from other places in various artificial environments in the garden and select seeds, the most outstanding result of the botanical garden this year is naturally to cultivate high-yield 48 wheat seeds and high-sugar 48 beet seeds.

Among them, the high-yield 48 seeds is a hybrid seed that the park has obtained for several years after continuing to develop in-depth for several years on the basis of the research and development of the original Capital Agricultural Technology Station for more than ten years. The seed has been cultivated in the small environmental experimental fields in the botanical garden (simulated according to the three-crop rotation system) for three years, with an average yield of more than 180 kilograms per mu, which is about 15% higher than the traditional wheat seed yield, which has almost caused a sensation in the entire agricultural system. Perhaps the only disadvantage of this seed is that the seed degradation speed is extremely fast, and it needs to be cultivated every year, and the seeds are selected before being sold to farmers. Therefore, it is not yet time for large-scale promotion, the first thing the Ministry of Agriculture needs to do is to expand the seed production bases in various counties and townships.

According to the feedback from the Ministry of Agriculture this year, the total wheat output in the country is about 47,000 tons, with an average yield of about 104 kilograms per mu. If this number can rise by 15%, according to the price of wheat sold to the Dutch last year, it would be almost 280,000 yuan for economic benefits, which is definitely worth the Ministry of Agriculture to spend a lot of money on preparations.
Chapter completed!