Picking mulberries

For this practical activity, Gong Yaping asked Cui Dongxu to bring a few students from the Department of Plant Protection and Tea Science to go together, and prepaid a sum of research funds.Cui Dongxu's current main research direction is the three crops of tea, mulberry and cotton. The purpose of this trip to the countryside is to lead the students to see the growth environment of tea and mulberry trees and the difference between different terrains and different soil qualities.

Although tea trees are planted in several counties in Qingyuan, Qingxi Township in Shuangqiao County has the largest scale, widest influence and longest history. Moreover, only Longgong Township in the city has planted mulberry trees. It is a neighboring town, so Cui Dongxu and the others plan to go to Qingxi first and then return to Longgong.

Cui Dongxu and the others went from far to near, first went to Qingxi, stayed in Qingxi for one night, and then returned to Longgong early in the morning.

They were received by old acquaintances Ma Zhigu and Qiu Shangzhi in Longgong Township, but their identities were different now. Ma Zhigu was the deputy head of Longgong Township, and Qiu Shangzhi was the director of the Sericulture Office.

Five years have passed, and Cui Dongxu can't help but feel a lot of emotion when he revisits his old place. The changes in front of him are indeed not small.First of all, the township government building has changed a lot. The old house was demolished, and a six-story building was built on the original site, which is much more grand.Next to the office building is a small two-story building, which is a canteen and activity room, and a high wall is added to the yard, and a guard room is set up.

In a large mulberry field on the other side of the river from the township government, the mulberry seedlings planted seem to be newly planted, and they are much shorter than those in Xiaohulu and Shatuo Peak on Dougou Mountain.The six northern hills and the two small seven hills in the east and west are gone, and the ruins of the three villages are covered with weeds, and there are still some uncleaned ruins left there, which are quite visually abrupt.According to Qiu Shangzhi, after the mountain torrent disaster in [-], all the mulberry fields and villages under the reservoir were washed away, and the mulberry seedlings were all newly planted later. The three most affected villages, Beiliuqiu and Dongxiaoqiu Qiuxi Xiaoqiqiu moved to Longgong Street.

Only then did Cui Dongxu understand why there are so many small two-story red brick buildings on the street. He used to come from the direction of Qingyuan, and he could see Longgong Middle School and Elementary School at a glance in front of him, but now they are all blocked by those houses. The buildings on both sides of the Tan road were crowded like piles of logs, from the slope of the township government to the foot of Luosi Peak. Several villages were all crowded on both sides of Longgong Street, Touqiu Village, Qiqiu Village, Beiliuqiu Village, The five villages of East Xiaoqiqiu and West Xiaoqiqiu were crowded together, and it was no longer possible to tell which village was which.Although those rebuilt houses are taller and more spacious than those five years ago, most of the houses have no exterior walls painted, with exposed red bricks, and wires, telephones, cable TVs and cables are scattered like spider webs, making them look disorganized. The modern atmosphere gives people a sense of disorder and confusion, and it is very discordant because it is located in the green mountains and green waters.

Songhai is still the same large piece of Songhai, but it is very different from the situation five years ago.When Cui Dongxu first came to Longgong Palace, Sanghai was uniform and full of vitality.The current mulberry garden gives Cui Dongxu a feeling of vicissitudes. Although it is early winter at this time, and the mulberry leaves are almost gone, but most of the mulberry gardens are rampant now. You can tell that it has been a long time. After pruning, some weeds grow taller than the mulberry sticks, and the yellow grass stalks sway in the wind in the mulberry garden, rustling like an old man.The farmlands on the west side of the road are also large tracts of abandoned land. Some fields have lost their original appearance after weeds have dried up every year.

Looking at the scene in front of him, Cui Dongxu said bluntly to Qiu Shangzhi with emotion: "The scenery is very different from before, brother Qiu, all the feelings when I first came here are gone. I didn't expect such a big change in a few years. It's really better to miss it than to meet. "

"Yeah, it's quite different from when you came five years ago." Qiu Shangzhi also felt the same way.

"The rows of houses on the street are much more magnificent than before, why the fields are so barren." Cui Dongxu said regretfully.

"Oh, there's no way," Qiu Shangzhi sighed, "Most people nowadays would rather abandon their families and go out to work than stay at home to raise silkworms and plant mulberries. It's not worthwhile to raise silkworms and farms at home. There are still quite a lot of silkworm farmers, and now you can see the mulberry gardens in various villages, there are wild weeds and rampant mulberry sticks everywhere, and no one cares about them.”

"The village doesn't want to find a way to keep the villagers? It's a pity that so many fertile fields are abandoned." Cui Dongxu suddenly felt powerless, as if the things he had researched suddenly lost their value.

