The Book of Agriculture was written when Yin was in Jingde County, and it was not completed until he was transferred to Yin in Yongfeng County. In the second year of Yuan Renzong Qing Dynasty (13 13), Wang Zhen prefaced this book and published it officially.
During Zhenyuan (1295), he served as Yin (county official) in Jingde County, Xuanzhou (now Jingde County, Anhui Province), and during Dade (1300), he was transferred to Yongfeng County, Xinzhou (now Jiangxi Province) as Yin. During his tenure in Yinxian, he did many good things for the people. According to Jingde County Records, during his tenure in Yinjun, he lived a very simple life and never collected people's wealth. Not only that, he also donated part of his salary to run schools, build altars and temples, build bridges, and set up many public utilities that benefit the people. In addition, he also used drugs to help the poor and the sick, which was praised by the local people. There are two versions of Wang Zhen's agricultural books. One is 37 volumes, including 6 volumes of Nong Sang Tong Ji, 6 volumes of Cooper Manual 1 1 and 20 volumes of Atlas of Agricultural Instruments. One is 22 volumes, including 6 volumes of Nong Sang Tong Ji, 4 volumes of Gu Pu, and Atlas of Agricultural Instruments 12. The contents of the two books are basically the same, except that the latter combines the valley spectrum of 1 1 into four volumes and the atlas of agricultural instruments of 20 episodes into 12 volumes. The book is about 136000 words, with 28 illustrations1piece.
Wang Zhen's "Agricultural Book" has four outstanding characteristics: Wang Zhen proposed that "in cultivated land, two plows should be plowed together first, both of which are inward-leaning, and together they are floating, starting from floating and plowing outward. At the end of this period, it means paying one, intercropping one and paying another. After the ploughing is finished, between the three payments, the next payment is paid to the center from outside. " The rest want to plow the plain, and the rate is like this. "This is a new experience summed up by Wang Zhen in reducing the opening and closing of ridges and improving the quality of farming in the northern dryland, thus pushing the farming level in the northern dryland to a new stage.
(4) The principle of "spring ploughing as a supplement". The dry land in the north has the climatic characteristics of drought and windy in spring and rainy in summer and autumn. In order to adapt to this climate feature, it is necessary to conserve moisture and fight drought. Wang Zhen quoted the experience summarized in "Han Zhi said": "Except for planting wheat, all fields should be cultivated in autumn. There is little land and weeds in autumn, which is very labor-saving. For example, cows are not as powerful as cows, so they can't do autumn ploughing. In addition to planting fields, other places such as beans can also be cultivated in spring. " The principle of autumn ploughing as the main and spring ploughing as the auxiliary was put forward.
Open up special articles on "manure" and "irrigation" and put fattening irrigation in an important position to increase agricultural production.
In Wang Zhen's previous important agricultural works, most of them did not put fertilizer and irrigation in an important position. For example, fertilizer and irrigation are not mentioned in the agricultural general part of Bi Sheng and Qi Yaomin's Book, but are involved in various parts, which shows that the problem of fertilizer and water still does not occupy a decisive position in increasing agricultural production. By the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a special article on "Suitability of Manure Field" in Chen■ Agricultural Book, but it focused on theoretical elaboration and was not practical. Wang Zhen's Agricultural Book not only puts "manure" and "irrigation" in the important position of the general theory of "agriculture, mulberry and mulberry", but also has new development in theory and practice. The Atlas of Agricultural Tools in Wang Zhen's agricultural books is the first work of ancient agricultural books. It collects 105 kinds of farm tools in the form of pictures and texts. Their development history, shape and operation methods are introduced in detail, especially the publicity and popularization of newly created agricultural tools, which has played an important role in promoting the development of agricultural production. The following focuses on the agricultural machinery newly created in the Song and Yuan Dynasties and included in the Atlas of Agricultural Machinery.
