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The Trade Depot

The Trade Depot is a large area in the southeast corner of Oak Tree Town where foreign countries come to trade with your region. Veronica explains that the trades that take place between the countries and Oak Tree town is beneficial for everyone involved, and hopes that more vendors will become available in the future. The depot space can hold up to four visiting vendors per day; the fifth spot is reserved for your own personal vendor booth.

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The vendors will appear at 9:00 and leave at 21:00, regardless of the weather. They're there during rain, snow, hurricanes, and whatever else is available. The vendors are even there on festival days! During these special days, you can use the Trade Depot up until the festival start time, and then again after the festival is over. If you aren't participating in the activities that Veronica has set up in the depot space, she will prevent you from entering it until the festivities are over.

To interact with a vendor, talk to him or her from the opposite side of the counter. The booth manager will then give you an option to Ship your goods, Buy items, or Ask about Animals (if applicable). Since your income is earned by selling goods to the international shopkeepers, you'll be using the Ship option frequently.

The Desk Calendar inside your farm house will list the upcoming schedule for the vendor appearances. At the beginning of the game you might have several days between visits from the Silk Country vendor. This calendar is important to use when you are participating in a Conquest for a rental field. It is not a good idea to accept a Conquest challenge for shipped items when there's no vendor scheduled to ship through during the Conquest dates! (I'm even guilty of doing this, doh!)

The Depot Vendors

At the beginning of the game you'll only have Asche from Silk Country. She will appear as marked on your Desk Calendar and set up shop for you to sell through. As you proceed through the game, you'll unlock an additional six vendors: Cabin Country, Sakura Country, Wheat Country, Rose Country, Tropical Country, and Ice Country. Each vendor has a specialty based on the region they're from. For example, Sakura Country sells eastern-themed items like Bamboo, and Rose Country sells herbs and flower seeds.

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To unlock additional vendors you'll need to ship products through the depot. The amount of money you need to earn to unlock each one will be the same whether you are playing in Original mode or in Seedling mode, but the number of specific items required for Ice and Tropical will be reduced in Seedling mode. To keep track of the amount of money you have earned so far, select the paper and pencil icon on the bottom screen of your Nintendo 3DS, and then select the Ship Log. The top screen on your Nintendo 3DS will show you how much money you have earned from your total shipments.

The special shipment requests that you accept from Jonas at the Information Booth count towards unlocking vendors. Don't be afraid to take up a special request.

Each time a new vendor is unlocked, Veronica and Jonas will introduce you to him or her in the morning. The country will then appear on the Desk Calendar inside of your farm house. The new vendor introductions may be delayed by a few days if you have had other morning greeting events taking place, so don't worry if your new vendor greeting doesn't occur the next day after you've met the requirements. It will eventually trigger.

Unlocking Cabin Country

Marielle is the vendor for Cabin Country, and will set up shop once you have shipped a total of 100,000 G worth of products through Silk Country and you have reached at least Summer 1 of your first year.

Unlocking Sakura Country

Yoshino and his black horses will start to visit the Trade Depot after you have unlocked Cabin Country, you have reached Fall of your first year or later, and you have shipped a total of 200,000 G through the existing vendors at the depot. You don't have to ship items exclusively through a specific vendor; your overall shipments are what count towards unlocking new vendors.

Unlocking Wheat Country

The country boy, Kenneth, will arrive at the Trade Depot after you have unlocked Sakura Country and you have shipped at least 500,000 G. He doesn't have a season requirement like the previous two vendors.

Unlocking Rose Country

The last of the basic vendors, Ennio, will unlock once you have met the requirements for Wheat Country to appear and you have shipped at least 1,000,000 G through the depot vendors. He too does not have a season requirement.

Unlocking Tropical Country

The requirements for enticing Yolanda from Tropical Country to set up shop is a minimum of 3,000,000 G worth of shipments, have Rose Country unlocked, and ship a minimum number of items in specific categories. The number of items you need to sell to the other vendors will vary depending on if you are playing in Original mode or Seedling mode:

Tools

You are not restricted on what type of tool you can ship. As long as it is from the "Tool" category, it will count towards unlocking Tropical Country. Otmar's General Store sells one of each old style tool per day that you can use for meeting this requirement, or two per day if you're playing in Seedling mode. You can also ship Fertilizer.

Seeds

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You could simply buy all the seeds you can, and then sell them back to the vendors, but there is a better (and much faster) way to meet the seed requirement. First, you will need to build the Seed Maker shed.

Next, plant a LOT of Grass Seeds. The seeds can be purchased from Otmar's General Store for 30 G each (or 21 G if in Seedling mode). The more fodder grass you plant, the faster you can complete this requirement.