"The leader is new here, and the focus of his work is not on this aspect." Qiu Shangzhi said with a wry smile.

"Who's new here? It's been almost four years. Secretary Hu went to the county every three days to do other things, so why would he care about the common people's fields being abandoned?" Qiu Shangzhi's clerk muttered.Secretary Hu refers to the current Party Secretary of Longgong Township, Hu Jianhua.

"In the market economy, ordinary people will make plans. Where the benefit output is high, of course they will change their careers." Qiu Shangzhi changed the subject awkwardly, "Professor Cui, let's take you to a place first, and then go to the mulberry garden to sample books." Bar."

"Tianhaoyuan?" Tianhaoyuan is a place that has gradually become famous in Longgong Township in the past two years. The reason why Cui Dongxu knew it was because many students from the school would come to play on weekends.

"Oh, Professor Cui knows this place, so it can be seen that our Long Palace has finally launched a new brand." Qiu Shangzhi laughed.

When they heard that they were going to Tianhao Garden, the first-year students brought by Cui Dongxu were very excited. They had already known about this place from the seniors, so of course they wanted to go and see it.Tianhao Garden is not far away, less than 10 minutes' walk from the township government. In fact, it is the Liujiu Reservoir.

Tianhao Garden was built spontaneously by the villagers of Longgong Village to commemorate Cheng Tianhao, the village head who was killed in the flash flood in [-].

After Cheng Tianhao was killed, Shuangqiao County transferred Chen Junzhi, the director of the County Agricultural Bureau, to replace the mayor and party secretary of Longgong Township. The mountain land was requisitioned, and it was planned to be used as homesteads for the Houliuqiu, East and Xiaoqiqiu, and the grounds of the Longgong Primary and Secondary School were reinforced.

After the dam of the Liujiu Reservoir was washed away, Chen Junzhi mobilized the whole village to rebuild the dam, which was only three meters lower than the original dam and only four meters higher from the mulberry field below, but it was higher than the previous dam. It is more than four times wider, and all the stones mined from Luosifeng are used, and they are watered with cement.In order to build the embankment, half of the top of Luosi Peak was cut off, and the Tan road from Longgong to Qingxi was widened. The anti-skid walls on both sides of the hillside were also strengthened, and the drainage channel was also widened. Local materials were used to kill two birds with one stone.

The new dam of the Liujiu Reservoir has a very special design.

The base is a nearly four-meter-high wall platform built with hemp sticks. There is a two-meter-wide canal between the embankment and Sangtian, which is also made of hemp sticks. Drainage canals, with dozens of auxiliary canals built in between, are intertwined in mulberry gardens and farmland.

On the top of the embankment platform is a trapezoidal slope five or six meters long. On the top of the embankment is a dike surface more than ten meters wide. The embankment surface is covered with uneven pebbles of different sizes. There are rows of one-meter-high stone pillars, and the distance between the stone pillars is less than ten centimeters, like a row of railings.In the middle of the embankment, facing the stone pillars on the side, there are bluestone slabs nearly one meter long, and each bluestone slab is more than ten or twenty centimeters higher than the cobblestone embankment.

Although the height of the dam is only three meters lower than before, the water storage capacity of the entire Liujiu Reservoir has been reduced by three-fifths, and the area of ​​the reservoir has been greatly reduced. The creeks such as Dengxinjian used to flow directly into the Liujiu Reservoir, but now at the foot of the mountain, the plain-like outcropping of the reservoir beach is slowly washed into several small streams, and the stream meanders into the current miniature version of the Liujiu Reservoir.

The "Gui 92 Stream" in the Tianshan Mountain of Dougou Mountain has been unable to stop flowing for many years. As a result, the reduced Liujiu Reservoir is full of water every day. The trapezoidal slope falls to the water channel under the embankment.The nearly four-meter-high drop between the canal and the slope causes the overflowing water from the reservoir to form a row of waterfall walls, which look like water curtain holes and are very beautiful.

Walking on the embankment, you can walk on the pebbled embankment with thin water. If you are afraid of wet shoes or cold weather, you can step on the bluestone boards one by one. The design is quite interesting and reasonable.

Under the leadership of Chen Junzhi, the new dam was completed in half a year, and the dam was repaired. Before Chen Junzhi had time to transfer his energy to rebuilding the houses of the affected residents in Longgong Street, the county government transferred him back to the county seat and sent the deputy of Yulong Township The mayor, Hu Jianhua, was transferred to replace him.

