Mulberry is the seedling of mulberry tree. In rural areas of Jiangnan where the silk industry is developed, this is a necessary means of production. Outsiders, known as "mulberry guests", have spotted the existence of this important market and come to Wuzhen with the troupe every year: when the "mulberry guests" come, the "fragrant market" is coming soon, and the troupe boats follow. The mulberry boat stopped at one place. The types of mulberry provided by "Mulberry Guests" are of many "generations": the "biggest" ones include "one person tall, with two forks, usually scattered one by one"; "almost the same height, but the top If there are no two branches on the tree, then there are four or six trees in a group, and they are lying on the ground... They are the second oldest ones in the Sang Yang family, and there are the third, fourth, and fifth oldest ones... of course. They can only lie in piles of people on the dirt. Usually there are twenty, thirty or even fifty trees in a group. The last ones have hundreds of trees huddled together. "When you look at it from a distance, you always think it's a broom." (Note: Mao Dun: "Mulberry Tree", Shenbao Monthly, Vol. 3, Issue 9, September 15, 1934; all sources not indicated in this section are from )

In the Wuzhen Xiang Market in the early 1920s, even the "youngest" generation had corresponding buyers. At that time, the foreign and domestic silk industry markets were relatively stable, and some "people who knew how to think long-term" might divide land management and decide on medium- and long-term investments. Huang Caifa, a wealthy farmer with "one of the highest net worth in the village", went "specially" to the "Xiang Market" to buy "the youngest" to plant. To plant the "youngest", it is necessary to carve out a piece of open land that can be "leaved for ten years before harvesting", because "it will take ten years to prepare these 'youngest' until they can be put to regular use!" He paid the first price! The opportunity cost of the land was determined; "He had a piece of land, which was said to be half dry, and he had to let it wake up. He spent 30 cents to buy two handfuls of 'Lao Yao' mulberry seedlings and plant them. Planted on that land”

Ten years of trees. "In the past ten years, he has put so much effort into those little mulberry trees; not only the effort, but also the money! Twice he bought river mud to fertilize the depleted land. In the past ten years, he has He and his two sons took turns going to the town to fetch water for others, and almost all the ash they got was used in this mulberry field. "It is not difficult to see that the family production activities of cultivating mulberry trees consume a variety of resources at the Huang family's disposal. Resources: including the "waste of money" as financial resources, "the ashes earned from carrying water for others" as the transformation form of human resources, "hard work" as human resources, and ten years of time resources (Note: Economists believe that the value of time, a scarce resource, is its "opportunity cost", that is, the income given up per unit of time spent. See Editor-in-Chief Zhu Guohong: "Social Phenomenon from the Perspective of Economics", Sichuan People's Publishing House, 1998. year, page 26). After 10 years, the investment has yielded results. In 1930, the new mulberry field "already gave him thirty tons of leaves."

What Huang Caifa didn't expect was that the evil wave of the world capitalist economic crisis hit the small town in the south of the Yangtze River. In 1933, "Silkworms When the cocoons are ripe, "people buy expensive leaves for the silkworms to eat, and the Huang family eats them themselves. But the cocoons cannot be sold for money, so Huang Caifa only makes enough money." Otherwise, Huang Caifa would inevitably suffer the fate of losing money. Huang Caifa responded quickly to the market information: "I will stop raising silkworms next year and only want to sell leaves." However, the rapid changes in the leaf market completely "overturned his wishful thinking for more than ten years": Ye The price was ridiculously cheap at first; the "Ye Xing" in the town was the general agency for "buying" and "selling" mulberry leaves within a radius of two to three hundred miles, but this year it was called "there is a scale but no market"; the last one yuan When the price was two dan, Huang Caifa was reluctant to sell it. Later, the price dropped to one yuan and four dan, and Huang Caifa couldn't sell it even if he wanted to.

At this point, the Huang family no longer has the possibility of long-term investment in mulberry rice: "His current situation is not as good as it was ten years ago. Ten years ago, he could still 'sit aside' this He wants to wait for it to regenerate after ten years. Now he is in debt and needs money to pay for the crops. "So, the man who bought mulberries at the Wuzhen Xiang Market disappeared. The "youngest" Huang Caifa and others have basically become self-sufficient silkworm farmers who are ready to make short-term investments.

Self-sufficiency behavior is the instinctive response of silkworm farmers to market risks. As early as the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the development of commercial agriculture, sericulture farmers differentiated into mulberry farmers who got rid of self-sufficiency and specialized in production for the market. When mulberry planting and silkworm rearing were separated, "leaf rows" were created to communicate the two. "Wu Qing Wen" says: "Anyone who breeds silkworms or has insufficient mulberry leaves at home will predetermine mulberries of a different gender." (Note: Qianlong's "Wu Qing Wen", Volume 2, "Farming Mulberry".) Although the leaves are traded There are certain risks, but the pre-purchase system adopted by the gradually mature township leaf banks and futures transactions have enhanced the risk tolerance of leaf farmers to a certain extent (Note: See Oda: "Modern Development of Jiangnan Township Society") Transformation", China Business Press, 1997, p. 183). By the early 1930s, the local market, which was closely related to the world capitalist market, was becoming increasingly unpredictable, and the Jiangnan Ye Market also entered a state of disorder. Silkworm farmers who know little about market information are unable to judge the degree of market risk, so they try to minimize the links connected to the market. Under such circumstances, the number of self-sufficient mulberry leaf silkworm farmers increased significantly. "In a village of forty or fifty people, there are only five or six silkworms raising silkworms, and they all have their own leaves." Self-sufficient mulberry leaves must have mulberry seedlings, and the mulberry seedling trade in the fragrant market is extremely lively.

In the view of classical economist Adam Smith, consumers must be rational economic persons pursuing maximum interests. However, at the rural temple fairs in the early 1930s, the role of silkworm farmers was quite passive. of. Facing so many mulberry trees, the pros and cons can be seen at a glance: "They have all been 'taken over' by the 'boss' of the two branches...plant them in the ground, and they will give you good results in at most two years." "The mulberry leaves are about to grow", and "the little brothers below the 'second child', even if they are about the same height as the 'eldest brother', are far different in talent... some may take five years to produce mulberry leaves." Of course, the "boss" is the first choice of the silkworm farmers. "However, after the country people paid the price and checked their pockets, and calculated that it was not enough to hand over to the 'boss', they had no choice but to buy the 'second' or 'third' 'They are dead."

Here, the sericulture farmers are very helpless: in order to cope with the increasingly dangerous leaf market, they should make short-term investments and choose the "boss" who "will give you very good mulberry leaves in at least two years." ”, but under the dual constraints of different prices for mulberries and limited affordability, they can only make mid-term investments and choose mulberries that “sometimes take five years to produce leaves.” This choice actually means that silkworm farmers who are trying to supply their own mulberry leaves cannot avoid the risky leaf market for the time being.