(1) New farming equipment. ■ Knife is a tool to walk in front of the plow, cut reeds, remove obstacles and improve work efficiency during land reclamation. Tieda, a farming tool suitable for paddy soil in southern China, generally has six teeth or four teeth. Seedling horse is a tool that can walk in mud and is convenient for paddy field operation. Weeding is a farming tool suitable for weeding in paddy fields. A paw, a tool for farming, is put on your finger with a bamboo tube and an iron tip. Hoe, a tool for animal-drawn farming in North China Plain, can farm 20 mu of land a day with high efficiency. Hoe is a tool for weeding in intertillage. It is not easy to hurt seedlings when weeding, because there is no double-edged angle. Manure is an additional device for applying seed fertilizer on lawn mower, which is used for applying seed fertilizer. Seed, put a wooden handle on the seed and a wooden mouth on the seed as a tool for sowing beside the ridge. Planting cars, with stone planting cars after planting cars, can be suppressed along the ditch opened at the foot of planting cars, so that planting soil is close to each other, which is conducive to germination and emergence.
(2) Newly created harvesting tools. The push sickle is a kind of agricultural tool made of wood, which has a cross frame and a long handle. It can be harvested with a small wheel, which can improve the work efficiency several times compared with the ordinary sickle. Wheat straw is a long sickle-shaped wheat straw installed on a dustpan-shaped wheat straw. A rope is tied to the wooden handle and the shaft, and the rope is held in one hand and the shaft in the other, so that wheat can be harvested neatly and quickly. There is a wheat cage, four small wheels and a mop behind the wheat. Using this harvester, the harvest in one day is several times more than using other tools, which is very suitable for working on larger plots. Others, such as cymbals for harvesting rice, shovels for cutting wheat ears, and identification knives for cutting wheat ears, have also played an important role in improving harvesting efficiency.
(3) Newly invented irrigation machines and tools. In Wang Zhen's agricultural book Atlas of Agricultural Tools, we can see seven newly invented irrigation machines.
Rollover, that is, dragon bone car, is a tool to lift water high. The rollover system of water vehicles is the same as that of people stepping on it. Dig a narrow ditch on the running water bank, put the car in, make a vertical wheel at the outer end of the pedal shaft of the car, put a wooden vertical wheel next to it, and put two horizontal wheels. The vertical spokes of the upper wheel suitable for the front of the car alternate with each other, which is a hydraulic rollover. Cows turn over and use them where there is no running water. The lower wheel is placed on the bank of the car, and the axle is pulled by a cow, so that the car will roll over and turn with it. This kind of rollover is twice as efficient as manual rollover. Donkey tumbler is a water tumbler, but a vertical wheel is built in the outer end of the rotating shaft, and a horizontal wheel is placed on the shore at one side of the vertical wheel, just like the system that turns the cow into a rollover. This kind of waterwheel is suitable for use in "near the pit" or "deep pool with accumulated water". The height of the dump truck is based on 10 feet, such as the height of the field and the depth of the shore, or the field is on the mountain. When the water turns high, in case there is running water on the shore and high water is needed, you can use this car. Its car is also made of high-turning car, but the lower shaft end is vertical wheel and the horizontal wheel is used to dial. Scraping the car is to install a water wheel, which can be 5 feet high and 6 inches wide in the radial direction. For example, you can use this tool when you go to the fields like water.
The power of these waterwheels: the manpower to scrape the vehicles; Hydraulic power of water on rolling car, water on high car and high turning car; Cattle turn over, donkeys turn over by animal power. It can be seen that irrigation in Yuan Dynasty not only used manpower, animal power and water power, but also widely used mechanical principles, especially wheel trains.
(4) Newly created agricultural processing machinery. The three things recorded in Wang Zhennong's book Atlas of Agricultural Machinery, namely, continuous two-mill, water-to-continuous mill, water-to-flour mill and waterwheel, are all newly created efficient agricultural processing machinery in Yuan Dynasty. If the water is turned into continuous grinding, "or grinding, you can get food every day and get a thousand dollars." The waterwheel can be used to grind, grind and grind three things with one machine.
