A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1973 (Debrecen, 1975)

Néprajz - Varga Gyula: Market-Gardening at Derecske, the Growing of Onions and Vegetables

Gyula Varga MARKET-GARDENING AT DERECSKE, THE GROWING OF ONIONS AND VEGETABLES One cannot find the name of Derecske among the areas where in Hungary vegetables are grown in spite of the fact that in this village and also in the neighbouring villages the production of various vegetables has a tradition of several hundred years. In this area farmers had a specialized system of growing and selling vegetables on the market. Written records testify that onios were grown at Derecske as long ago as 1819 (shown by statistics written by Pál Magda, Elek Fényes, Károly Galgóczy, etc.)

; archival documents reveal that as early as the first half of the 18th century, onions, parsley and carrots were grown here on a fairly large scale. The development of the production of the above vegetables goes back to even earlier times. The problem is closely connected with geographical and pedological factors, since in the area of Derecske, at the borderline of two types of soil (the black soil of Sárrét and the sandy soil of the Nyírség), we can find highly favourable circumstances for gardening. The system of taxation also seems to have contributed to the early development of market gardening at Derecske because the villagers, after having lost their independence as Heyducks as the beginning of the 18th century and become tax-paying feudal tenants, were soon forced to produce for the market. The division of the fields where gardening was introduced was carried out also in the first half of the 18th century when farmers were compelled to work on the estates of the Eszterházy-family. The land was cultivated in a 4-course rotation (1. wheat, 2. maize, 3. cereals and feedstuffs, 4. fallow land), but separate areas were reserved for the oniongarden, where small, independent farmsteads were organized. On the other agricultural areas (fields, meadows and arable land) there was rotation-free farming. One of the characteristic features of onion and vegetable production is that it was based on gardens (cca. 550. English Acres) and families had vegetable gardens of varying sizes (7600-23,000 square foot). The agricultural technique of arable lands and gardens was exactly the same. The main features are the following: 1. cultivation with plough; 2. the growing of plants from seed; 3. seeds were sown by hand; 4. primitive weeding techniques, the only tool being the so called vakaró (scraper, made by the local blacksmith from the sharp end of the scythe; 5. ordinary spade and the vakaró were used for digging the vegetables from the garden soil; 6. the onions digged out were sorted into 4 classes: a) first class, medium sized, not damaged pieces, good for hibernation; b) second class, the largest, not damaged pieces which are not good for hibertation; c) the smallest ones, seed onion for the next year; d) damaged pieces. From the vegetables only the damaged specimens were sorted out. 7. The farmers produced the seed-grain themselves always from the specimens representing the favourable traits of the species (round onions, peaky onions, white parsley, carrots)

. The seed-grains were grown mostly in the gardens and harvested by hand. 8. Seed onions were grown to set out in the ground in order to have chives in early spring. The seeds were sown dense (misling onions), the seed onions were dried on the top of the oven, then beside the oven in the chimney corner (sutos onions). The onions not properly dried shoot forth a stalk, these were called bördős onions. These stalks were broken off if the farmer did not want to grow seeds. The yield was stored in primitive circumstances

: the onions on the garrets of thatched houses, the vegetables in clamps. New methods of cultivation were introduced in the 1930s. Seeds were sown in rows, various sowing machines and hoes came to be employed, but their use did not become general before the Second World War. The yield was put to the market in the traditional way: farmers travelled long distances to reach markets and fairs. They used a kind of covered wagon (cart) which enabled 279