Page 117 - Mocarelli, Luca, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2020. Maize to the People! Cultivation, Consumption and Trade in the North-Eastern Mediterranean (Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century). Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 117
innovation in the south-easter n alps: maize as a crop in car inthia ...
Figure 2. Maize seeder
Source: Burger 1809.
in agricultural science research. Even today, it is one of the “classics” of spe-
cialist literature on maize cultivation. The Carinthian agricultural scientist
euphorically reports about the spread of maize at the turn of the nineteenth
century: “Since maize cultivation has become more widespread in Carinthia,
agriculture has started to ascend to a higher level. […] Now they produce the
most abundant maize in fields that otherwise bore meagre amounts of rye,
lentils and buckwheat. You have the richest harvests, [...] and you also get [...]
more than half of the grain” (Burger 1809, 77f.), unlike before. What start-
ed on a small scale, spread especially in the “wild and fertile” Lavant Valley
(Lavanttal), but also “in the rough heights of the Gail Valley and Drava Valley
(Gailtal, Drautal), at the foot and sometimes even in the gorges of the Noric
Alps” (Burger 1809, 79). Burger looked to the future expectantly: “It is impos-
sible to determine how many yokes in Carinthia are being planted with this
crop annually; I hope that maize cultivation will increase as it had over the
past twenty years. If so, in fifty years the fifth of all the fields in the plains and
valleys of this country will be sown with maize.” (Burger 1809, 79).
Carinthia was not an isolated case in this regard. At that time,
maize had already become homegrown in many areas of Central Europe:
115
Figure 2. Maize seeder
Source: Burger 1809.
in agricultural science research. Even today, it is one of the “classics” of spe-
cialist literature on maize cultivation. The Carinthian agricultural scientist
euphorically reports about the spread of maize at the turn of the nineteenth
century: “Since maize cultivation has become more widespread in Carinthia,
agriculture has started to ascend to a higher level. […] Now they produce the
most abundant maize in fields that otherwise bore meagre amounts of rye,
lentils and buckwheat. You have the richest harvests, [...] and you also get [...]
more than half of the grain” (Burger 1809, 77f.), unlike before. What start-
ed on a small scale, spread especially in the “wild and fertile” Lavant Valley
(Lavanttal), but also “in the rough heights of the Gail Valley and Drava Valley
(Gailtal, Drautal), at the foot and sometimes even in the gorges of the Noric
Alps” (Burger 1809, 79). Burger looked to the future expectantly: “It is impos-
sible to determine how many yokes in Carinthia are being planted with this
crop annually; I hope that maize cultivation will increase as it had over the
past twenty years. If so, in fifty years the fifth of all the fields in the plains and
valleys of this country will be sown with maize.” (Burger 1809, 79).
Carinthia was not an isolated case in this regard. At that time,
maize had already become homegrown in many areas of Central Europe:
115
