Alternative Agriculture in Europe (Sixteenth-Twentieth Centuries) (Rural History in Europe) (Rural History in Europe, 16) 9782503586748, 2503586740

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Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries)

Rural History in Europe The Series Rural History in Europe

volume 16 The countryside forms a complex and evolving universe. Clearly, it exhibits both inertia and ruptures, but it would be an illusion to contrast a contemporary rural world in rapid transformation with a traditional rural world of frozen landscapes, petrified societies, immobile economies and lethargic political contexts. Even if rural societies have been overthrown, rural landscapes have been profoundly transformed and the intervention of the State has considerably strengthened the regulation of production and trade, history must of necessity be considered as the main explanatory factor for our time. The rural world can also only be fully understood if it is viewed in a manner which transcends national boundaries and if the discrepancies which can best be observed by adopting a broad view are taken into account. The aim must be to create a dialogue between researchers which goes beyond national frontiers, crosses chronological barriers and breaks disciplinary boundaries. The main objective of the ‘Rural History in Europe’ collection is thus to provide keys to unlock the changes experienced by present-day European rural societies in the light of their historical experience. It will produce the necessary historical knowledge to make it possible for all to conceptualise the future of European country-dwellers as they face problems of the kind historians have always grappled with in examining societies of the past. How can the changes taking place in present-day Europe be understood without taking into account a past which is still very present, and which determines both structures and behaviour? The volumes will be published after a peer-review process for each paper, supported by the editorial board, the authors and the editors of each book. In order to ask the relevant questions about the future of the peasantries and rural spaces in transformation, the volumes of this collection will deal with the longue durée and will present either research in progress or a synthesis on a regional or national scale. The outcome of this procedure will be a series giving a detailed overview of historical developments in Europe as a whole. Editorial Board Gérard Béaur, director Bas van Bavel Rosa Congost Anne Lise Head-König Socrates Petmezas Vicente Pinilla Patrick Svensson

Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries)

Edited by Gérard Béaur

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This publication is the result of the 3rd Treviso Conference on the History of the European Countryside ‘Crises and Alternative Agriculture in a European Perspective’ held in Villa Emo, Castelfranco Veneto (Treviso, Italy) on the 5th-7th of December 2013. This Conference was organized by the International Research Network (GDRI of CNRS) CRICEC (Crises and Changes in the European Countryside) with the support of the Centre de Recherches Historiques/ERHIMOR (France), the Università degli Studia di Padova (Italy), the Fondazione Villa Emo, Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and Ancient World, Biblioteca Internazionale ‘La Vigna’, Vincenza (Italy), and the Centre de Recerca d’Historia Rural de la Universitat de Girona (Spain). I wish to thank my old friends, Judith Le Goff  for her careful work in translating and editing the chapters, and Anne-Lise Head-König, who contributed generously to funding this publication.

© 2020 Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover: Detail from Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Earth, 1569. World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo. D/2020/0095/23 ISBN 978-2-503-58674-8 e-ISBN 978-2-503-58675-5 DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.118737 ISSN 2032-6084 eISSN 2566-0063 Printed in the EU on acid free paper.

Contents

List of Contributors List of Figures List of Tables List of Maps

7 9 11 13

1. ‘Alternative Agriculture’ or ‘Alternative Crops’? Gérard Béaur

15

The Debate 2. Another Look at Joan Thirsk’s Concept of ‘Alternative Agriculture’, and why it should be Discarded Jean-Pierre Poussou

35

Alternative Agriculture and the City 3. Turnips, Flax and Clover Farmers, Landowners and Agricultural Innovation in the Antwerp Countryside in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Michael Limberger

59

4. Adapting to the Paris Market Montreuil in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century Hervé Bennezon

79

5. Was Horticulture an Alternative Crop? A Case Study of Parisian Horticultural Suburbs in the Nineteenth Century Nadine Vivier

95

Crises and Alternative Agriculture 6. War, Crisis and Alternative Crops The Case of Hemp and Wine in France from 1688 to 1697 Caroline Le Mao

117

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co n te n ts

7. Was there an Agrarian Crisis in the Mediterranean World during the Last Third of the Seventeenth Century? The Case of the Island of Majorca Gabriel Jover Avellà 8. The Battle of Wheat and Other Fascist Battles in Italian Agriculture (1920s-1930s) Niccolò Mignemi

139

167

Alternative Agriculture and Growth 9. Alternative Agriculture in Northern Burgundy The Wines of the Hôpital Général of Dijon in the Eighteenth Century T. J. A. Le Goff

195

10. The Emergence of the Breton ‘Golden Belt’ The Region of Saint-Malo in the Eighteenth Century Emmanuelle Charpentier

235

11. Between Conversion and Innovation Alpine Fruit Growing in Trentino-South Tyrol and the Valais, 1860-1960 Luigi Lorenzetti

259

Changing Alternative Crops 12. New Crops in the Crisis of Mediterranean Agriculture Valencia, 1800-1950 Salvador Calatayud 13. Alternative Agricultural Production in Switzerland, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century Successes and Failures Anne-Lise Head-König 14. Considerations on Hemp and Alternative Agriculture in Italy, France and Russia from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century David Celetti 15. Conclusion. Agrarian Crises and Alternative Agriculture Salvatore Ciriacono

277

295

315 345

List of Contributors

Gérard Béaur CNRS & EHESS, Paris France Université de Picardie Hervé Bennezon France Universidad de Valencia Salvador Calatayud Spain Università di Padova David Celetti Italy Emmanuelle Charpentier Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès France Università di Padova Salvatore Ciriacono Italy Anne-Lise Head-König Université de Genève Switzerland Gabriel Jover-Avellà Universitat de Girona Spain Tim J. A. Le Goff University of York Canada Caroline Le Mao Université de Bordeaux Montaigne France Ghent University Michael Limberger Belgium Università della Svizzera italiana Luigi Lorenzetti (Mendrisio) Switzerland Niccolò Mignemi CNRS, Paris France Jean-Pierre Poussou Université Paris Sorbonne France Nadine Vivier Université du Mans France

List of Figures

Figure 4.1. The social rise of the Girardot family in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

92

Figure 7.1. Olive oil production and olive oil prices.

146

Figure 7.2. Olive oil harvests, prices and exports in the second half of the seventeenth century.

153

Figure 7.3. Crisis and income distribution in the olive oil sector; Wages, profits and farm oil income.

156

Figure 8.1. Share of wheat and agrofood products in the total value of Italian imports, 1862-1940.

173

Figure 8.2. Share of fruits and agrofood products in the total value of Italian exports, 1862-1940.

173

Figure 8.3. Quantity and value of citrus exports, 1897-1939 (in 1913 lira).

175

Figure 8.4. Citrus prices on the export and domestic wholesale markets (in 1913 lira).

176

Figure 8.5. National production and imports of soft wheat and durum wheat, 1920-1940.

180

Figure 8.6. Export values of wheat flour and pasta, 1895-1940 (in 1913 liras).