Grass takes 2 days to mature and regrows every day for 30 days. Each time you harvest the growing grass with your Sickle, you'll receive 9 pieces of Fodder. You can then take the Fodder to the Dehydrator machine inside the Seed Maker, convert it to Dried Fodder, and then place it into the seeding machine to make 9 bags of Grass Seed. Then, simply sell the bags of Grass Seed to the merchants at the Trade Depot.

Even just having one patch of mature grass (that isn't also being used to feed your livestock) can produce 63 bags of Grass Seed per week (9 x 7 = 63).

Vesture (i.e., Farm Products)

This requirement you're just going to have to trudge through, but it will help to use crops that have a fast maturity or regrowth rate: Turnip in Spring, Sweet Pepper and Tomato in Summer, Sweet Potato in Fall, and Radish in Winter.

It will also help if you own the public field associated with these types of crops. Turnip, Sweet Potato, and Radish use the Root Vegetable field, while Sweet Pepper and Tomato use the Tall Crop field. Growing crops in their set-aside fields will result in a faster maturity speed than if you planted on your own farm land. Owning the Tea Field can also produce a lot of tea leaves to ship without much effort on your part. The Fodder grass that you can grow and harvest also counts as part of the Vesture category.

You can grow crops inside of a Greenhouse, which contains 15 spaces for you to till into field spaces.

You'll most likely sell more crops than you will animal products, but eggs, milk, etc. do count towards meeting this requirement. You can increase the number of products your animals produce by feeding them the animal-specific treats, up to 5 products per animal.

Cooked Recipes

There's no way to buy cooked dishes and then resell them, but completing special shipping requests from Jonas' Information Booth can sometimes result in a reward of cooked recipes, which you can then sell.

It is easiest if you use recipes that only require one ingredient such as Turnip Salad, Radish Salad, Sweet Potato Salad, Tomato Juice, and the like. Cooked dishes can also be crafted using ingredients from your animals such as Egg Soup or Boiled Egg. The standard Hot Milk recipe, common in many Bokujou Monogatari games, unfortunately doesn't exist in Story of Seasons.

Another thing you can do is take Conquest over the Tea field, then plant Tea bush seedlings in the 12 spaces available. Once mature, each Tea bush will produce 9 seasonal tea leaves every 5 days, for a total of 108 tea leaves (9 x 12). Tea is produced during the Spring, Summer, and Fall without any assistance from you other than harvesting the leaves. You can then make Milk Tea by combining a tea leaf and Milk. The recipe is purchased at Silk Country for 1000 G. You just have to remember to renew the lease on the field at the Guild Hall when it comes due or risk losing all of your Tea bushes.

You can also buy Flour from Wheat Country for 450 G each, then use it to bake Bread in your kitchen. Kenneth's stock of Flour is limited each time he visits, with 5 being the minimum and 15 being the maximum number in his inventory. You can use this same technique to make Roasted Rice Ball, by getting Rice from Silk Country or Sakura Country, then cooking it in your kitchen. The recipe for Roasted Rice Ball is for sale at Sakura Country for 1500 G. You've more opportunity to buy Rice, as it is sold by two Trade Depot vendors.

If you have a lot of cows producting great quantities of milk, you can also cook up some Milk Soup. This recipe is for sale at Cabin Country once you've bought the Basic Soup recipe set from Merielle.

If you happen to of successfully grown any golden-quality crops, using them in your cooked recipes will result in double the number of cooked dishes (e.g., 2 Golden Turnips = 4 Turnip Salad).

Processed Good

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This one has a large number of shipments requirement, but it is not difficult to do when you know that Dried Fodder is part of the processed goods Trade Category. Use the same technique as you did for seeds, but ship the Dried Fodder instead of converting it to seeds. Bam! All done!

Clothes

This Wardrobe Trade Category includes glasses, accessories, hats, and clothes, and you should anticipate that this will take some time to complete. The glasses and jewelry items all require ores and gems, and the hats need cloth made with animal wool, so basic clothing outfits is the best way to go. Starting in Fall of year 1, Cabin Country will begin to sell Red Yarn Ball, Orange Yarn Ball, Yellow Yarn Ball, Green Yarn Ball, Blue Yarn Ball, and Purple Yarn Ball for 1500 G each. You can then use the Sewing Studio to convert the yarn into cloth. Starting in Spring of year 2, Silk Country sells Red Cloth, Orange Cloth, and Yellow Cloth for 2000 G each, and Orange Cloth, Blue Cloth, and Purple Cloth in Fall of year 2.

Your Sewing Studio comes with several clothing patterns that aren't difficult to make. The Girls' Overalls outfit needs 1 Blue Cloth, 1 Yellow Cloth, and 1 Orange cloth. The Working Mini-Shorts needs 1 Orange Cloth, 1 Green Cloth, and 1 Yellow Cloth. Ideally, you'd want to use patterns that don't require many materials.

