After finishing the Big Broom job, Li Long began going to the cotton fields every day-the Corps had begun picking cotton, and so had the Team.
After breakfast, he dropped the two children off at Kindergarten, then drove the Land Cruiser to the Fourth Team.
When he reached the township and turned Dong, he could still see farmers driving donkey carts and tractors, hauling huge sacks of cotton to sell.
Cotton purchasing was still state-run. To sell cotton, farmers only needed to take it to the county Cotton and Hemp Company, queue up, and wait for inspection, acceptance, and a receipt.
In a few years, the cotton market would be opened up and the Cotton and Hemp Company dissolved. Once cotton entered the market economy, farmers would find it hard to say whether things were better or worse.
The good thing was that the market would occasionally surge, sending cotton prices up so high that a single year could bring in several years' earnings.
The bad thing was that private cotton gins were extremely picky. They might reject a load or offer a low price because it contained too much debris or moisture, or its lint percentage was too low.
Sometimes a farmer hauling a load of cotton might visit three to five factories around the county town, or even have to drive to the neighboring county to sell it.
Picking cotton was troublesome enough; selling it could be even more troublesome.
Only those who had experienced it knew how hard it was.
At this time, cotton was packed into Large Cloth Sacks sewn from white cloth. Each sack stood two meters tall and a meter wide. Almost everyone bought cloth and sewed their own, since these held more. Selling cotton usually took two people, too-the sacks went soft when