Chapter 53 Potato Planting
December 16, 1866.
Karatu, the capital of the northern plateau region.
Northwest of Karatu is the famous Serengeti prairie, the real animal world.
At present, every area in the East African colonies, except for the upper coastal area that has been thoroughly cleaned, is basically the territory of wild beasts.
Even the aborigines, whose population is relatively large compared to immigrants, are small in front of the huge number of fauna in East Africa and are not worth mentioning.
These sufficient animal resources allow these indigenous people to live a prosperous life only by hunting.
After hunting every day, I would sing, dance, and go to bed when it was dark, without any other worries. After all, the animals really couldn’t finish hunting, so I didn’t have to worry about tomorrow’s food source at all.
As immigrants who came to Africa to farm, naturally they cannot learn from these indigenous people to live by hunting.
Their ideology has been influenced by thousands of years of farming culture, and they pay attention to working hard to get rich. Immigrants can't feel the attitude of life like the aborigines who only think about the present and don't need to think about the future.
In fact, people's concepts are endowed by social characteristics. For example, the indigenous people did not develop a country, but the environment in Africa made them live well under the most primitive tribal system. Once they entered a relatively advanced social system, they developed instead. Half dead.
After all, humans who walked out of East Africa millions of years ago were faced with survival problems, so they took the initiative to learn to plant and breed.
For example, in the vast desert of Egypt, if you don’t rely on the Nile River to do some planting, survival is a problem. Human beings who have left Africa have finally embarked on the road of "rolling kings".
After a million years, the Europeans came back and directly "rolled" these African indigenous tribes to death.
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Immigrants from the East African colonies have to clean up the local beasts and threatening indigenous tribes every time they arrive at a new location.
In order to prevent accidents, immigration is a collective labor and activity, so as to avoid those who slip through the net and attack immigrants.
The vegetation near Karatu is lush, but it is basically in a withered and yellow state during the dry season. Yellow vines and weeds lay a thick layer of land.
The immigrants who first came here first used fire to burn off the withered and yellow vegetation. After the fire, a thin layer of ash was left on the land.
Then use a shovel and a **** to clean up the plant roots buried in the soil. After the soil is turned over, the light red soil comes into view.
So Karatu's immigrant settlements and the repaired land are all dazzling red, paired with the withered and yellow vegetation around them, and the hazy low sky under the strong sunlight, it looks a bit depressing.
The precipitation in the Karatu area is relatively small, because of the inland and plateau terrain, it is difficult for the water vapor in the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean to penetrate here.
There are two large lakes in the east and west of Karatu, among which Lake Eyasi in the west is a seasonal shallow saline lake, and Lake Manyara in the east is also a saltwater lake.
Both are lakes formed on the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. Groups of flamingos and other water birds can be seen on these two lakes.
North of Karatu is the Rogorongoro Mountains, Rogorongoro is a plateau volcano, and Karatu is located on the southern edge of the Rogorongoro Mountains.
Ngorongoro is a very unique area, which gathers various ecological landforms such as grasslands, forests, hills, lakes, and swamps. Countless types of wild animals live here, gradually forming an independent ecological chain system.
Rogorongoro means "big hole" in the African indigenous language.
The famous Maasai people in Africa live in the area near the crater of Rogorongoro and live a nomadic life.
During the dry season, the crater lake becomes the water source for nearby animals, where groups of animals inhabit and survive.
As the newly established regional capital of the East African colony, Karatu is definitely not outstanding, and its future development potential is not as good as that of other regional capitals.
The reason why it is separately divided as the capital of the northern plateau region is because of the influence of the location, which is located in the center of the northern plateau region.
In Africa, Mwanza and Kigoma have superior natural conditions, Dodoma has outstanding transportation advantages, and the first town in the east is the place where the colony first started.
Only Karatu and Ron Roda in the lower coastal area became the administrative center of the region because of the circle that Ernst randomly drew on the map.
In the East African colonies, all cities are basically on the same starting line, starting from scratch, so the future development of Karatu and Ron Roda will depend on whether the two capitals can give full play to their first-mover advantages.
Karatu has relatively little precipitation, so instead of rice and wheat, he chose potatoes as crops.
Potatoes are a typical lazy crop, and like sisal, they do not require fine care.
Potatoes like the cold and are afraid of heat, and the Karatu area is high in altitude, and the temperature is between ten and twenty degrees.
The light conditions in plateau areas are basically the most suitable for crop growth, with thin atmosphere, shallow clouds and strong light.
At the same time, the soil is slightly acidic. The reason why plant ash was added before reclamation is that it is weakly acidic.
The soil in Karatu is also relatively loose and non-sticky, which facilitates the expansion of the roots of potatoes in the later stage.
Don’t worry about the water needed for potatoes to grow. Although there is less precipitation, the water in the river is enough.
Immigrants use tools to turn over the soil, and then make ridges, divide the germinated potato stems into groups of two, and insert the potato shoots upward into the plowed soil at a distance of about 20 to 30 centimeters. In the field, sprinkle fertilizer at the end, and the initial planting is complete.
In terms of the choice of cash crops, Karatu still chooses sisal.
The forest resources in the Rogorongoro mountain area are relatively rich, which facilitates the construction of Karatu.
House construction mostly uses wooden structures, and at the same time, it is convenient to build some production tools, such as waterwheels and windmill millstones.
The Karatu immigrants are currently only active in the southeast of the Rogorongoro Mountains, and have not penetrated into the interior of the Rogorongoro Mountains.
So the northwest of the entire northern plateau area, mainly the Serengeti grassland area, has no East African colonial forces entering.
On the contrary, to the west is the Great Lakes District. The immigrant population of the Great Lakes District is second only to the upper coastal area, and there is no natural barrier between the Great Lakes District and the Serengeti Grassland.
So the Serengeti grassland is divided into the Great Lakes region, but the animals in the Serengeti grassland are a real animal paradise.
In the previous life documentary, tens of thousands of wildebeest crossing the river is the scene on the Serengeti grassland. The river is called the Mara River, which is the river between Kenya and Tanzania. Migration between the Masai Mara and the Serengeti in Tanzania.
Such a large piece of land was not effectively developed in Tanzania in the previous life, but was treated as a national park, and the East African colonies would not start to develop the Serengeti.
It is really difficult to deal with so many wild animals, and the East African colonies will definitely develop brutally in the early days, and wild animals in other areas have already suffered.
It is better to leave the Serengeti grasslands, or to leave a piece of pure land for the wild animals in East Africa. The most important thing for East African colonies is land, and they can also develop northward and westward.
So although the Serengeti is not small, its influence on the East African colonies is very limited.
(end of this chapter)