These creations and innovations reflect the wisdom of the ancient working people in China and their great achievements in the production struggle. Atlas of Agricultural Machinery actively publicized and popularized these newly created agricultural machinery in the form of pictures and texts, which promoted the development of agricultural production at that time. (1) In terms of developing forestry, the chapter "Agriculture, Mulberry and Planting" first introduces the successful experience of developing forestry in history, and expounds that developing forestry is an important event of "benefiting Bo" and "rejuvenating the country", which is urgent. Wang Zhen has focused its development on planting mulberry, fruit and wood. Regarding mulberry planting, Wang Zhen introduced the species, characteristics, propagation, fertilization and pruning management methods of mulberry. In the aspect of planting wood and fruit trees, Wang Zhen introduced the "obvious effect" of planting wood and fruit trees in the past and the methods of transplanting trees, and emphatically introduced six grafting methods of mulberry and fruit trees: body grafting, root grafting, skin grafting, branch grafting, rolling grafting and overlapping grafting. Wang Zhen introduced the cultivation methods of pear, peach, plum, plum, apricot, mulberry, jujube, chestnut, persimmon, litchi, longan, olive, pomegranate, orange, tangerine and ginkgo. The book Baigupu Bamboo and Wood introduces the cultivation and management methods of bamboo, pine, fir, cypress, juniper, elm, willow, oak, neem and Broussonetia papyrifera, which provides technical experience for developing forestry production.
(2) In the development of animal husbandry, the article Agriculture and Mulberry Breeding summarizes the experience of raising horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, geese and ducks. In raising horses, Wang Zhen inherited and carried forward the experience of "eating and drinking three meals". In raising cattle, Wang Zhen thought that "if you want to raise cattle, you must have a heart of kindness", and then you can "regard the hunger of cattle as your own hunger; Take the hardship and poverty of cattle as their own hardship and poverty; Treat the plague of cattle like your own disease; Depending on the birth of the cow, if you have a son. " If we can do this, there will be more cows, so what are we afraid of? Wang Zhen thinks that if you want to raise cattle well, you must make efforts in such aspects as "not making cold and heat", "not overworking", "being hungry when you are full" and "combining work and rest". At the same time, we should prepare enough feed to treat cattle in time. In the process of raising pigs, Wang Zhen summed up many new experiences. First, duckweed and other things near water can be used as feed in Jiangnan waters. Second, the land in Jiangbei can grow horse teeth; The third is to eat rubber or medicine seedlings in the mountains; Fourth, the fermented feed was created, that is, "chopped when used, soaked in water such as dregs, and mixed with acid yellow or bran." Wang Zhen also summed up some new experiences in raising chickens, ducks and geese.
In sericulture, fish culture and beekeeping, Wang Zhen summed up his experience in sericulture, fish culture and beekeeping in "Raising Reeling". For example, in sericulture, Wang Zhen summed up his own experience in silkworm egg selection and collection, silkworm egg preservation, feeding management, adjusting room temperature and raising silkworms separately. In fish farming and beekeeping, Wang Zhen has also inherited and developed the farming methods summarized by predecessors. Wang Zhen is knowledgeable and talented. He is not only an excellent agronomist, but also an ingenious mechanical designer and an innovator of printing technology, and a poet. Wang Zhen is quite accomplished in mechanical design. He designed and drew a large number of complicated drawings of agricultural machinery, and solicited research from many parties, and restored some machinery that had long been lost, some of which were also reformed. For example, Du Shifa, the magistrate of Nanyang in the Eastern Han Dynasty, used the "water platoon" blast technology to make iron, which was lost in the Yuan Dynasty. After long-term and repeated research, Wang Zhen finally figured out the structural principle of "water drain", and made a map, which was loaded into the Atlas of Agricultural Equipment. In the process of recovery, he also changed the original raft into a wooden fan similar to a bellows. This not only saves the cost and reduces the labor intensity, but also improves the smelting technology. This kind of reproduction and reform is of great significance in the history of China's ancient iron smelting.
Wang Zhen's innovation in printing technology has made valuable contributions to the development of China and even the world culture. Clay movable type printing invented by Bi Sheng in Northern Song Dynasty was one of the four great inventions in ancient China, but it was not popularized until Yuan Dynasty, when block printing was still widely used. This method is not only labor-consuming and time-consuming, but also the engraved plates are mostly useless once printed. In order to make his agricultural books published as soon as possible, Wang Zhen conducted an experimental study on wood movable type printing on the basis of cement movable type printing in Bi Sheng, and finally succeeded. This method not only saves manpower and time, but also improves printing efficiency. Rotary typesetting is another invention of Wang Zhen. He found that in the process of picking up Chinese characters, thousands of wooden movable types lined up in a row, which brought inconvenience to people to shuttle back and forth, so he designed and manufactured a wheeled typesetting tray, which created conditions for improving the efficiency of picking up Chinese characters and reducing labor intensity.