182

Figure 9.1. Approximate area of Hospital vineyards, 1725-1812

201

Figure 9.2. Volume and estimated value of Hospital wine production by place of origin, 1780-178925

203

Figure 9.3. Price of wheat and wine at Nuits-St-Georges (index 1750-1759 = 100, 7-year moving averages)

206

Figure 9.4. Comparison of ten-year growth rates in wheat and wine prices, Nuits-St-Georges, 1720-1789

207

Figure 9.5. Evolution of production volume by place of origin (semilog scale) and total (absolute values)

209

Figure 9.6. Value of wine bought and sold by the Hospital, 1715-1795 210 Figure 9.7. Minimum estimated value of total production (including in-house consumption), 1750-1791

211

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list of figures

Figure 9.8. Consumption and surpluses/deficits by volume, 1749-1793213 Figure 9.9. Volume of yearly wine sales by place of origin (5-year averages)214 Figure 9.10. Value of yearly wine sales by place of origin (5-year averages)

215

Figure 9.11. Chambolle and Dijon wines: socio-professional origins of purchasers (% volume)

221

Figure 9.12. Remuneration of labour in the vineyards of the Hospital, 1725-1789224 Figure 9.13. Rural investment by the Hospital, 1750-1794

227

Figure 9.14. Chronology of investment choices, 1750-1794

229

Figure 9.15. Year-by-year relation between rents and investment on agricultural holdings (winegrowing excluded)

231

Figure 9.16. Hospital winegrowing investments seen as values and as a percentage of the value of wine sales, 1750-1790

231

Figure 12.1. Schematic model of the agrarian pattern in the huerta (17th-19th centuries)

280

Figure 12.2. Price evolution of three products in Valencia (1918 = 100)  285 Figure 14.1. Price of hemp (black) and wheat (grey) in Bologna, 1871-1914320 Figure 14.2. Hemp production in Bologna, 1580-1914 (quintals)

320

Figure 14.3. Hemp cultivation in France, 1875-1897 (hectares)

325

Figure 14.4. Hemp production in France, 1875-1897 (quintals)

326

Figure 14.5. Hemp prices in France, 1857-1903 (Francs/kg)

326

Figure 14.6. Wheat prices in France, 1857-1903 (Francs/quintal)

327

Figure 14.7. Hemp and Flax Prices in Russia, 1711-1801 (index: 1710=100)

335

Figure 14.8. Wheat Prices in Milan, 1701-1860 (lire/moggio)

340

Figure 14.9. National Wheat Prices in Italy, 1860-1907 (euros/quintal) 341 Figure 14.10. Wheat Prices in Paris, 1797-1869 (francs/litre)

341

Figure 14.11. Wheat Prices in Lunéville (Meuse), France 1855-1909 (cents/hl)342 Figure 14.12. Wheat prices in North Dvina, Russia, 1710-1870 (grams of silver/kg)

342

Figure 14.13. Wheat price index, Russia, 1711-1914 (index: 1711= 100)

343

List of Tables

Table 4.1.

The connections of Roland Le Preux (c. 1610 – 1681)

92

Table 5.1.

Area under horticulture in the canton of Saint Germain

102

Table 5.2.

Average crop value per hectare in 1892

107

Table 5.3.

Area occupied by vineyards in Saint-Germain and Marly (hectares)107

Table 5.4. Development of market gardening in three villages in the bend of the Seine: Achères, Mesnil, Montesson (hectares) 108 Table 6.1.

Naval expenditure on raw hemp 1688-1697 according to payment orders. In livres tournois

119

Table 6.2.

Quantities of hemp transiting France on the King’s passes 1688-1697.119

Table 7.1.

Regional distribution of oil output and aristocratic property, 1667-1685.

Table 7.2.

Correlation coefficients: tithes, oil prices and olive harvests147

Table 7.3.

Coefficients of variation for oil harvest, tithe and price

Table 7.4. Composition of oil exports from Mallorca.

143

148 149

Table 7.5.

Oil exports and production on the island of Majorca.

150

Table 8.1.

Number of citrus trees by administrative region, 1870-1927 171

Table 8.2.

Harvested area (in hectares) of soft wheat and durum wheat in the macro-regions of Italy, 1909-1937.

Table 9.1

Value of Hospital agricultural and wine income compared (annual average by decade, in livres tournois) 204

Table 9.2.

Expansion of agricultural land, woodland and vines in the Côte, 1800-1880 (Index 1800 = 100) 

218

Table 9.3.

Some growth rates, 1754-1789

219

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Table 9.4. Wholesalers’ share of Hospital wine sales, 1759-1789 (% volume)

222

Table 11.1. Evolution of the production of the main fruit crops in the provinces of Bolzano and Trento 1923-1928 – 1936-1938 (in tonnes)

264

Table 11.2. Average production (in q) by hectare of some crops. Bolzano and Trentino

270

Table 12.1. Changes in the irrigation agricultural regime

279

Table 12.2. Irrigation crops: Valencia

284

Table 12.3. Net income per crop in the Jucar Valley (pesetas per hectare)285 Table 12.4. Different varieties of onions grown in the huerta of Valencia 289 around 1910. Table 12.5. Crop rotations in the Huerta of Valencia

291

Table 14.1. Production, revenue and sharing of the added value between land-owner and land holder (Average of the years 1866-1870, in £).

319

Table 14.2. Annual Hemp Production. Province of Bologna (1819-1852)319 Table 14.3. Départements producing more than 4,000 quintals annually (1811)

321

Table 14.4. Uses of French Hemp (1811)

322

Table 14.5. Composition of Russian Exports (% of value), 1710-1795

331

Table 14.6. Exports of Hemp from Russia in shippounds (136 kilograms) Average for each period

332

Table 14.7. Value of exports from Russia to America (in thousands rubles)

332

Table 14.8. Hemp production in Europe and Russia (1903-1912)

334

Table 14.9. Hemp Seeds Production – 1795 (Governorate – Chetverti 335 and percentage of the total) Table 14.10. Hemp Growing in the Eastern Po Valley, Généralité of Tours, Western Russia: summary and comparison

336

List of Maps

Map 3.1.

The surroundings of Antwerp

62

Map 3.2.

The agrarian areas of Belgium

64

Map 3.3.

Marchionatus Sacri Romani Imperii ( J. C. Visscher, 1587-1562) (detail)

70

Map 3.4.

Land values per bunder in 1686, in guilders

71

Map 4.1.

Location of Montreuil

81

Map 5.1. Horticulture in the Paris suburbs at the end of the nineteenth century

104

Map 8.1.

The weight of soft and durum wheat in the total wheat surface of the provinces of Italy

184

Map 9.1.

Regions of the Côte in 1800, showing share of surface occupied by different products

217

Map 10.1.

The Breton golden belt nowadays

236

Map 10.2.

The landscape around Saint-Malo: the champagnes

239

Map 10.3.

Map of Marville land owed by Monsieur des Bassablons 240

Map 10.4. Plan of the city and of the castle of Saint-Malo 

241

Map 11.1.

The canton of Valais (Switzerland) and the region of Trentino – South Tyrol (Italy)

260

Map 12.1.

The main irrigated areas of Valencia

278

Map 13.1.

The Cantons and the main regions of Switzerland

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Gé r ar d Béau r 

1. ‘Alternative Agriculture’ or ‘Alternative Crops’? I. Why alternative agriculture? In 1997, the great English historian Joan Thirsk published Alternative Agriculture (Thirsk, 1997). This essential book called into question a main-line historical tradition that for many decades had focused the attention of researchers on cereals and stock raising, to the detriment of other types of production. This point of view was part of a new historical approach that tried to take account of other forms of cultivation than those normally considered, but it was still fundamental because of its radical and iconoclastic assertion that producers could find ways to survive, sell their produce and even grow rich, other than following the well-trodden path of producing wheat and meat. These postulates had some influence in Great Britain and probably also in countries where English-language historiography predominated. It is no coincidence that one of the three parts of the Festschrift in honour of Joan Thirsk is given over to alternative agriculture (Hoyle, 2004a). It seems likely that her influence was non-existent in French-speaking countries. Just as English-speaking historians, with a few notable exceptions, usually avoid relying on works written in French, the converse is also true, despite some advances since the start of the COST Progressore programme, and the meetings organised by EURHO.1 But by happy coincidence, the French Education Ministry’s decision to set the comparative study of English and French agriculture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as one of the subjects for its annual agrégation examinations, gave Jean-Pierre Poussou the opportunity to bring his wide knowledge of English historical literature to bear on these questions in La terre et les paysans en France et en GrandeBretagne aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1999). Poussou soon spread the knowledge of Joan Thirsk’s work in France through a review and a rather critical note that appeared in Histoire & Sociétés Rurales (Poussou, 2009a and b) with the result that the concept of alternative agriculture could no longer be ignored. Yet even French scholars who did understand her work either lacked the interest or the courage to criticise or make use of her ideas, except for a discussion by Florian Quellier (Quellier, 2003) and my own employment of them at the joint Franco-English meeting held at Canterbury in 2005, in



* Translation by Judith Le Goff 1 Programme COST A35, Progressore (PROGramme de REcherches Sur les SOciétés Rurales Européennes 2005-2009); EURHO (EUropean Rural History Organisation) since the Brighton Conference of 2010. Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 15-32.

