Fields that grow#
A field of a crop is real on the map: its crop stands in rows along its longest side, and everyone sees it at the same stage, because the server keeps the clock.
- Ploughed. A tractor ploughs it, then sows it with a seed drill.
- Sprouting, then growing: seedlings, then a green canopy (canola flowers yellow, sunflowers turn their heads).
- Ripe: golden wheat, pale barley, tasselled maize, white cotton.
- Harvesting. A combine with the right header (the corn header for maize and sunflowers; a cotton picker for cotton) drives up and down the field, a tractor and trailer beside it, and the field turns to stubble behind them.
- Harvested: stubble, until the next ploughing.
The whole cycle's yield comes in as the harvest ends, not a little every hour. A field of grain is harvested every 6 game days, and a hectare of it brings 1,800 grain at once: on average the same $3,600 worth a day as any field. A field holds its harvest and 3 days of its yield more; if its last harvest is still in it, what does not fit is lost, so keep its truck line running. A field's card (click it on the map) says its stage, when its harvest is due and what it will bring.
| Good | Grows as | A cycle | A hectare's harvest | A hectare, a day on average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Logs | a wood lot, felled and replanted | 16 days | 1,920 | 120 |
 Grain | a field of wheat | 6 days | 1,800 | 300 |
 Cotton | a field of cotton | 8 days | 1,440 | 180 |
 Livestock | a pasture, fenced | steady | every hour | 60 |
 Fruit | an orchard or a vineyard | 10 days | 2,250 | 225 |
 Corn | a field of maize | 8 days | 2,400 | 300 |
 Barley | a field of barley | 5 days | 1,500 | 300 |
 Sunflower seeds | a field of sunflower | 7 days | 1,400 | 200 |
 Canola seeds | a field of canola | 7 days | 1,400 | 200 |
Orchards, vineyards and wood lots#
- Fruit grows as an orchard (apples; oranges towards the tropics) or, on a vineyard, as rows of vines. It flowers and fruits, and is picked by a tractor and trailer every 10 days. A new orchard's trees are young for most of their first year.
- Logs come from a wood lot: the trees are felled every 16 days, all at once, and replanted, growing again from saplings.
Pastures#
Livestock is raised on a pasture: cattle, sheep or pigs wander it, and it yields steadily, every hour, not at harvest. A pasture must be fenced to hold its animals, so it is fenced with a wire fence as it is drawn (its price is added to the field's) and keeps a fence for as long as it is a pasture. You can replace the fence with another kind, but not take it down.
Fences#
Any field of a farm, and any parcel of your land, can be fenced: a field from its card, your land from its card in Build → Land. A fence goes along every side, with a gate on the side facing your storage (open while the field is worked). It costs its kind's price a metre round the edge, from $6 to $20, and nothing comes back when it is taken down.
| Fence | A metre | Round a hectare square |
|---|---|---|
 Wire fence | $6 | $2,400 |
 Post and rail | $12 | $4,800 |
 Hedge | $9 | $3,600 |
 Stone wall | $20 | $8,000 |
Farm buildings#
Build → Farm buildings, or the farm buildings on your land's card. They are placed like storage: on your land, clear of your fields and storage, turned with Q / E. Each helps your fields within 500 m of it; two of a kind near the same field do no more than one. Taken down, one sells back at 50% of its price.
| Building | Does | Price | A day | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Farmhouse | Your fields within 500 m yield 10% more. | $60,000 | $40 | 10×10 m |
 Barn | Your fields within 500 m hold 3 more days of their yield. | $55,000 | $50 | 15×20 m |
 Machinery shed | Your fields within 500 m cost 20% less to run. | $45,000 | $40 | 15×10 m |
 Cattle shed | Your pastures within 500 m raise 15% more livestock. | $40,000 | $35 | 15×10 m |
 Packing shed | Your orchards within 500 m yield 10% more fruit. | $35,000 | $30 | 10×10 m |