Paládi-Kovács Attila: A Barkóság és népe (Miskolc, 2006)

Angol nyelvű összefoglaló

the forests was changed to individual ownership in the middle of the 19th Century (or earlier, in some places). The boundaries of these privately owned lands were indicated by property marks carved into the trees. In the peasant and lesser nobility forests the owners themselves felled the trees, while on the larger estates woodcutters were employed. The latter preferred to work by twos because the earned best that way but they also worked in groups of four to six. They produced firewood, construction wood and industrial wood (mine supports, railway crossties) alike. It was a custom to remove the bark from the young oaks in early summer. A large amount of charcoal was fired in the region during the 18th and 19th centuries for the local iron industry. The big companies brought in a good amount of Slovak charcoal burning workers from Gömör County. There are still a few words in the language to preserve the memory of this period (e.g. lavenka, plésa). Forest industry only burned lime on the southern edge of the Barkóság, in the Bükk mountains. And this ancient method continued in this form until 1950 when it was reorganized within a factory framework. The sap of the birchtree and oak, tapped from the tree itself is a popular beverage among people who spend a great deal of time in the forest. They tap the tree with axes or drills (Fig. I.). The sap of the oak is called boza and it is also used as a medicine. In the 19th Century wolves and wild boar were hunted by trapping them in pits, while roe-deer, and hare were hunted with snares, spring-traps, and foot-traps. They were also acquainted with the springpole snare which was tied onto a young tree, bent so that its top touched the ground. Branches covered with glue were used principally to catch songbirds. Forest bee-keeping has lively traditions. Bee hunters find the bees living in hollow trees, smoke them out and steal their honey (Fig. 2-4). In many places they saw out the entire hollow, bees and all and take it home. They also collect a wide variety of mushrooms which they sell either fresh or dried. Up till the 1950s forest fruit, particularly wild pears and wild apples were highly popular. Juniper seeds, acorns, and bunch-berries were collected for distilling, elderberries and rose-hips for jam, and a wide variety of herbs for tea, soup and medicine. Their livestock grazed in the forests, and they collected hay, acorns and mistletoe for fodder and dried leaves for the stable and barn floors, all from the forest. This was also where they collected the reeds for brooms and baskets (Fig. 5.), and the wood for their tools. In other words, the forest played an extraordinary important role in the life of the people. 3. Stock-keeping has always been the most important branch of peasant farming. The greatest profit was from cattle-keeping, they marketed fattened cattle and draught oxen. Up till the 1920s or 1930s, the main breeding stock was grey Hungarian cattle. They were put out to pasture from spring to autumn, and drove only the cows into the village for the night. They had common, undivided pastures and the farmers also employed a common herdsman. There was significant horse-keeping in the areas participating in long-distance iron-freighting. Rolled and wrought iron was transported to Budapest and Debrecen. They also journeyed to the plainland by the Tisza River where they used their animals to thresh grain. Sheep stock was always significant, and in the wool boom of the 18th and 19th centuries their stock increased quite extensively. There was a gradual shift from the old Hungarian sheep breeds to the Merino. In the first half of the 20th Century the Barkóság continued to be one of the most significant sheep-breeding areas in the country. Swine were also kept on mass and fattened on acorns in the oak forests. In the 19th Century it was still the custom to drive sheep through the mining towns of Northern Hungary.