Page 62 - 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. 62
maize to the people!
On other Umbrian farms, maize production was probably even great-
er, though the available data do not provide a precise overview since they
often lack details about cereal quantities and qualities (Bonelli 1967, p. 154).
Not even the Gregorian Land Register, compiled in the State of the Church,
allows us to go beyond the generic divisions of cultivated plants. By not
providing precise indications of the different types of cereals, the informa-
tion obtained allows us only to speak of “sown” plants (simple or those with
trees and vines). This lack of information confirms the companies’ habit,
already demonstrated during the previous centuries, of taking only generic
records about their cereal crops, without adding details about their produc-
tion (Chiacchella 1996; Biagioli 1975). In Umbria the seeds were intended
for about 35% of the cultivated land but it is completely impossible to know
the precise part destined for the production of wheat, maize and other mi-
nor cereals (Chiapparino and Moroni 2006). In the absence of more pre-
cise findings, the information taken from the accounts of farms, at least the
largest and best organized ones, offers the possibility of obtaining an image
that better reflects the agricultural reality of the region.
Considering the limits of the sources available, the findings concern-
ing cereal production in the lands belonging to the Marquis Bourbon di
Sorbello indicate that the cultivation of maize had a greater relevance there.
Table 2. Wheat and maize production in the Marquis Bourbon di Sorbello’s properties,
1809-1820 (Staia).
Years Wheat Maize Total % of maize
in total amount
1809 1,710 1,242 2,952
1811 704 1,164 1,868 42
1812 1,770 2,426 4,196 62
1816 1,924 1,406 3,330 56
1818 2,296 2,198 4,494 42
1819 2,258 2,966 5,224 49
1820 1,676 3,346 5,022 57
Median 1,762 2,107 3,869 67
54
Source: ASP, ABS, series I, n. 59, 10.
In fact, on the properties of the Marquis Bourbon de Sorbello at the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century, maize averagely represented 54% of ce-
60
On other Umbrian farms, maize production was probably even great-
er, though the available data do not provide a precise overview since they
often lack details about cereal quantities and qualities (Bonelli 1967, p. 154).
Not even the Gregorian Land Register, compiled in the State of the Church,
allows us to go beyond the generic divisions of cultivated plants. By not
providing precise indications of the different types of cereals, the informa-
tion obtained allows us only to speak of “sown” plants (simple or those with
trees and vines). This lack of information confirms the companies’ habit,
already demonstrated during the previous centuries, of taking only generic
records about their cereal crops, without adding details about their produc-
tion (Chiacchella 1996; Biagioli 1975). In Umbria the seeds were intended
for about 35% of the cultivated land but it is completely impossible to know
the precise part destined for the production of wheat, maize and other mi-
nor cereals (Chiapparino and Moroni 2006). In the absence of more pre-
cise findings, the information taken from the accounts of farms, at least the
largest and best organized ones, offers the possibility of obtaining an image
that better reflects the agricultural reality of the region.
Considering the limits of the sources available, the findings concern-
ing cereal production in the lands belonging to the Marquis Bourbon di
Sorbello indicate that the cultivation of maize had a greater relevance there.
Table 2. Wheat and maize production in the Marquis Bourbon di Sorbello’s properties,
1809-1820 (Staia).
Years Wheat Maize Total % of maize
in total amount
1809 1,710 1,242 2,952
1811 704 1,164 1,868 42
1812 1,770 2,426 4,196 62
1816 1,924 1,406 3,330 56
1818 2,296 2,198 4,494 42
1819 2,258 2,966 5,224 49
1820 1,676 3,346 5,022 57
Median 1,762 2,107 3,869 67
54
Source: ASP, ABS, series I, n. 59, 10.
In fact, on the properties of the Marquis Bourbon de Sorbello at the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century, maize averagely represented 54% of ce-
60