Another option is the Cowboy Style outfit, which requires 1 Yellow Cotton Cloth, 1 Blue Cotton Cloth, and 1 Red Cotton Cloth. You can grow Cotton by purchasing the seeds from Rose Country. It can grow in the Tall Crop rental field. You could also buy the required cloth at Rose Country starting in Summer of year 2 for 3000 G each.

Even though making accessories is kind of a pain if you're just going to ship them, if you have the money for it you could buy the accessories from the Trade Depot vendors and then sell them back.

Unlocking Ice Country

It is easier to unlock Ice Country than Tropical Country. The quiet-talking Katrina will become unlocked at the Trade Depot after you have shipped a total of 3,000,000 G worth of goods to the other vendors, be in year 2 or later, have unlocked Rose Country, and have shipped a required number of objects you've made using the Craft Table inside of your farm house. The number of objects you need will be determined by the mode you're playing in:

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When working with construction objects, you are going to need to collect a LOT of materials, specifically Small Lumber and Lumber. While you can't chop down the trees between your farm and Oak Tree Town, you can grow lumber trees on your farm to harvest. The Hardwood Tree Seedling is for sale at Rose Country for 300 G and will produce 16 pieces of Small Lumber. The Softwood Tree Seedling is for sale at Wheat Country for 300 G and will produce 16 pieces of Lumber. Both of these trees take 20 days to mature when grown on your farm or 16 days to mature when grown in the Tree Field.

One issue to keep in mind is that there is a limit of 100 items on the ground. When you chop down a lumber tree, three pieces of lumber will appear on the ground, with the fourth one appearing when you destroy the leftover stump. If you happen to of grown a lot of trees, went through and chopped them all down, and then run back to collect the lumber, you might discover that the lumber from your first lumber tree has vanished because you hit the 100-item display limit of the game. To avoid this, simply stop every so often when harvesting your lumber trees to pick up the produced lumber.

Fences

The Wooden Fence Set is for sale at Silk Country or Gunther's Carpentry shop. The set includes the Wooden Fence, the Wooden Gate, and the Wooden Door. Making a Wooden Fence requires 6 Small Lumber, and it is the easiest fence to construct for unlocking Ice Country.

Decorations

For this one there are two simple options: the Beacon or the Hay Bale. The blueprint for the Beacon is either at Silk Country or Gunther's and requires 3 Lumber to construct. The Hay Bale blueprint is for sale at Wheat Country and requires 10 Fodder to construct. If you still are growing a lot of Fodder for working on the seed or processed goods categories for unlocking Tropical Country, you can reuse that crop to make lots of Hay Bales.

Optionally, there is also the Wooden Bench (8 Lumber), Sign Post (6 Small Lumber), or Barrels (3 Small Lumber + 4 Lumber). The Wooden Bench is at Silk or Gunther's, the Sign Post is at Cabin Country once you have shipped 300,000 G through SILK Country, and the Barrels are for sale at Wheat Country or Gunther's.

Gardening

This category is full of flower pot and other floral-style blueprints. The simplest blueprint that doesn't require you to grow tons of flowers is the Lattice. This fancy wooden fence blueprint is for sale at Rose Country and requires 14 Small Lumber to construct.

Street

For this requirement, you can mix it up by making Paving Stones instead of something that uses lumber. The blueprint is for sale at Silk Country for 600 G and requires 3 Small Stone to make. You can collect Small Stone by hitting Pebbles with your hammer or by buying it from Gunther's shop. Another option are the Eastern Paving Stones blueprint from Sakura Country, which requires just the 3 Pebbles.

If you need to use up Rock instead, look for the Stone Slab (Silk Co. after you own the Paving Stones) that require 5 Stone, or the Eastern Stone Slab (Sakura Co. after you own the Eastern Paving Stones) that require 5 Rock.

Furniture

Your best bet is to use the Tea Table blueprint that came with your Craft Table (8 Lumber), the Chest blueprint (6 Lumber) from Silk or Gunther's, or the Coffee Table blueprint (8 Lumber) from either Silk Country or Gunther's Carpentry shop. Many of the other furniture objects require extra cloth or ores.

If you have a lot of leftover Small Lumber, you can also construct the Cardboard Box. The blueprint is for sale at Mistel's Antique Shop for 4200 G after you have unlocked your third Depot vendor. Constructing a Cardboard Box requires 5 Small Lumber.

Wallpaper/Flooring

Again, the basic blueprints that come with your Craft Table are the best ones to use to maximize your efforts. The Plain Wallpaper requires 15 Small Lumber and the Plain Flooring requires only 13 Small Lumber.