Cotton likes warm sunshine and is suitable for sandy soil. My hometown is rich in these two kinds, rich in cotton, known as the "cotton nest". However, when I was a child, the cotton was not the current variety, but the taxonomic "medium cotton". The fiber is thick and short, commonly known as "stupid flower". In addition to white, there is also a kind of khaki cotton wool called "Purple Flower". "Purple flower" is khaki and naturally forms. Its fabric is quite similar to the popular "colored cotton", which is both beautiful and resistant to dirt. During the Japanese-puppet blockade, there was a shortage of pigments, which showed great superiority. "Purple Flower" became a popular color at that time, which was not only liked by ordinary people, but also used by the Eighth Route Army and local cadres to make military uniforms. It's easy to hide when marching in battle, and I'm not afraid of getting dirty. I wore this kind of "purple flower" cloth from birth until I graduated from junior high school, and I still have it at the bottom of the box. As soon as my daughter turned out, I thought it was a costume.
Purple flower is good, but its yield is low, less than 100 kg per mu. I think it's the seeds. Cotton was introduced into China from Java at the end of Yuan Dynasty and became popular in Hebei Plain at the beginning of Ming Dynasty. It was originally called Jibei, which belongs to Asian cotton. It has been planted in China for a long time and is used to being called Zhong Mian. Since the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, there have been years of wars, chaos, stagnation of science and technology, and serious seed degradation.
After liberation, foreign cotton was introduced. I remember there were cotton varieties 2B and 4B, and then German cotton and Kecotton appeared one after another. Taxonomically, it belongs to the New World cotton, with an yield of 300-400 kg per mu. The interest of cotton farmers has been greatly improved, and excellent cotton varieties have been rapidly popularized. Hebei is "the largest cotton-producing province in China", and the cotton fields in southern Hebei account for more than half of the cultivated land. It is a well-known cotton-producing area in China and is known as the "cotton sea in southern Hebei". At that time, there was a loud slogan called "make a fortune and grow cotton".
Weijiazhuang, Longyao County, where my uncle is located, is one of the cotton distribution centers in southern Hebei and even the whole country. The "cotton picking station" in the south of Jessie Road buys 200,000 Jin of new cotton every day, piles up dozens of meters of cotton piles, and dozens of pedal cotton gin trucks bundle lint. Cars from Tianjin and Qingdao cotton mills are waiting in line. The cottonseed peeled off by the cotton gin is also piled up into mountains. Grey Mountain and White Mountain, two peaks standing side by side, have become a great spectacle of southern Hebei Plain. The wallets of the farmers around quickly swelled up. There are two or seven episodes in the Weijiazhuang lunar calendar. The three-mile-long street is crowded with people, and there are hundreds of restaurants and teahouses on both sides. There are two theaters in the village of 500 families, and they are singing anti-Taiwan dramas every day. Famous actors from Beijing, Tianjin, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces came to perform in succession. Listening to my uncle, the condolence group from the old district of China said, "This Weijiazhuang is so powerful that the prosperity of new China depends on it." My uncle Liu Fengkui is the secretary of the village branch. 1926 joined the party and served as a member of the Standing Committee of the County Farmers' Association during the Agrarian Revolution.
Growing cotton has high income, but it is also very labor-intensive. Besides water and fertilizer, the main farm work is pruning and harrowing. In order to concentrate nutrition on the fruit, it is necessary to constantly remove crazy branches. When the cotton tree grows to a certain height, it is necessary to pinch the tip and break off the crazy leaves, commonly known as "cat ears." When I was in primary school, I spent most of my summer vacation in cotton fields. After the summer solstice, the cotton tree grew to more than 1 meter, which was higher than my body and airtight. I squatted in the ground like a drill steamer, and soon I was covered with prickly heat. Pieces of torn cotton leaves, like slaps, came over and blocked the way. Cotton fields should be patient and fight a protracted war. As soon as the front foot work is finished, the cat's ears will sprout, and the battle will continue. Cotton trees love aphids, adults carry sprayers to spray pesticides, aphids die, and people faint. Pesticides need to be sprayed every ten days. If you are not careful, aphids will come out and flood. A guy smaller than a grain of rice ate up all your months of hard work at once. Cotton farmers have been on the battlefield every day since the summer solstice, and a battle will last for two months.
"Flowers show their teeth in early autumn, and new flowers are seen in summer", and mature cotton peaches have cracked fruit one after another. Cotton is generally sprayed three times, and a "spray" is the climax of maturity. Cotton is sprayed all over the floor, watching the Milky Way land at night and the snowy area during the day. Picking cotton is a festival for farmers. The eldest daughter, the youngest daughter, tied a bundle around her waist and bowed with her hands. Soon, a "snow mountain" was piled up by the roadside. Every household takes the peeled cotton to the market and replaces it with lottery tickets, new brick houses, cows and tinkling waterwheels. "Want to get rich and grow cotton", a short period of three to five years from liberation to agricultural cooperation, has become a golden age in the memory of farmers in China.