The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 36

Chapter 36: Preparing for Winter and a New Crop

The fields, with the harvest long finished and even the straw cleared away, felt bleak and cold.

"So we'll swap the fields where wheat grew this year with the corn fields."

"Yes. Even with fertilizer, it isn't good to grow the same crop in the same field year after year. The clearing of the corn fields went well this year, so I'm glad we can take this measure."

She explained it to Nid and to Fritz, Lutz's eldest son, pointing to a simple map of the fields.

"The corn fields are a little way from Enkar Village, so for sowing and harvesting I think it would be best for people to stay together in Melto Village. When we rotate the crops, we can do the reverse, and the commuting time should shrink considerably."

For that purpose she had asked Ricardo this year to build a meeting hall in Melto Village large enough to lodge a great many people. Next year she planned to build a similar building near Enkar Village.

"I see. I had a vague idea that we mustn't keep growing wheat and barley over and over, but so this is how you turn the fields around."

"Yes. It isn't only wheat. Growing the same crop in the same field should be avoided as much as possible. Corn is said to suffer relatively little from continuous cropping, but it's still better to change fields."

The problem was what to plant in the fields that had grown wheat this year.

Under the three-field system, a summer grain should go in. But this was land that had been farmed for years with half-hearted fallowing and wheat, so perhaps it would be better to leave most of it fallow.

But the continent was in the midst of a great famine. Living in the Enkar region she hardly felt its effects, but it would go on until the end of next year.

She wanted, if possible, to produce things that could be eaten, and to export them.

If I adopt the Norfolk system, it would be turnips or other root vegetables for fodder, or clover. Maybe I should take the plunge and raise a large number of livestock here.

The number of livestock was the amount of dung they produced. If she could make a great deal of compost, the fields could be run that much more efficiently.

The Enkar region did not have many residents. Even if she raised a lot of livestock, the residents alone could hardly consume it.

Increasing the cattle, which gave milk, produced dung for compost, and could be used to plow the fields, was an urgent matter, and if she meant to increase the pigs in large numbers as well, she would have to devise preserved foods.

When there was a lot of something, its price dropped. In this world, the meat commoners ate in winter was old, salted meat that was already starting to discolor, but by producing it in volume she might be able to bring the price down to something a well-off commoner could afford.

"I'll think a little more about what to plant in the fields that grew wheat this year. If I can't find a good crop, I expect half will go to turnips and beans. Turnips are delicious for people to eat and can also be fed to livestock. Beans are edible, of course, and their leaves and stems can be plowed under to make the soil fluffy, and just planting beans makes the soil richer, so it's all benefit."

Many legumes fix nitrogen with their roots.

Nitrogen was a kind of fertilizer and one of the elements essential for raising crops in good health.

Beans keep when dried and can be eaten just by boiling them. They are rich not only in protein but in vitamins too, an excellent crop.

"And what will you do with the other half?"

"Plant clover. Plowing it into the field before the next planting softens the soil, and while it grows it also increases the soil's nutrients. Clover is a relative of the bean, so it works in the same way."

"Beans really are nothing but good."

"Beans can't be grown repeatedly in the same field either, but there's no reason not to make use of them. I had the children collect clover seed over the summer, so please use that."

Clover grew wild in great quantities around Lake Moltre. When the flowers that bloomed in spring began to wither, she had had the village children help her pick a large amount, then sorted out the seeds and packed them into barrels in preparation.

If crop rotation took hold from here on, it might become a standard summer job for the children.

"The 'night-soil pits' are being built smoothly as well. I heard we should just watch how they do over the winter."

"Yes. Since they're dug into the ground, I don't think the outside air will affect them as much as it does the straw fertilizer, but to be safe, please check on them once two months have passed. In winter, while it is generating heat, you'll see steam rising, the same way your breath turns white. Even if that stops, gas may still have built up inside, so after you open the lid, don't peer inside for a while."

"And we dilute it with water and spread it on the fields."

"Yes. If it gets directly on the crops it might burn them, so please spread it on the soil."

"If it sits in the pit for two months or more, that would be just in time for the winter vegetables. Winter always makes food scarce, so I'd be happy if the harvest is good."

Nid said it in a somewhat subdued tone.

Even if the summer harvest goes well, food naturally runs out once it is eaten.

This year, with Melfina having become lord, they had stockpiled a considerable amount of corn and wheat, but a poor winter harvest was probably a source of dread for farmers all the same.

"Until now, what did you eat in winter?"

"In winter we can't gather the mountain's bounty and hunting stalls, so stored potatoes were the main thing. Beyond that, a few vegetables grown in the fields. For serfs, even jerky soaked in too much salt was quite a luxury."

"I'd like to get our livestock production in order as soon as possible, so that everyone can eat good meat even in winter."

Raising so much that it ends up thrown away would be putting the cart before the horse, but she wanted to expand it at least to the point where the residents could eat without hardship.

"It's like a dream. Speaking of dreams, since the toilets were introduced, the air in the village has become wonderfully clean. And the number of people with upset stomachs has clearly dropped."