© F

HG

DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119522

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a paper later published – in English, of course – in the Agricultural History Review (Béaur 2009). It seemed to me that we could not simply dismiss Joan Thirsk’s positions with a shrug of the shoulders, without deeper examination. It also seemed that, even if it was controversial, the concept might be of use in understanding the fate of alternative crops, as Poussou correctly termed them, which was considered a matter of only minor importance. Encouraged by Rosa Congost, Jean-Michel Chevet and Danilo Gasparini I chose this theme as the subject of a colloquium held in December 2013, that also served as a tribute to Joan Thirsk, who had died a few weeks earlier.2 The conference was organized in the framework of the CRICEC3 project, financed by the CNRS, with the support of a group of French, Italian and Spanish institutions,4 and met in Italy, near the Villa Emo at Castelfranco Veneto, Treviso. This book contains some of the papers that were presented at that workshop. Among the texts chosen is Jean-Pierre Poussou’s paper, once again highly critical of Thirsk’s views, but particularly rich. Poussou goes to the heart of the debate, lays out the questions precisely and musters an abundant bibliography, which also includes the papers presented in the present volume. This Introduction does not try to duplicate his presentation and so should not be read as the normal sort of preface. It attempts to broaden the debate; it does not repeat most of the bibliographical references already given and does not re-examine the methodology employed in the various contributions.

II. Alternative agriculture: a workable concept? The concept of alternative agriculture put forward by Joan Thirsk was all the bolder in its attack on the commonly accepted story in that she put little or no emphasis on alternative subsistence products, such as potatoes, rice and maize that had been well covered in previous studies, but rather on a host of productions of a clearly speculative kind, such as the output of market gardens and orchards, as well as industrial plants, to which we shall return presently. By ‘alternative agriculture’ Joan Thirsk meant ‘specialisation’ (Antoine, 2016) of any form that could serve farmers as… an alternative, and she laid down that these were not totally arbitrary substitutions but rather a strategic choice which allowed farmers to react to an economic depression. In other words, when the sale price of wheat (or meat) was low, producers would

2 Crises and Alternative Agriculture in a European Perspective. 3 International Research Network (GDRI of the CNRS) CRICEC (Crises and Changes in the European Countryside). 4 The Centre de Recherches Historiques / ERHIMOR (France), the Università degli Studia di Padova (Italy), the Fondazione Villa Emo, Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World, Biblioteca Internazionale ‘La Vigna’ Vicenza (Italy) and the Centre de Recerca d’Historia Rural de la Universitat de Girona (Spain).

1 . ‘alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e ’ o r ‘alt e rnat i ve cro ps’ ?

leave off part of that production to find other products capable of bringing in money to balance their books. Thirsk discerned four historical periods favourable to alternative agriculture: 1350-1500, 1650-1750, 1879-1939 and finally the years after 1980, each corresponding to a period of economic depression and price downturn (Thirsk, 1997). That is, the expansion of production other than wheat and stock-raising coincided with periods of economic torpor, but these new interests, once established, might continue after the crisis had passed. Thirsk’s approach has at least four significant aspects: 1. Since alternative agriculture underwent periods of feast and famine, she was clearly bringing back the idea of cycles: price cycles but also production cycles linked to them, even though the development of alternative agriculture in fact ran counter-cyclically to the classically-defined trends. 2. By giving new importance to forms of agriculture mainly oriented to the market, her book rejected the myth of self-sufficiency, even autarky, that had long fed historical writing on the countryside. Aymard had already shown how rural people fitted into various markets (Aymard, 1983). Thirsk confirmed this in stunning fashion. 3. The English Agricultural Revolution syndrome suddenly began to look very old-fashioned. Until then a host of books had joined in praising the rising grain yields brought about by the famous enclosures. Many have expressed profound reservations concerning the impact of that particular agrarian reform (see Béaur and Chevet, 2013); Joan Thirsk, too, clearly called into question the primacy of that path to growth and upheld the effectiveness of other agricultural models. 4. Finally, she tried to show that the actors in the rural economy did not passively submit to economic fluctuations, but instead were capable of taking the initiative and reacting vigorously in unfavourable circumstances, undertaking new, more profitable kinds of production. In the last chapter of her book this led her to express the belief that a new kind of agriculture would emerge to meet the challenges of the present day, hoping, indeed, that innovative agricultural practices more respectful of the environment would emerge from this capacity for adaptation. As Jean-Pierre Poussou reminds us, the concept of alternative agriculture was not entirely new. It appears as an inheritance from the position held and defended by the pioneers (Pesek and Goodman, 1989) at the end of the 1980s, a time when farmers were beginning to turn to new ways of using their resources. This new approach was intended to ensure durable development through practices that were essentially ecological, even ‘organic’. This change was unrelated to the fall of agricultural prices. Rather it as an understanding that obsession with agricultural productivity was leading to a dead end and that it was urgent to combat water and soil pollution and propose a durable economic model.

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By taking on board these contemporary choices and turning these new types of cultivation into, so to speak, another form of alternative agriculture, Joan Thirsk arrived at daring conclusions. In fact, by borrowing the term she ran the risk of confusing the concept. Was the transposition quite apposite? Could one compare the changes in cultivation between the fourteenth and the twentieth century to the abrupt turn-around of the 1980s? Had farmers in past times ever given any consideration at all to ecological factors? JeanPierre Poussou had good reason to express considerable scepticism about such an amalgam and to suggest instead substituting ‘alternative crops’ or ‘complementary crops’ for the term ‘alternative agriculture’ (Poussou, 1999a), thereby renouncing the systematic way this concept had been used. However, if we look at things differently, we can try to take the analysis further by assuming that what Thirsk saw in the comparison was above all proof that producers were capable of responding to the challenges posed by unfavourable shifts in the economy, just as they had been in the past. What was important here is the way she gave back the key role to the participants, who were far from being producers so mired in routine that they could not adapt to a changing environment.

III. Alternative agriculture: one logic or several? If we take another look at the main phases of economic depression as Thirsk identifies them, we can easily find examples of agriculture being re-orientated to crops other than wheat. She notes the successful use in England, during the crisis of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after the Black Death, of idle grassland but also ‘rabbit warrens, deer parks, pigeons and fishponds’. She particularly emphasised changes during the early modern period: ‘rapeseed, woad and hops’ and, at the end of the nineteenth century and early in the twentieth: ‘dairying, horticulture and poultry-keeping’ not to mention the partial success – or was it the partial failure? – of ‘madder, mulberries, safflower, weld and vines’. She completed this list two years later in an article published in French: hops, buckwheat, millet, liquorice, clover, sainfoin, lucerne (alfalfa), flax, hemp, a great variety of vegetables, berries, fruit trees, walnut and hazelnut trees… (Thirsk, 1999). Following on from this, in the Festschrift mentioned above, Christopher Dyer discussed goats in mediaeval England, John Chartres wrote on liquorice and Richard Hoyle on woad (Dyer, 2004; Chartres, 2004; Hoyle, 2004b). In fact, such conversions can be found elsewhere too. Everywhere, not just in England, and no doubt to a greater extent than in England, the range of crops used to replace ‘traditional crops’ was very wide. To those already mentioned we should probably add other, less marginal specialties, particularly those arising from stock breeding, such as meat, mentioned by Thirsk, and whose features I have outlined for France (Béaur, 2009): beef from Normandy (Garnier, 1999), Limousin (Delhoume, 2009) and Maine (1995), white veal

1 . ‘alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e ’ o r ‘alt e rnat i ve cro ps’ ?

