A Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Levéltár évkönyve 19. 1992 (Debrecen, 1992)

Balogh István tiszteletére - Orosz István: A belső legelő használata Debrecenben a XVIII-XIX. században

UTILISATION OF INNER GRAZING LANDS IN DEBRECEN IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES

(by) István Orosz

Like in other towns and market towns with extensive land properties in the Hungarian Plain, important changes occured in the land management in Debrecen at the end of the 17th and in the bebginning of the 18th centuries. In the field of animal husbandry, a distinction had emerged between the so-called wild (szilaj) and tame (kezes) keeping of animals. In the former case, animals were out on pasture from spring till autumn and were put into stables and regularly fed only in the winter. In the latter, herds returned home daily and were regularly fed even when they were put to pasture. In addition, private grazing had been gradually replaced by common pasture of animals.

Farming also followed the needs of animal husbandry. Fields belonging to a settlement were divided in a belt like manner, which arrangement remained a characteristic feature of the Hungarian Plain towns and market .towns until the second half of the 19th century. „Inner grazing lands” encircling the settlements served the needs of herds returning home daily while more distant „outer grazing lands” were kept for those spending spring, summer and autumn months out on pasture. The zone (beblt) of cultivated fields was in between.

In the cca. 250 thousand acres beblonging (170,000 kat. h.) to the city of Debrecen this belt-like distribution had been well established by the of the 17th century, with „inner grazing lands” of about 24 thousand acres (16,000 kat. h.)

The paper deals with the utilisation of the „inner grazing lands” of Debrecen, which were in common use until 1876. Pasture was the dominant way of use but, unlike in other towns, part of these lands were also used for growing plants.

The tame grazing stock depasturing inner grazing lands in the 17—19th centuries constituted 16 to 25 percent of all the livestock owned by the inhabitants of Debrecen.

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