Ljudje ob Muri. Népek a Mura Mentén 1. kötet (Zalaegerszeg, 1996)

Király István Szabolcs (Kaposvár): Exchange of Technical Experience in the Mura-region at the Beginning of the 19th Century

KIRÁLY István Szabolcs EXCHANGE OF TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE MURA-REGION AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 19TH CENTURY The western countires had been playing an important role in contributing to the technical development of Hungarian agriculture nearly since the foundation of the state. From the turn of the 18-19th century onwards, the agricultural reform started in Western Europe initiated through the activities of Young, Small, Thaer, Schwerz, Domblase etc. - the modernisation of Hungarian agriculture, too. Its effects can be observed mainly in the case of cultivation and of thereshing. The corn-prosperity contirbuted also to the modernisation of grain-beating, this way the landowners and the tenants with appropriate capital strived after the mechanization of threshing. The lecture describes such an attempt with the help of original written sources. Albert Hummelauer constructed his steady threshing-machine with treadmill on the basis of his Styrian experiences in 1838 in Magyaratád, Somogy County. The dimensions of the machinery made up of treadmill and thresher are fascinating, its capacity is more than double of treading out. The machine produced clean and marketable grain. In the 19th century, the fixed threshing-machines were in general use in Somogy County. But the machines constructed of wood were not long-lived and that way they were expensive. Very soon the English movable threshers, later on the metal ones with treadmill of Hungarian make supplanted them. The appearance of the steam-threshers from the 1860's onwards means the real breaking through. 204