Kecskés Péter (szerk.): Upper Tisza region (Regional Units of Open Air Museum. Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1980)

1. LAND AND MAN

tern Hungary and the Great Plain where the cultivatable areas could be enlarged for producing wheat. The inhabitants of Erdőhát however, were engaged in forestry and husbandry as they had been since medieval times, and farming only took place on the fields lying higher which could be tilled after the floods had abated. Land was tilled with wooden ploughs and harrows made of thorns, on the basis of the two or three rotation system and harvests were still in 1905 with the sickle of which the blade was saw-toodhed. Though wheat, rye, oats, corn, hemp and flax could be grown, only so much was produced as needed to supply their own needs. Thus agriculture was no more than secondary to animal husbandry, which was in a transitive state at the end of the century. It was most profitable to breed Hungarian cattle suitable for becoming draught animals. After dividing the cattle-herds, the pastures having become diminished, farmers experimented with breeding cattle crossed with other kinds, Simmenthal and those of Bonyhád, favourable for meat and milking. Yoke-oxen were valued higher than horses. The latter were kept mainly in such villages where the men were engaged in transport, and were also kept in the stables of wealthier farmers and noblemen. Pigkeeping was general. Until the World War one, pigs were driven into the oak-forests to feed on acorns and also to the Turci hills of county Bereg. Though piglets kept out-of-doors could only be fattened after having reached a year and a half, by the second half of the last century most of the slaughter-houses in Debrecen and close to Budapest (Kőbánya) were supplied with swine from County Szatmár. Sheep-farming was also significant, especially after the hog-cholera at the end of the last century. Sheep were simple to keep, and were raised mainly on small farms, as their products could be used for clothing as well as for food. Sheep were milked and cheese was made out of their milk in both small and large farms some of which specialized in sheep. Poultry were to be found in every household, and at the end of most gardens bee-hives would be kept as honey also brought some money in to the house. Orchards go back many centuries in this region. Various kinds of apples and pears used to be carried to neighbouring counties on rafts, and were replaced by fruit-trees of better quality at the end of the last century. There were famous prunes in County Szatmár (that of „Beszterce" and of „Penyige") and the nuts of Milota were renowded. Farmes of the Erdőhát would take their produce to the markets of Nagyszőllős, Tiszaújlak and Beregszász, where they would buy the products of urban artisans, barrelmakers, wheelrights, carpen10