In spring, there was always a bustle of activity, which involved preparing the pond banks and planting crops. This year, with Wenhan and Wencheng gone, the workload was even greater than last year. The fields being planted this year were precisely the two thousand or so zhang where the merchandise and saplings had been planted last year. The land that was cultivated last year couldn't be used again this year. Firstly, because there was no fertilizer in the soil, the crops wouldn't grow well, and secondly, since ginseng fields had originally been planted with saplings, and these saplings had grown tall, the land could no longer be used for planting crops.
The two thousand or so zhang of ginseng field, which is about twenty acres, had both horse paths and pond banks. Of course, crops could only be planted on the pond banks. Hence, the thirty-plus acres of forest that could originally be used for farming were now reduced to twenty acres.
