Crop Order
| Crop Order | |
|---|---|
| Type | Special Order |
| Board | Special Orders board |
| Giver | Lewis |
| Time Limit | 28 days |
| Needed | Not Winter |
| Repeatable | Yes |
Mayor Lewis speaks for the Pelican Town Agricultural Fund on this posting, and the fund wants a hundred of whichever crop is in demand that year shipped before the season ends. The crop is drawn from the season the board is in, so the same order reads differently in Spring, Summer and Fall and never appears at all in Winter. Payment arrives as a share of what that crop is worth, which means the fund pays far better for a hundred Pumpkins than for a hundred Wheat, and the gold lands on top of whatever the shipping bin already paid for the harvest. The first completion also brings a Mini-Shipping Bin by post, a placeable bin that saves the walk back across the farm at the end of a long day. Taken on the first Monday of a season it is one of the easiest large payouts on the board, and taken late it is one of the quickest ways to run out of days.
The board reads: [Crop] are in high demand this year. Anyone who ships 100 [Crop] by the end of the season will earn a substantial reward from the Pelican Town Agricultural Fund.
Requirements
Only crops pulled out of the ground after the order went live count towards the hundred. A shed full of last season's harvest is worth nothing to the fund, which is why the posting is worth reading before the planting rather than after it.
Shipping means the farm's own bin. Crops carried into the General Store and sold over the counter register as a sale and nothing more, and the same goes for handing them to any other shopkeeper. Dropping them in the bin at the end of the day is the whole of the delivery.
The progress bar lies a little. Only shipments from earlier days are drawn into it, so a crate stuffed full on the closing morning leaves the order looking unfinished. That last load is still tallied overnight with everything else, and the order closes properly.
Which crop is named changes how hard the hundred is to reach. Several of the candidates keep producing after the first pick, and those are the kind ones. A Blueberry plant hands over three berries at every harvest and goes again every four days, so forty or so plants clear the hundred without a second sowing. Cranberries pick two at a time and repeat every five days, Grapes and Hot Peppers come back every three days, and Tomatoes and Eggplants every four or five. The single-harvest names are the demanding ones. Cauliflower, Melon and Pumpkin each need thirteen days or close to it from seed to harvest and give one crop per plant, so a hundred plants have to go in the ground, be watered and be guarded by scarecrows, and a second sowing will not fit inside one season.
Potatoes sit between the two, since a lifted plant sometimes hands over a second potato alongside the first, which quietly shaves a few plants off the target.
Which fish or crop is asked for depends on the season.
| Season | Crops |
|---|---|
| Spring | Cauliflower, Garlic, Green Bean, Potato |
| Summer | Blueberry, Hot Pepper, Melon, Radish, Tomato, Wheat |
| Fall | Amaranth, Artichoke, Bok Choy, Cranberries, Eggplant, Grape, Pumpkin, Yam |
Rewards
The fund pays half of the crop's ordinary base value for each of the hundred shipped, and the Tiller profession's bonus is applied on top for anyone who took it. Because the crops have to be shipped to count, that payment is pure profit stacked on the sale, which makes this the rare posting that pays twice for the same harvest. The spread between the candidates is wide. A hundred Pumpkins at half their considerable base price is a serious sum for a farm still saving for barns, while a hundred Wheat is barely worth the walk.
The Mini-Shipping Bin arrives by post after the first completion only. It works exactly like the bin by the farmhouse, takes a modest number of stacks, and may be dropped wherever it is wanted, inside a building as readily as out. Anything dropped into it can still be fished back out until the day ends, so a mistake is recoverable. Planting a second bin at the far end of a large farm or inside the greenhouse removes a daily walk, which matters more than the gold by the time the farm is covered in sprinklers. The same item can be bought later with Qi Gems, so getting it free here is worth something.
The order is repeatable, and every later run pays its share of the harvest again while the bin stays a one-off.
Finishing the order pays out all of this.
| Reward | Image |
|---|---|
| Gold equivalent to 50% of the base quality crop price (Tiller profession bonus applies if the farmer has chosen that profession) | 
|
| Mini-Shipping Bin by mail (only the 1st time) | 
|
Strategy
Take it on the first Monday of a season if it is there. Twenty-eight days is exactly a season, so an order accepted on the opening day gives the whole season to grow and ship, and an order accepted halfway through gives half of it. That single decision is the difference between a comfortable job and an impossible one.
Buy the seeds in one trip and plant the whole hundred at once wherever the crop is a single-harvest type. Speed-Gro under the seeds shortens the wait, and the Agriculturist profession shortens it further, which can be enough to squeeze in a second sowing of a fast crop. For a regrowing crop, count backwards instead: a plant that gives three at a time over four or five pickings needs nowhere near a hundred seeds.
The common failure is a late acceptance against a slow crop. A Pumpkin order taken on the fifteenth of Fall leaves a fortnight, and the plants need almost all of it, so a day lost to a festival or a passing out can sink it. The second failure is selling the harvest to Pierre out of habit, which pays the gold and moves the counter not at all.
Notes
The countdown starts the day the posting goes up rather than the day it is taken, so the four weeks on the board shrink with every day it is left unread. Once taken it cannot be handed back, and a fund request that runs out of days will be pinned up again in a later season.
Nothing in the seasonal lists grows in Winter, which is why the board never carries this posting then. A farm wanting the Mini-Shipping Bin before the cold sets in has three chances a year to be offered it, and the same furniture also comes from Pierre's own promotion, so a farm that finishes both ends up with a pair of them.
All Special Orders
Every special order from both boards, with who posts it and how long it runs.