(Fanica, 2001), and milk, butter and cheese (Cocaud, 2016; Viallet, 1993; Head-König, in this volume). It is easy to find the same list of items in the contributions to this volume: near Antwerp, ‘flax, turnips, rapeseed, peas, vegetables and different types of fruit, including apples, pears and cherries, and wine’, not to mention garden products (Limberger, in this volume); at Valencia, ‘vines, olive trees, carob trees, saltwort … peanuts, mulberry trees, hemp, orange trees’ and various fruits and vegetables (tomatoes, onions, green beans, peppers, even melons) (Calatayud, in this volume). In Majorca olive trees made up a large part of the island’s system of production ( Jover, 2011 and this volume). Clearly, many other examples could be given for north-western and eastern Europe; the cases cited here are only a sample intended to demonstrate some of the models that may occur to the historian. However, it is clear that there are different logics behind the items in this inventory. What, after all, is there in common between substitutes for basic products, products intended for a luxury market and crops supplying basic industries? What is there in common between agricultural practices that are close to gardening and those used on large-scale crops? Let us try to draw up a list. Activities resembling picking or gathering that were not part of the traditional system of cultivation and that did not get in the way of the various stages of grain production: fishponds, rabbit warrens, dovecotes etc. Substitutes for basic products: potatoes and maize. Potatoes did not become a great success because of falling wheat prices. Quite the contrary: they took off when the price of wheat rose out of reach, or at least when potatoes provided a cheaper basic foodstuff. It was not by chance that first mention of the price of potatoes occurred in the Ardèche in the year 1694 (Molinier, 1985: 205), in the midst of a wheat crisis, and that they were most common in the poorest areas. Maize met slightly different needs, but it spread in the South-west of France precisely because if its producers ate the maize, they could sell their wheat at a markedly higher price (Frêche, 1974). Products for the luxury market like mulberry trees and peaches for example. The mulberry tree supplied the material for silk production, by nourishing the worms that made the precious fibre. No doubt it was not particularly sensitive to basic economic imperatives, as customers for this product were not greatly dependent on economic fluctuations, but it did respond to the effect of competition. The same was true of the Montreuil peach, whose high, indeed exorbitant, price proved that it was intended either for sale to wealthy consumers or for consumption by the wealthy growers themselves (Bennezon & Mérot, 2016; Bennezon, 2009 and this volume) and not the result of a choice made on nutritional grounds. Products supplying essential industries such as plants used for dyes and textiles. The production cycle of each of these was closely linked to the ups and downs of the textile industry, but also, in the case of hemp and flax, to the demands of shipping, and in particular to those of the French Royal Navy,

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which could represent an important market, especially in wartime (Le Mao, this volume); we shall return to this topic presently. Gardening, that is, all the market garden, fruit and flower crops which stayed in the hands of small producers supplying urban markets with produce that was more or less expensive and thus more or less sensitive to the variable buying power of a more or less wealthy customer base. We know of the miracles accomplished around Amsterdam and Ghent (Limberger, 2008 and this volume), at the cost of intensified labour and lavish use of urban fertiliser. We now know that it was done around Paris, and even in Paris itself, by market gardeners – and near any town, with consumers who could afford to satisfy more than their basic needs (Gurvil, 2010). Large scale crops. Sometimes alternative agriculture could consist of vast plantations of olive trees, in Spain, as also in Italy and Portugal, or of fruit trees like the citrus plantations in Sicily (Mignemi, this volume), or immense vineyards owned by rich landowners and/or farmers, or all three together (Serrao, 2009). It is clear that this option was not available unless there was a regular supply of grain available locally or from imports. These differences reflected to a greater or lesser degree the size of holdings. The example from the German Rhineland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shows the link between the peasant hierarchy and the adoption of competing crops; tobacco, madder, hops, flax and potatoes for the small farmers, ‘root crops like turnips and potatoes, pulses, clover and oil plants like rape’ for the medium and large (Konersmann, 2011). Thus the concept of alternative agriculture or of alternative crops is a broad church and includes systems of production with very different rationales, each with its own constraints, its own dynamism and its own link to economic development. This explains the diversity of the people involved: peasants, but also merchants who control the circuits of communication, and even merchant and noble elites.

IV. W  as alternative agriculture connected with economic fluctuations? Even if depressions gave an impetus to these agricultural activities, were they the only explanation for them? Some may point out that people had known about the possibility of these alternatives for a very long time indeed. This is not a decisive objection though; Thirsk herself never claimed that alternative crops were total novelties. She thought that these crops were already widely available, but gained prominence in depressed economic circumstances. She admitted that hops were introduced as early as 1524, tobacco after 1619 and colza in 1551, even though none took off until around 1650. It is very easy to compare the timing of these accentuations with that of economic difficulties and low wheat prices. Thus, in one part of Switzerland, the fall in wheat prices led to more grass being grown and thus to successful

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stock-breeding, and, as a side effect, the growing of more trees (Head-König, this volume). The same was true in the Alpine valleys of the Valais and Trentino (Lorenzetti, this volume). The crisis that struck cereal growing at the end of the nineteenth century can explain both the rise of certain crops, such as chestnuts, maize and potatoes, and especially the intensified stock-rearing and increase in vineyards and fruit orchards. It is equally true that hemp production was expanding in France at the turn of the seventeenth century (Le Mao, this volume). In the same way the rise of viticulture in Burgundy had something to do with the depression in cereal prices at the beginning of the eighteenth century (Le Goff, this volume). Pastel (woad) had a phenomenal success in the Toulouse region (blue gold) from the middle of the fifteenth century, right in the midst of the economic depression (Wolff, 1954; Caster, 1962; Brumont, 1994) and it had began to take off in the mid-fourteenth century, thus fitting into Joan Thirsk’s timetable. The example of the Montmorency valley, to the north of Paris, provides an excellent example of this process (Mérot, 2015). After the destruction caused by the Fronde, that is, on the threshold of the decisive period, just after 1650, in an area ravaged by troops, the land was not put back into cultivation exactly as it had been before, under grain, but rather in vines. At the cost of some financial investment and some increased expenditure on labour, the sale of wine to the Paris market appeared much more profitable than commercial wheat crops. However, to argue that this was because cereal prices were spiralling downards between roughly 1660 and 1690, years of abundant harvests referred to as the time of the gros épis, is to defend a very slender hypothesis. But in the next disaster, in 1709, when the vines froze and the vineyards were almost completely destroyed, producers turned to trees, producing fruit for Paris rather than replanting their vines. The Montmorency valley became an immense, rich orchard. A similar choice was made at Vitry-sur-Seine, a parish to the south of Paris, where the winegrowers pulled up the vines and replaced them by nurseries (Traversat, 2001). ‘Tree merchants’ (marchands d’arbres) took over the territory, attracted by profits much greater than what they could expect from vines, and even more than that from wheat. Can these successive shifts of direction be attributed only to the low price of cereals at the moment? Should we conclude that these two phenomena were linked in a cause-and-effect relationship? Jean-Pierre Poussou questions this conclusion while emphasizing at the same time the range of options open to producers, usually as a complement to existing crops but sometimes, as a possible substitute. He rightly argues that some forms of alternative agriculture can be completely disconnected from economic fluctuations, or that they were at least unaffected by the state of the grain market. It can certainly be shown that their expansion frequently coincided with periods of rising, not falling, grain prices or that their errant trajectory had little connection to the ups and downs of cereal growing. Though the employment of alternatives must have depended on changing economic circumstances, the danger was as much that the rising price of basic foodstuffs could lead buyers to postpone

