Chapter 380: Touching Kasluopa
"Heave-ho!" "Heave-ho!"...
The work chants filled a vast stretch of grassland.
Despite the bitter winter weather, most people wore little, and many had rolled up their sleeves to work with iron rakes and shovels.
Some weeds rose past their ankles, while the tallest reached their waists. Clearing a patch of land proved more troublesome than planting it.
The existing farmland had been cultivated for years and was in better condition. Seeds had already been sown across it.
The new crops needed no pregermination treatment. Their seeds only had to be pressed into the shallow soil.
Under the sweeping stockpiling plan, the process had taken little more than a week. The enthusiasm people poured into their work was like a direct challenge to the looming apocalypse.
But finishing the existing farmland satisfied neither the government nor the people. They wanted to plant every usable patch of ground.
The forests were spreading outward, reclaiming land that had once belonged to nature. But humanity had to think of its future now, and even the most devoted environmentalists were working with all their might.
Moving giant trees was plainly impractical, but people could clear weed-choked ground and plant it.
Once the crops were planted, there would definitely be a harvest thanks to their tenacious vitality, even if towering trees later sprang up there.
Farm machinery was in desperately short supply, and many of these places contained young trees that had already grown thick. Human labor had become the mainstay.
"Come on, give me a hand."
"We've dug away the soil... Two people over here."
"Coming!"
"One, two, three!" "One, two, three!"
A soldier with his sleeves rolled up joined several farmers in pulling out an arm-thick sapling whose surrounding soil had been dug away.
"It's coming up! It's coming up!