Wellmann Imre szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1971-1972 (Budapest, 1973)

Fussel, George Edwin: What is traditional agriculture

metrical plough, the traction being provided by a team of oxen, conventionally eight, but more frequently two or four and very occasionally more than eight. Where the land was divided into two great fields both winter and spring cereals and peas and beams etc. were grown in one field, the other being fallow. Where the land was divided into three great fields, winter cereals were grown in one, spring crops in another, the third remaining fallow. Grazing rights were enjoyed on these fields after harvest and on the cropped area for a specified time in the field that lay fallow. All this is, of course, common knowledge, but the point I wish to make is that since the system continued in places from the ninth to the nineteenth century it might very well be ranked as traditional agriculture. In some places the land still lies in strips, but these are now occupied in individual ownership, and all rights of common over them have been abolished, or have fallen into disuse. Some modifications were slowly made from the Middle Ages in scattered places. The most important of these was in the Low Countries, but these changes were more rapidly made in England in the late seventeenth and during the eighteenth century. Much of the open fields was enclosed, and made into compact farms, the rights of pasturage on the fallow being abolished so that each farmer could do what he liked with his own. The 4-course rotation emerged as the most advanced farming of that period, roots and clover being grown in alternate years with cereals, i.e., wheat, turnips, barley, etc., with clover and rye grass undersown and left down the following year. Far sighted persons on the continent of Europe, more especially in Germany, followed suit, and this system remained standard practice until 1900. In a sense this process was transforming traditional agriculture, though it in turn became traditional for about 200 years, a brief period for a tradition to become established. It has been largely superseded since the first world war. But there are many parts of Europe where the earlier systems still prevail. This is particularly so in Spain where the physical climate and environment are.serious obstacles to the adoption of modern methods. When the poverty of most of the farmers is coupled with these difficulties their situation is made even worse. As I have said the seventeenth and eighteenth century transformation of traditional agriculture over wide areas of Europe was the inclusion of fodder crops in a new rotation. This encouraged and made possible the breeding of better and more powerful livestock that could haul improved implements. This course of action was impossible in Spain because of the farmers' lack of money and their inimical environment. It may therefore be said that much, if not all, of Spanish farming is traditional. . Italy is in a rather different aase. Here the land has been farmed in one way or another ever since Roman times, and perhaps before. Although forces of planned change are at work it is not too much to say that in spite of the introduction of new crops, maize, the potato, tobacco, sugar beet, a great deal of the farm work is still done manually with hand tools, and in very much the same way as it has been done for two thousand years. The fodder grasses and legumes have been known in this country for the same length of time, and so wrought no revolution in the past two centuries, although a 4-course rotation had been preached since about 1600 A.D. I do not wish to labour this point, but in some of the French and Swiss Alps, the Stubaital in Tyrol, parts of Bavaria, a great deal of the farming could be described as traditional. About ten years ago indeed I saw cows hauling a plough in the Eifel. Traditional