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or slow down consumption, as that their fall would coincide with a decline in economic activity. In fact, here again the contributions to this book most often confirm this hypothesis. Take hemp, a fairly typical example. To be sure, it had long been grown almost everywhere and at all times. But all things considered, the shifts in its output had little to do with such variations, or rather, if and when its production did vary, those changes did not depend on the fluctuations of the grain market. Hemp production had its own cyclical pattern (Celletti, this volume). When its output increased, at the turn of the seventeenth century, it was because demand was stimulated by war and hardly at all as a result of falling prices (Le Mao), just as hemp and flax had progressed in sixteenth-century England (Thirsk, 1999). Similarly, in what was to become the ‘Golden Belt’ of Brittany, increased cultivation of vegetable and fruit crops like grapes, figs, apricots, peaches and cherries, as well as textile plants and flowers, had nothing to do with the constraints imposed by economic fluctuations; it was a long-term, continuous process (Charpentier, this volume). A good case could even be made that the success of these crops was more closely linked to rising prices. We should remember that, as Poussou notes, weld and woad (pastel) were adopted in Flanders well before the depression of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, according to Eric Thoen, and that the attempts to introduce pastel into England date from the end of the sixteenth century, as Hoyle has shown (2004b). In the Toulouse region, admittedly, pastel production began to expand, as we have seen, during the second half of the fifteenth century, near the end of a period of falling prices, and its production reached its height in the first half of the sixteenth century, when cereal prices were rising (Caster, 1962; Brumont, 1994; Larguier, 1996 and 1998). Madder, which spread in Alsace during the second half of the eighteenth century (Boehler, 1994) lagged behind grain price fluctuations in the same way, as did tobacco, saffron and mustard. The same pattern can also be observed in England (Thirsk, 1999), in Provence, in Languedoc, and in Berry, at the same time as the mulberry tree was became increasingly successful in the Vivarais (Molinier, 1985) and in the Lyon region, and tobacco in maritime Flanders (Vandewalle, 1994). When orange trees and market gardens became more widespread in Valencia, it was at the end of the eighteenth century, not between 1690 and 1750, and it was not wheat that they replaced, but hemp and mulberry trees, which were then declining (Calatayud, this volume). In reality, it was frequent for an alternative crop to go through a period of expansion, as a substitute, not for grains but rather for another alternative crop. In general, grain was often more likely to expand alongside new crops, even though they competed with each other, as did cereal growing and orange production during the fascist period in Italy (Mignemi, this volume). Generally speaking cereal crops did not decline. Or at least they carried on as well as might be expected, even in the context of the ‘disorganisation of the terroirs’ experienced in Alsace, with the advent of complex rotations and a ‘patchwork’ in which, admittedly, they now occupied only limited space (Boehler, 1995). It was uncommon for the

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crop that produced the basic foodstuff to be really abandoned. Joan Thirsk was quite aware of that: we should not impute to her a radical theory that she did not hold. She insisted that grain could never be dispensed with (Thirsk, 1997 and 1999), even when prices were very low.

V. W  as alternative agriculture the result of an economic calculation? For all that, should we reject Joan Thirsk’s ideas? At first sight the temptation is to agree that Poussou’s argument (see p. 000-000), is unanswerable. But can nothing be salvaged of her very attractively packaged formalization of an economic development? It seems to me that if we turn this theory around a little, we can indeed employ it to help understand what happened. What transformations was Joan Thirsk trying to account for? In the optimistic version presented by Joan Thirsk, the market regulated production by way of prices. To make up for shrinking revenues from the wheat market, producers turned to other, more profitable crops. But is that really the right side of things to examine? Let us step through the looking glass and examine what was happening on the demand side, as Poussou encourages us to do, that is to say, let us look at the role of consumers, and not just those in towns, but also in the countryside, which was where the effort was made to produce and where agricultural choices were made. We can imagine two possibile scenarios. In one of them, the big farmers made the decisions. They might, for example, have been ready to change their minds and produce something other than grain. They had to have the right kind of land of course, but they generally had the means to make the attempt. Or else – and this was true of most people who turned to alternative crops – they were small farmers, and in that case, change was not so easy. When the cost of wheat, people’s basic food, fell, we could go out on a limb and imagine that peasants might not have wanted to turn to other types of produce or to work harder to grow more of them. However, this would surely be an extreme case and not the most likely. As a general rule, the gap between income from existing practices and from the new crops would have widened and peasants would of necessity be impelled to adopt them. For if there is one thing certain it is that, even if peasants did not keep complex accounts, and were unlikely even to be able to read and write, they could still count. But that was not all. If the price of the food staple went down, the disposable income of rural or urban consumers should in principle have automatically risen. In other words, falling cereal prices appear to have cleared the way for more widespread, if not ‘mass’, consumption of certain products that clearly originated in alternative agriculture – either directly in the case of food products, or indirectly, in that of raw materials, like dyes and textile fibres, that were used in making industrial products. Unfortunately, a good part of these products was destined to be acquired by the higher social classes. It is not evident that these could or would absorb

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an additional slice of production, because income from grain would have fallen for the big farmers and this fall would affect the revenues of those who lived from rents. Though the very rich (roughly speaking, the aristocracy), could bear these reverses and continue to consume as much as usual, those who were only comfortably off (the bourgeoisie, to simplify) would find it harder to take advantage of this chance to increase their consumption. Moroever, periods of recession and of falling grain prices tended also to be times when occasionally acute crises occurred, with sudden flare-ups of cereal prices that could degenerate into famine, or at least devastate the ‘purchasing power’ of social groups at the bottom of the ladder. And indeed we know that in the seventeenth century, and until about 1715, the standard of living measured by the consumption of non-food products remained desperately stagnant, despite a few periods of relief, as occurred for instance between 1660 and 1690 (Béaur, 2017a and 2017b). So, on the demand side, this phase of price decline gave no reason for hope; its presumably beneficial effects were largely counterbalanced by episodes that wiped out both savings and consumption. This reasoning should allow us go beyond the focus on the concept of ‘producers’ or farmers, and remind us that these people had no social unity. It is therefore very difficult to create models starting from the principle that ‘the’ farmers did, or did not, turn enthusiastically to alternative agriculture. Depending on the type of farming under discussion, the reactions could not be the same. This was even more the case in that the alternative products that they grew varied greatly in nature and responded differently to exterior economic stimuli.

VI. W  as alternative agriculture a pure product of market demand? Jean-Pierre Poussou emphasised, correctly, the fact that it was the market that drove the transformations that occurred, without regard for what was happening on market for food staples. This is indisputable and in line with the conclusions of Vincente Pinilla (Pinilla, 2009) and others. In fact, as most of the contributors noted in response to Poussou’s conclusions, both in his critical note as well as in the article that opens this book, it really was the market that called (or failed to call) the alternative crops into existence. It was the demand from towns or the needs of industry that encouraged the adoption of a ‘different’ type of agriculture. Just as the Flemish (and English) textile industry were behind the spread of textile fibres and plants used for dyes, so the Lyon silk industry, like that of Valencia, played a fundamental part in the expansion of mulberry cultivation. The opening of new markets did the same in Murcia in the sixteenth century (Lemeunier, 2000). The proximity of sufficiently well-off Paris consumers explains much of the triumph of the Montreuil peach from the seventeenth century, and even more in the eighteenth. The high price of the fruit meant that it could not

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have caught on in a different situation, even though its growth took off in one of Joan Thirsk’s key periods. The taste of the elites for this famous peach was what decided landlords, with the help of competent gardeners, to promote this type of agriculture (Bennezon, 2009 and this volume). In the same way the attraction of the Paris market accounted for much of the expansion of fruit and vegetables growing. From the sixteenth century on, an entire population of market gardeners based in Paris supplied distribution circuits with all manner of products, among which artichokes and asparagus reigned supreme. The gardeners were gradually forced out by the growth of the city, but they remained, and long remained, on the edges of the town (Gurvil, 2010), as this range of products could not bear long journeys. Before the coming of the railway, and other even speedier means of delivery such as air freight, and until new methods of conservation broke the strong link between places of production and consumption, they had to be close to their markets. In the eighteenth century, the ‘Great Market’ of Paris was the outlet for all kinds of specialised products, which developed as the town grew and the standard of living rose (Abad, 2002). Encouraged in the following century by continuous population growth and improving transportation that made it possible to supply the city with fresh products from farther away, the process intensified, (Vivier, this volume). We have seen how, before the Revolution, the parks and gardens of the aristocracy enriched the ‘tree sellers’ of Vitry, a parish almost completely covered by nurseries (Traversat, 2001). In the nineteenth century the fashion for leafy parks and the taste for flowers, which spread even among less wealthy consumers, did not flag. This explains the growth of horticulture, particularly in the communes to the west of Paris, around Saint Germain-en-Laye (Vivier, this volume). All this brings us back to social choices whether variations in taste and fashion, or differences in the financial capacity of the consumers. It was the increasing consumption of cider and perry that drove the spread of apple and pear trees in parts of Switzerland, at the same time as the railway gave producers a greater ability to move their products (Head-König, this volume). It was peoples’ changing consumption patterns that led to the decline of stone fruits like dried fruits and cherries, and their replacement by seed-bearing fruits such as apples and pears. It was the lower-class habit of eating snails and the success of absinthe exports that encouraged these two forms of alternative agriculture, without reference to the supposedly ‘favourable’ environments that were presumed to give rise to it. Similarly, it was falling demand for the first product and increasing disapproval of the second that explains their respective declines.

