Balázs György (szerk.): The abolition of serfdom and its impact on rural culture, Guide to the Exhibition Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Revolution and War if Independence of 1848-49 (Budapest-Szentendre, Museum of Hungarian Agriculture-Hungarian Open-Air Museum, 1998.)

number of the animals kept there. Hay was usually insufficient and of poor quality. Beef-cattle and the so-called barren flock was kept for progeny, meat, and wool. In the market towns of the Great Plains both peasant and manorial economy were characterized by extensive and nomadic stock-breeding. In winter, cattle reared in the open air were fed on corn-stalks left Model of Körösjánosfalva in Transylvania in the first half of the 19th century uncut, grass, underwood, and poor-quality hay. The animals were protected by wind-breaks made of reed, stock-yards. and woods. On the marshy parts of the Great Plains, swine spent the winter mostly on the dry meadows, while in the woods of the hilly regions they lived on mast. In severe winters the animals grew much weaker and the weather often took its tithe of them. By the 1840s, the boom in wool resulted in growing flocks of Merino sheep, both on medium and large estates. These animals yielded more wool but demanded greater care. At the same time the wars of the Habsburg dynasty against France around the tum of the 18th and 19th centuries demanded large quantities of cereals. This and the subsequent boom in wool brought about relative prosperity in 12