That was welcome news. Fritz nodded along as well.

"It's the same in Enkar Village. I think the number of children with diarrhea in particular has visibly fallen."

"I'm glad. Small children and the elderly especially can die from a bad stomach, so I was worried."

By drinking boiled water and managing hygiene, the child mortality rate should drop dramatically. As she was relieved at that, Nid suddenly took on a wistful expression.

"...It's a personal matter, but the child born before Rod had terrible diarrhea before he turned one and died just like that. I still remember my small son, shriveled up as though dried out."

"Nid..."

"Half of all serf children die while they are still young. I thought I had accepted it as fate... But if that child had been born this year, perhaps he would have grown up strong."

Nid, so dependable, always positive and the first to follow Melfina's instructions, spoke these sad words, and her chest tightened.

In this world, the mortality rate of children was truly high. Too high, even.

There was no guarantee anywhere that the children running innocently around Melfina would still be laughing next year, or the year after.

"...Let's make it that kind of village. A rich village where as many of the children born as possible grow up big and strong."

When the discussion of crop rotation was finished, she parted from Fritz, who was heading back to Enkar Village, and went on toward the former serf settlement, now Melto Village.

Once winter came, visiting so often would be difficult again. She wanted to see the children's faces too.

"It's been a while since I came, but it looks so different."

New buildings had increased, and row houses had been built in a long line. People had already begun moving in, with laundry swaying in the wind and children running around it.

"Lately there are even families moving from Enkar Village who say they want to call themselves Melto villagers."

"Oh my, wherever they live, they're still my people."

"That just shows how special your name is, Lady Melfina."

Around a particularly large building built at the edge of the village, the village women were gathered. They seemed to be braiding baskets and enjoying conversation, all of them smiling.

White smoke trailed in several lines into the clear autumn sky.

"The charcoal burning seems to be going well."

"Yes, it's warm around the huts, so the women have made it a habit to work near them in the daytime like that."

"Aren't they using the hibachi?"

"It's not that cold during the day yet, and to save charcoal they let them go out in the daytime. When it gets a bit colder I think they'll use them at midday too."

The charcoal was produced in the village from timber cut in the forest, and since no tax had been laid on it yet, it should be available almost for free. But she meant to sell it to neighboring territories in time as a source of revenue, and then taxes would come too.

If they got into the habit of using charcoal like water and then had trouble once taxes were levied, it would be the villagers who suffered. She felt both a wish for them to use plenty and a bashful fondness for their thrift.

"Often we gather at a house with a hibachi and drink corn tea."

"That sounds lovely. Maybe I'll join in next time."

"Oh, it's Lady Mel!"

"Lady Mel!"

As they talked and entered the village, the children came rushing over. It was the usual scene, so neither Nid nor Cedric, who was following behind her again today, seemed to mind.

She walked through Melto Village, transformed by its new buildings. Some houses had chicken coops attached, and others had fields.

"You're growing fields in the village too?"

"Small ones, for our own use. Green onions, carrots, chicory, and since the village started keeping cows and goats, a merchant who delivered the livestock recommended white radish as feed, so we're growing that."

"White radish?"

She tilted her head slightly at the unfamiliar name.

A white radish, then. Did it mean the thing called daikon in her previous life?

Melfina's memories held no dish made with radish, but it was common for nobles and commoners to eat entirely different things.

"Yes. The radishes grown around here are black, but the shape is very similar. Oh, one that size can be harvested already. The leaves can be eaten too, but they're a bit astringent."

"I hate white radish leaves!"

"I'm not good with them either, maybe."

"They make my mouth all prickly."

What the children said, one after another, was probably that they were harsh and bitter.

"In that case, I think you can soften it with the ash from the hibachi. Put the vegetable you want to take the bitterness out of in a pot, cover it with ash, pour boiled water over it, and leave it overnight."

"Oh, that would help. Adults put up with it, but children just won't eat it."

"Will it make the white radish leaves delicious?"

"I think it will ease the prickly feeling in your mouth. As for delicious ways to eat it, let's think about those from now on."

"Yes!"

"I'll think too!"

Smiling at the children's lively replies, she asked, as the conversation went, to see the field, and sure enough, something like a white radish was poking out of the soil.

The leaves were quite different from the daikon she had seen in her previous life, so it was probably another variety.

Melfina crouched by the field, touched the "white radish" with her fingertip, and tried activating "Appraisal."

If it had had some other name in her previous life, she might come up with some way to cook it.

"Eh...?"

"What's the matter, Lady Melfina?"

"N-nothing. ...If it's all right, would you show me the new houses too? I'd like to hear whether there are any inconveniences."

"Then, if you don't mind, please come to my house. Being village chief, mine was the first they built."

As Nid led the way, with winter nearly upon them and the wind outside cold, she felt sweat trickle down her back.

――Sugar beet.

She could not yet tell whether this meeting between Melfina and this crop would prove good or not for the Enkar region, and for Melfina's own fate.