VII. Did alternative agriculture have multiple causes? In reality the expansion of alternative agriculture could have many other causes, even when it occurred in periods of depression that might seem to support Joan Thirsk’s theory.

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Natural conditions thus played a evident role in the different ways alternative agriculture was adopted. Florian Quellier has already discussed this for the Paris region (Quellier, 2003). The zones where fruit trees were raised had very different soil from those where grain-growing still predominated. Paradoxically, it was the poverty of the soil that encouraged the early adoption of these crops (flax, oil plants, but also fruits and vegetables) around Ghent and Antwerp (Limberger, this volume). Conversely, it was the mild climate and good soil quality, together with a supply of marine fertilisers like silt, mud and dung (Le Bouedec, 2016), that explains the take-off of the Golden Belt in Brittany (Charpentier, 2013), just as the environment favoured largescale hemp growing (Celetti, this volume). Access to water and traditions of irrigation were an important factor in the success of the huertas in the region of Valencia and even in the secano (Calatalyud, this volume). In Switzerland, the same factors were present, but some choices failed because physical constraints prevented their development. The fate of tobacco, which did not take hold in certain areas, is a good example. So contrariwise, is the successful adoption of vineyards in the western part of the country (Head-König, this volume). However, in this last case, cultural factors counted for even more. The overwhelming presence of vines just mentioned contrasts with their scanty implantation in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland. There, fruit trees (mainly apple and pear) triumphed, while vines were almost absent. In the same way, the phylloxera that coincided with the Great Depression brought about the replacement of vines by fruit trees in the germanic regions at the end of the nineteenth century, just as mildew (oïdium) had done in the Trentino and Valais (Lorenzetti, this volume). In Switzerland problems linked to repeated episodes of bad weather contributed to the decline of cherries (Head-König, this volume). War, in certain circumstances, boosted some products. Thirsk mentioned the progress of colza in the second half of the sixteenth century, as a result of the conflict with Spain. The wars of Louis XIV, particularly the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), had the same effect: they hindered the supply of raw materials and pushed the State into encouraging local production of hemp. At the same time, increasingly difficult access to outside markets was compensated for during wartime when the internal market for wine was expanded by the presence of more soldiers and sailors (Le Mao, this volume). The same sort of knock-on effect, in this case the closing of the English market to French exports, boosted Portuguese wine production from the end of the seventeenth century and led to a virtual and extremely lucrative specialisation there (Serrano, 2009). But war also closed off some outlets and forced radical conversions. Thus olive-growing went through a difficult period at the end of the seventeenth century in Majorca ( Jover, this volume). Apart from private initiatives whose the importance has already been noted, the state often played a crucial role in stunting the growth of these types of production, as with wine in France during the first half of the eighteenth century (Lachiver, 1988), oranges in Italy between the wars (Mignemi, this

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volume) – or in encouraging them. Around 1580, the English monarchy tried to promote woad production for the needs of the textile industry and to free it from dependence on imports (Hoyle, 2004b); similarly it started to develop flax and hemp production about the same time (Thirsk, 1999). The French monarchy supported hemp production by the prices it paid and the orders it gave during the wars of Louis XIV (Le Mao, this volume) just as the Swedish state promoted hop-growing in the fifteenth century, to combat foreign purchases (Nilsen, 2016). Alongside the state, horticultural societies also encouraged the spread of new varieties of plants and flowers, particularly in the suburbs close to Paris (Vivier, this volume). In addition, conditions of production and agrarian structures had a ripple effect (Garrido and Calatayud, 2011). Thus, sharecropping provided an important stimulus to hemp cultivation around Bologna (Martini, 2000). Elsewhere, as in Flanders for example, systems of tenant-farming forced those working the land to acquire cash in order to pay their rent or taxes. In other circumstances, smallholdings that were not big enough for self-sufficiency forced farmers to look for a product that gave them more favourable terms of exchange. Beyond that, the choice allowed them to vary their food supply while still producing the basic staples, and gave them an entry into the market economy. This is what happened with the huertas in Murcia (Pérez-Picazo, 2000). Finally, most alternative crops involved intensive agriculture that required a great deal of labour, which was compatible only with high population density (Garrido, 2010). Finally, the importance of know-how, of a competent labour force and acquired knowledge must be underlined. The phenomenon of path dependency is clearly evident here. Celetti insists on the irreversibility of the choice of hemp. But Tim Le Goff also shows that vine-growing could persist even when the economic conditions became less advantageous. It could be a strategy or a gamble on the future (Le Goff, this volume) but also a reluctance to abandon a crop that used knowledge one did not want to go to waste, and investment that it hurt to write off. Here again, we need to distinguish between alternative crops that required limited means and functioned with direct access to markets, and those which required capital and complex commercial networks.

VIII. Conclusion Joan Thirsk drew attention to kinds of agriculture that were known but frequently considered as marginal or supplementary crops. She reminds us that these agricultural productions could provide both the basic means of existence for small producers working to supply nearby towns, and opportunities for considerable profit to agricultural entrepreneurs, merchants, or members of the aristocracy with a hand in regional or international commercial circuits. These exchanges were on a large enough scale to feed immediately into

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capitalist and/or slave forms of accumulation. Finally, to her immense credit, Thirsk drew attention to the interdependence between the commercialisation of these products and the networks that circulated the grain that was so fundamental to the old economy. Without a region nearby producing a net surplus of wheat or rye, or in the absence of direct shipping by sea, there could be no alternative crops, because the population – including the producers themselves – could not do without a supply of staple food products. How could market-gardening and fruit production have prospered around Paris without the vast grain-growing plains that surrounded them? How could the pays d’Auge have developed its specialisation in grazing if it had not been next to the wheat-producing plain of Caen? How could gardening in Holland have developed without direct sea routes to the food supplies in the Baltic? Thus the cost of cereal provisioning was a crucial variable to the rise of these kinds of alternative crops. Does it follow that low prices necessarily stimulated the development of alternative crops? The interdependence between wheat prices and successful alternative agriculture has its logic, and Joan Thirsk made much of this logic. Certainly, in some special cases, such interdependence may have developed, because alternative crops were of several different kinds, and that logic may have weighed on those who made the decisions. But, random coincidence is not the same thing as correlation, and this interdependence was but one of many factors that could bring about a change in production. The first of these many factors was, not the price of the cereals themselves, but the difference between that price and the price of alternative crops, between the profits to be made from one and the profit to be made from others. Alain Molinier estimated that, on a similarly-sized tract of land, silkworm cultivation brought in on average eighteen times more income than wheat (Molinier, 1985). Was there any escaping the consequences of evidence like that? In reality, although this differential might change, as the price of each product moved independently, it remained a differential, and its mere existence provided no real guide for those who had to make decisions. The second factor was the irregularity of market demand. This is where the role of competition comes in, along with the conditions of production, and especially the degree of economic prosperity, which might or might not stimulate consumer demand. In the event, it appears that dynamic change happened during periods of high prices rather than when food prices were low. This idea of a circular economy has been well known at least since Boisguilbert, and for the development of alternative crops, there had to be one. But this is far from exhausting the subject. Behind these strictly economic choices, there were other variables whose random nature made the links complex. The contributors to this volume have emphasised wars, government encouragement, the role of horticultural and agronomical societies, variations in consumer taste, competition, the sudden emergence of new products… In other words, it was not because one factor exercised an influence that it was decisive, if other, more powerful, forces, counteracted it and managed

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to annul its effect. And it is not because it mattered in some sectors that it would necessarily have the same effect in others. Yet for all its limitations and dead ends, Joan Thirsk’s theory still remains very valuable because she started a discussion that would not have taken place without her. She opened a door on obscure phenomena and unexpected questions, both crucial for our understanding of agriculture in the early modern period and still relevant to our economies in the present.

