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to be stirred up and shaken by the constant movement of the boats over several weeks or months until it became a smooth, thick, rich liquid. This would be sold to the richest farmers only: it was so highly regarded as fertiliser that a barrel of it had to be paid for by an equivalent volume of vegetables. It was diluted with water and used in much the same way as the matured urine.
Night-soil from the city could also be bought, but it was less highly regarded; it was much rawer, and tended to be mixed with undesirable material such as broken crockery etc. To be of much use it needed mixing with ash or earth and drying on the latrine drying ground; this could be hired from the latrine owner if needed.
Another immensely valuable fertiliser available only to the richest farmers was the dry, powdery residue left behind after peanuts had been crushed for their oil. Most of the New Territories' larger market towns had oil shops, which bought peanuts from villages and pressed them in heavy hand-operated presses for resale of the resulting oil in the markets as cooking oil. The crushed shells and meat were of the very highest value as being immediately usable (no “rawness”), very rich, and dry; wealthy families would use this material as top dressing, or else pack it around seedlings. This material was used mostly on vegetables, where every grain could be placed in an advantageous position: it was rarely used for rice as being just too valuable to be used wholesale.
The scourings of fishponds, moats, and drainage canals were invariably spread out over surrounding fields, and not surprisingly as this rich mud was probably the single richest form of fertiliser easily available. Most went to the wealthier families which owned the fishponds, or which could afford to buy it from the owners.
Finally, straw and grass were ploughed into the fields as appropriate; particularly after the second rice crop, since the winter sweet potato crop, which did not get the benefit of waterborne nutrients that the rice crops did, needed all the fertiliser it could get. The second rice crop was accordingly harvested high on the stalk, to leave as much straw behind for