Page 251 - Panjek, Aleksander, Jesper Larsson and Luca Mocarelli, eds. 2017. Integrated Peasant Economy in a Comparative Perspective: Alps, Scandinavia and Beyond. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 251
intangible and material evidence on the slovenian peasant economy ...
possible assets the single heirs might have had and to which their heredita-
ry portions could be added (forming new farms of unknown dimension).
On the other hand this means that the resulting picture we are presenting
below is that of a perhaps less fragmented landholding structure than it ac-
tually was after our transactions took place in the middle of the 18th cen-
tury. In any case, this way we obtain altogether 25 examples of farms in 15
different villages and hamlets located in different areas of the Karst, from
close to the sea-coast to farther inland. For each farm unit we have the
composition of land (field and meadow) as well as some information about
the pertaining rural buildings and their value (Table 10.4).
Mostly small fields and meadows formed mostly small farm units.
Only a good third of the holdings forming our sample (9 out of 25) could
namely count on more than 5 ha of land, another (scarce) third relied on 2
to 5 ha, while the last abundant third comprised less than 2 ha of land, al-
though all had some extra orchard, too. In all cases the share of meadow
surfaces was crucial to reach these dimension figures, since the holdings
had really little arable land on disposal: ten farm-units remained under 0.5
ha of field, another eight had between 0.5 and 1 ha, four were concentrat-
ed between 1 and 1.1 ha, and only three of them reached 2 or more hectares
of field, with a maximum of just a little above 4 ha. Both aspects, the over-
all dimension of the farm units as well as the scarcity of arable land at their
disposal, were being further exacerbated by the fragmentation process in
progress, since a quarter of the holdings had just been divided (6 out of 25,
although we analysed them as unities, as explained above).
Such internal structure of the holdings allows some considerations.
First of all, we are confronted with a peasant society that was significantly
stratified and in which small holdings strongly prevailed (at least 62% un-
der 5 ha). The second aspect is that arable land in most cases was surely not
sufficient to feed most households, since nearly 90% of the holdings in our
sample had less than 1.1 ha of field. This must have been true even consid-
ering that many arable plots were cultivated with the mixed-cropping sys-
tem, in which cereals were combined with vines associated with trees and
some fruit-trees. The land structure in which meadow surfaces were signifi-
cantly more extended than arable ones, confirms the importance of animal
husbandry, which was managed combining individual meadows and the
existing extensive common pastures. It seems quite reasonable to consid-
er most Karst farm units as not self-sufficient from an alimentary point of
view even without considering the various landlord dues and the taxes that
249
possible assets the single heirs might have had and to which their heredita-
ry portions could be added (forming new farms of unknown dimension).
On the other hand this means that the resulting picture we are presenting
below is that of a perhaps less fragmented landholding structure than it ac-
tually was after our transactions took place in the middle of the 18th cen-
tury. In any case, this way we obtain altogether 25 examples of farms in 15
different villages and hamlets located in different areas of the Karst, from
close to the sea-coast to farther inland. For each farm unit we have the
composition of land (field and meadow) as well as some information about
the pertaining rural buildings and their value (Table 10.4).
Mostly small fields and meadows formed mostly small farm units.
Only a good third of the holdings forming our sample (9 out of 25) could
namely count on more than 5 ha of land, another (scarce) third relied on 2
to 5 ha, while the last abundant third comprised less than 2 ha of land, al-
though all had some extra orchard, too. In all cases the share of meadow
surfaces was crucial to reach these dimension figures, since the holdings
had really little arable land on disposal: ten farm-units remained under 0.5
ha of field, another eight had between 0.5 and 1 ha, four were concentrat-
ed between 1 and 1.1 ha, and only three of them reached 2 or more hectares
of field, with a maximum of just a little above 4 ha. Both aspects, the over-
all dimension of the farm units as well as the scarcity of arable land at their
disposal, were being further exacerbated by the fragmentation process in
progress, since a quarter of the holdings had just been divided (6 out of 25,
although we analysed them as unities, as explained above).
Such internal structure of the holdings allows some considerations.
First of all, we are confronted with a peasant society that was significantly
stratified and in which small holdings strongly prevailed (at least 62% un-
der 5 ha). The second aspect is that arable land in most cases was surely not
sufficient to feed most households, since nearly 90% of the holdings in our
sample had less than 1.1 ha of field. This must have been true even consid-
ering that many arable plots were cultivated with the mixed-cropping sys-
tem, in which cereals were combined with vines associated with trees and
some fruit-trees. The land structure in which meadow surfaces were signifi-
cantly more extended than arable ones, confirms the importance of animal
husbandry, which was managed combining individual meadows and the
existing extensive common pastures. It seems quite reasonable to consid-
er most Karst farm units as not self-sufficient from an alimentary point of
view even without considering the various landlord dues and the taxes that
249