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Boehler, Jean-Michel (1994), Une société rurale en milieu rhénan : la paysannerie de la plaine d’Alsace (1648-1789), Strasbourg, Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg. Boehler, Jean-Michel (1995), ‘La Petite culture en Alsace au xviiie siècle’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 4, p. 69-103. Brumont, Francis (1994), ‘La Commercialisation du pastel toulousain, 1350-1600’, Annales du Midi, 106, p. 25-40. Caster, Gilles (1962), Le Commerce du pastel et de l’épicerie à Toulouse, 1450-1561, Toulouse, Privat. Charpentier, Emmanuelle (2013), Le Peuple du rivage. Le littoral nord de la Bretagne au xviiie siècle, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Chartres, John (2004), ‘A Special Crop and its Markets in the Eighteenth Century: The Case of Pontefract’s Liquorice’, in R. W. Hoyle (ed.), People, Landscape and Alternative Agriculture: Essays for Joan Thirsk, Agricultural History Review, Suppl. 3, p. 113-132. Cocaud, Martine (2016), ‘An early form of specialisation in Western France’, in Annie Antoine (ed.), Agricultural specialisation and rural patterns of development, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe 12, p. 63-76. Delhoume, Jean Pierre (2009), Les Campagnes limousines au xviiie siècle. Une spécialisation bovine en pays de petite culture, Limoges, Presses Universitaires de Limoges. Dyer, Christopher (2004), ‘Alternative agriculture: goats in medieval England’, in R. W. Hoyle (ed.) People, Landscape and Alternative Agriculture: Essays for Joan Thirsk, Agricultural History Review, Suppl. 3, p. 20-38. Fanica, Olivier (2001), ‘La Production de veau blanc pour Paris. Deux siècles de fluctuations (xviie-xxe siècles)’, Histoire & Sociétés Rurales, 15, p. 105-130. Frêche, Georges, Toulouse et la région Midi-Pyrénées au siècle des lumières (vers 1670-1789), Paris, Cujas, 1974. Garnier, Bernard (1999), ‘L’Elevage et la commercialisation des boeufs en BasseNormandie (1750-1900)’, in Annie Antoine (éd.), Des animaux et des hommes. Économie et sociétés rurales en France (xie-xixe siècles), Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 106, 1, p. 101-120. Garrido, Samuel (2010), ‘Oranges or “Lemons”? Family Farming and Product Quality in the Spanish Orange Industry, 1870-1960’, Agricultural History, 84 (2), p. 224-243. Garrido, Samuel & Calatayud, Salvador (2011), ‘The Price of Improvements: Agrarian Contracts and Agrarian Development in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Spain’, The Economic History Review, 64, 2, p. 598-620. Gurvil, Clément (2010), Les Paysans de Paris du milieu du xve siècle au début du xviie siècle, Paris, Honoré-Champion. Hoyle, Richard W. (éd.) (2004a), People, Landscape and Alternative Agriculture: Essays for Joan Thirsk, Agricultural History Review, Suppl. 3. Hoyle, Richard W. (2004b), ‘Woad in the 1580s : alternative agriculture in England and Ireland’, in R. W. Hoyle (ed.) People, Landscape and Alternative Agriculture: Essays for Joan Thirsk, Agricultural History Review, Suppl. 3, p. 56-73.

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Jover, Gabriel (2011): ‘Population, Subsistence Crisis and Agrian Change in the Island of Majorca, 1560-1650’, Histoire & Mesure, xxvi, p. 51-74. Konersmann, Frank (2011), ‘Land and Labour intensification in the agricultural modernization of southwest Germany, 1760-1860’, in Mats Olsson & Patrick Svensson (eds), Growth and Stagnation in European Historical Agriculture, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe 6, p. 141-165. Lachiver, Marcel (1988), Vins, vigne, vignerons. Histoire du vignoble français, Paris, Fayard. Larguier, Gilbert (1996), Le Drap et le grain en Languedoc, Narbonne et Narbonnais, 1300-1789, Perpignan, 1996, ii, p. 415, 591-596. Larguier, Gilbert (1998), ‘Narbonne et la voie méditerranéenne du pastel (xve-xviie siècles)’, Annales du Midi, Le commerce du pastel du XV e au XVII e siècle, t. 110, n° 222, p. 149-167. Le Bouëdec, Gérard (2016), ‘Agricultural specialisations and the sea, seventeenth to nineteenth centuries’, in Annie Antoine (ed.), Agricultural specialisation and rural patterns of development, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe 12, p. 77-98. Lemeunier, Guy (2000), ‘Culture irriguée ou culture sèche en Murcie (Espagne), xvie-xviiie siècles. Les raisons d’un choix’, Histoire & Mesure, special issue Productivité et croissance agricole, Vol. xv, n°3-4, p. 355-376. Limberger, Michael (2008), Sixteenth-century Antwerp and its Rural Surroundings. Social and Economic Changes in the Hinterland of a Commercial Metropolis (ca. 1450 – ca. 1570), Turnhout, Brepols, Studies in European Urban History, 14. Martini, Manuela (2000), ‘L’Expansion d’une culture commerciale. La production du chanvre dans la plaine de Bologne au xixe siècle’, Histoire & Mesure, special issue, Productivité et croissance agricole, vol. xv, n°3-4, p. 377-397. Mérot, Florent (2015), La Vallée de Montmorency aux xviie et xviiie siècles. Paysage, économie et société aux portes de Paris, Paris, Les Indes Savantes. Molinier Alain (1985), Stagnations et croissance. Le Vivarais aux xviie-xviiie siècles, Paris, Éd. de l’EHESS. Nilsson, Pia (2016), ‘Hop-farming in specialisation in seventeenth Swedish rural society’, in Annie Antoine (ed.), Agricultural specialisation and rural patterns of development, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe, 12, p. 289-303. Pérez-Picazo, Maria-Teresa (2000), ‘Essor de la production et gains de productivité agricole dans une région méditerranéenne au xixe siècle. Le cas de la province de Murcie’, Histoire & Mesure, special issue Productivité et croissance agricole, vol. xv, n° 3-4, p. 217-232. Pesek, John & Goodman, Robert (1989), Alternative Agriculture, report submitted to the Committee on the Role of Alternative Farming Methods in Modern Production Agriculture, Board on Agriculture, National Research Council (USA). Pinilla, Vicente (ed.) (2009), Markets and Agricultural Change in Europe from the 13th to the 20th century, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe 2. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (1999a), ‘L’Agriculture alternative: à propos d’un livre de Joan Thirsk’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 12, 2, p. 131-147.