After the Liujiu Reservoir was shrunk, because the water level dropped greatly, a large area of ​​bare mountains and tidal flats were exposed at the foot of the mountains around the reservoir.Cheng Tianhao liked roses the most during his lifetime, not only in his own house, but also in the township government office where he worked, there were many roses.I don't know who suggested it. Since the new dam was built, all the villagers in the township have planted roses in the bare places at the foot of the mountains in an orderly manner around the reservoir. There are all kinds of roses.The growth environment of rose is low, the flowering period is long, it blooms all year round, and the survival rate of broken branch cuttings is also high. In addition, the climate and environment of Liujiu Reservoir is suitable, and gradually the entire reservoir becomes a rose forest around the reservoir, full of fragrance of flowers, especially It is spring, and the roses of various colors are crowded and blooming, which is quite spectacular and has become a great beauty of Longgong Palace.

"It's really nice here, it's quite unique." Standing on the bluestone slab on the embankment, looking at the rose forest around the reservoir, Cui Dongxu swept away Xiao Sha's mood just now.

"It's not the right time for you to come here. There are not many flowers. If spring comes, it will be called a beautiful rose flower all over the mountains and swarms of butterflies flying. Oh, what a beautiful one." Qiu Shangzhi said .

"The front and rear of this warehouse are really two worlds of ice and fire." Cui Dongxu turned around and looked at Sang Yuan behind him, feeling very authentic.

"It's helpless," Qiu Shangzhi sighed, "I remember how well-developed the sericulture industry was when we were young. Every family planted mulberry and raised silkworms, but now it is getting worse every year, and it is getting more and more depressed."

"Yeah, seeing this situation, I, who specializes in agricultural research, feel lost." Cui Dongxu tsk-tsk.

"Professor Cui," Qiu Shangzhi suddenly said with some emotion, "In our county's five-year plan, Longgong's sericulture industry is also a major development target, regardless of whether the county leaders sing beautifully, since there is such a formulation There must be some corresponding measures, taking this opportunity, can your college cooperate with our county in a project to promote the silkworm cocoon industry in the whole township to achieve greater glory."

"This is not something that we who are engaged in academic research can do," Cui Dongxu shook his head and laughed, "If we provide any suggestions on pest control technology and mulberry planting, we can talk about it. As for those development projects, it depends on your government. Taking the lead, the leaders put their work focus on improving the well-being of the common people, and the common people will naturally respond. Sericulture farmers have the drive to reinvent the sericulture brand, and we don’t need you to invite us, we will come to add icing on the cake and help farmers provide relevant technologies.”

"Professor Cui is right. The development of a place depends mainly on the ruler." Qiu Shangzhi smiled wryly.

"Don't always be called professors and professors, more students, we are of the same age, just call me by my name," Cui Dongxu blamed his father-in-law's cunning in his heart, and before his title of associate professor was judged, he would introduce himself to anyone Saying what professor taught it, made me panic with embarrassment, "Brother Qiu, how is the efficiency of sericulture production in the whole town now?"

"Don't mention it, it's terrible," Qiu Shangzhi said worriedly, "In 1995, there were more than 6900 sericulture farmers in the township. It can be said that every household is raising silkworms. The area of ​​mulberry gardens is more than 900 hectares, and the number of seeds produced is more than 40000. The output of silkworm cocoons is more than 1600 tons, and the income from silkworm cocoons is more than 3600 million yuan. By 2000, there were less than 2000 sericulture farmers in the township, and the main force was still women and old ladies who stayed at home. Although the area of ​​mulberry gardens has not changed, there are many The mulberry orchards are abandoned and unattended. The actual usable mulberry orchard area is less than 300 hectares, the seed production is less than 10000 pieces, the cocoon output is more than 400 tons, and the cocoon income is less than 1000 million. In recent years, it has been even worse. More beneficial."

"Nowadays, young people don't want to work like their ancestors. They all like to live in big cities. It's the same in all of China. There's no way," Cui Dongxu pointed to the roses in his eyes, and said with interest, "Maybe in the future, your hometown will The mainstay industry is tourism.”

"Taking it to our rural areas, the development of the tourism industry is heresy, and in the end it depends on the fields. Farmers leave the fields and become rootless duckweed, just like people in the city now like to play virtual economy. Just like not paying attention to industry, there will be a day when the soap bubbles will be burst." Qiu Shangzhi squatted down, picked up a small trevally stuck in the crevices of the pebbles, and threw it back to the reservoir, "but then again Come back, now more and more people come to our place to see the rose. The famous scholar of our Qiu family once wrote an essay "Listen to the Waterfall and Smell the Fragrance of Flowers", which was published in a magazine with a large circulation. There are more and more people here.”

"Really, your Qiu family still has such a powerful cultural celebrity." Cui Dongxu asked curiously.

"Speaking of him, you should know him too." Qiu Shangzhi smiled.

"I know him too? Do you work in Qingyuan?"

"No, it's a farmer who faces the loess and his back to the sky," Qiu Shangzhi joked, "I don't remember, it's your father-in-law."