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.)

Fields were subdivided into smaller parts called dűlő and these, in turn, into ones called nyilas (arrows) meaning parcels. The term derives from the tradition of drawing lots (arrows) to ensure that everyone should have at least one parcel of land in each dűlő. On plots scattered and sandwiched between those used by others, farming was possible only in a concerted manner. Peasant were forced to coordinate production not only in the cultivation of grain crops but also in stock-breeding. When harvest was over, the animals of the village were let graze on the stubble. It followed from this that mostly cereals (wheat, rye, barley, oat, and a mixture of wheat and rye) were sown. As soil was improved only to a small degree, and cultivation involved Peasant following the plough relatively little labour, lands usually yielded badly. Each seed yielded an average of three or four new ones, while yield ratio in England was one to ten in those years. The livestock intended to be fattened was kept in a nomadic way, i.e., in the open fields winter and summer alike and was hardly given fodder. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries traditional stock-breeding rested on natural meadows and fallows, hay made on natural meadows, and straw. Due to the lack of fodder the animals were driven afield at the earliest possible date in spring and were often left there till November. When winters were mild, they were left there to graze for the whole winter. Not only the size but also the quality of the meadow limited the 11