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Poussou, Jean-Pierre (1999b), review of Joan Thirsk (1997), ‘Alternative Agriculture: A History from the Black Death to the Présent Day’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 12, 2, p. 185-187. Quellier, Florent (2003), Des Fruits et des hommes: l’arboriculture fruitière en Îlede-France (vers 1600-vers 1800), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Ronsijn, Wouter (2014), Commerce and the Countryside. The rural population’ involvement in the commodity market in Flanders, 1750-1910, Gent, Academia Press. Serrão, Jose Vicente (2009), ‘Land Management responses to market changes. Portugal, seventeenth-nineteenth centuries’ in Vicente Pinilla (ed.), Markets and Agricultural Change in Europe from the 13th to the 20th century, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe, 2, p. 47-73. Thirsk, Joan (1997), Alternative Agriculture: A History from the Black Death to the Present Day, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Thirsk, Joan (1999), ‘L’Agriculture en Angleterre et en France de 1600 à 1800: contacts, coïncidences et comparaisons’, Histoire, Economie, Société, 18/1, p. 5-24. Thoen, Erik (1990), ‘Technique agricole, cultures nouvelles et économie rurale en Flandre au bas Moyen Age’, dans Plantes et cultures nouvelles en Europe occidentale, au Moyen Age et à l’époque moderne, n° spécial, Cahiers de Flaran, n°12, p. 51-68. Thoen, Erik (2001), ‘A “commercial survival economy” in evolution. The Flemish countryside and the transition to capitalism (Middle Ages – 19th century)’, in Peter Hoppenbrouwers and Jan Luiten van Zanden (eds), Peasants into Farmers? The Transformation of Rural Economy and Society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages – 19th Century) in Light of the Brenner Debate, Brepols, Corn series, 4, p. 102-157. Traversat, Michel (2001), Les Pépinières. Étude sur les jardins français et les pépinières, unpublished thesis EHESS. Vandewalle, Paul (1994), Quatre siècles d’agriculture dans la région de Dunkerque 1590-1990. Une étude statistique, Centre Belge d’Histoire Rurale, n°110, Gand. Viallet, Hélène (1993), Les Alpages et la vie d’une communauté montagnarde: Beaufort du Moyen Âge au xviiie siècle, Annecy & Grenoble, Académie Salésienne et Centre Alpin et rhodanien d’ethnologie. Wolff, Philippe (1954), Commerces et marchands de Toulouse (vers 1350 – vers 1450), Paris, Plon.

The Debate

J e an- P ierre P oussou  

2. A  nother Look at Joan Thirsk’s Concept of ‘Alternative Agriculture’, and why it should be Discarded I. Introduction I am particularly pleased to see new interest in a theme that I tried to bring out fifteen years ago in an article for Histoire et Sociétés Rurales (Poussou, 1999 b), prompted by the publication two years earlier of Alternative Agriculture: A History from the Black Death to the Present Day (Thirsk, 1997), an extremely stimulating book by a great English historian, Joan Thirsk1 who died recently at the age of 91, after a very long career culminating in her appointment as Reader in Economic History in the University of Oxford. My interest in this subject had been aroused when the comparative rural and agricultural history of France and Great Britain was put on the syllabus of the agrégation in French history in the late 1990s. Although this theme constituted in my view a very important problem of historical interpretation for rural historians, and ample justification for this third meeting of rural historians at Treviso, neither my article nor Thirsk’s book, it must be admitted, gave rise to much discussion either in France or in Great Britain2. So it seems appropriate to take up the





* Translation by Judith Le Goff 1 Thirsk was specialised in the agricultural history of England and Wales. Her major contribution was the preparation and publication (in 8 books and 11 volumes), of The Agrarian History of England and Wales, which she took over after the death of Herbert Finberg, who edited only Book I, vol. 2 (1972). This massive work was begun in 1967 and completed in 2000. It constitutes an extraordinary summary of existing scholarship, covering the period from 4000 BC to the Second World War, and there is no equivalent in any other country. She herself edited Book iv, 1500-1640, (1967) and Book v, 1640-1750, vol. i (1984) and vol. ii (1985) and contributed to significant sections of these volumes and of others. It is fair to say that the establishment of English rural history as a major discipline in the second half of the twentieth century was largely her work. 2 There were no reactions to my paper in England and those to Joan Thirsk’s book came only from her disciples, perhaps because English rural historians are not much interested in general interpretative theories. A good example of this can be found in Tom Williamson’s highly interesting study, The Transformation of Rural England: Farming and Landscape 1700 – 1870 (2002): not only does he not mention the term ‘alternative agriculture’ but he does not refer to Thirsk’s book, although her works are well represented in his bibliography. On this side of the Channel, one of the very few references I have come across is in Florent Quellier (Quellier, 2003: 139-140). In fact, it seems to me that in France only Gérard Béaur has really paid attention to this question and to my critical discussion of Joan Thirsk’s ideas; see, e.g. his significant paper, ‘Alternative agriculture or agricultural specialization in early modern France?’ (Béaur, 2009). Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 35-55.

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DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119523

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question again, bringing into my analysis, at the request of the conference organisers, the papers presented at Treviso. My earlier article on this subject sought to introduce Thirsk’s concept of alternative agriculture to French historians and to point out its limitations, starting from an extremely clear summary of views that she drew up for French readers two years later, in 1999. Taking the example of Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie, she rightly showed how much historians of both countries had focussed on cereal growing to the point of ‘concealing…. agricultural diversity’ and changes that often favoured the introduction of ‘alternative crops’ (Thirsk, 1999). I will examine this theme in the first section, since I believe that her concept of ‘alternative agriculture’ is still relatively unknown in other countries, but so deeply embedded in English agricultural history that it needs to be clearly spelled out. In the second section I will try to show that we should speak of complementary crops rather than alternative crops. This shift of terminology implies that we are not simply dealing with changes in agricultural systems, and that the key role of demand was much greater than that of shifts in cereals or meat prices in bringing about their introduction. Also – and this is the third stage of my approach – it is clear that we should not be limited just to the agricultural systems discussed by Thirsk. Finally, there is the conclusion, which is longer than usual because it incorporates the elements of the preceding discussion, and also material from the papers given at this third conference on agrarian history at Treviso. Its theme is that, despite Joan Thirsk’s analysis, despite the important questions she raised about earlier work on English agricultural history, the limitations and gaps in the concept of alternative agriculture, defined and understood as she proposed, are such that it cannot really be used by historians and should be abandoned.

II. T  he concept of alternative agriculture and its limitations The basic idea in Thirsk’s work, which she had already put forward in the seventies, was laid out in the customary fashion, in her Introduction: The basic foodstuffs of Western peoples are cereals and meat and the production of those essentials for life are [sic] fairly described as mainstream agriculture. But profitable production has not always gone smoothly, and, whenever circumstances have changed radically, farmers have been driven to seek alternatives. The interpretation of our agricultural history which is offered here stresses a sequence of movements from mainstream farming to alternatives, and then back again. Major disjunctures have recurred, obliging farmers to divert their energies from the primary pursuit of grain and meat, to investigate other activities. On each occasion, when diversification has been necessary, farmers’ ingenuity has been taxed, but

2. another look at joan thirsk’s concept of ‘alternative agriculture’

it has successfully produced solutions which enabled them to survive until the old order returned (Thirsk, 1997: 2-3)3. These ‘other activities’ were crops that diversified existing products or took their place, making it possible to meet the challenge of falling prices for cereals and meat. These activities were very varied and could include hemp, flax and tobacco growing, as well as market gardening, fruit orchards, raising rabbits or fish, or gathering kelp. Thirsk even thinks that dairy farming and cheese production can be included. These were not new sectors: what was new was how significant they became. And, in one of the fundamental parts of her argument, this significance was permanent. Joan Thirsk sets out four crisis periods in English agrarian history, which were also those when ‘alternative crops’ were developed, ‘alternative’ being clearly understood to mean the large-scale replacement of cereal growing or cattle-raising for meat, by other productive activities (even though, down to the twentieth century, bread cereals took up a much larger place in production than stockbreeding). These four periods were, first, the century and a half after the Black Death, from 1350 to 1500; second, the demographic slowdown of 1650-1750, also marked (though Thirsk does not emphasise this) by large-scale changes in land use from arable to pasture4 (Overton, 1996: 93); third, the long-term fall in prices, starting at the end of the nineteenth century and continuing until World War II, from 1879 to 1939; and fourth, the decades beginning in the 1980s, which brought a new long-term fall in cereal and meat prices, perhaps now ending5. This was an approach she had already foreshadowed in 1984: The standard image of rural England as a country of villages and common fields, of authoritarian lords and dull peasants, and of one agricultural routine of corn-growing and livestock-keeping has emerged in the last three decades of historical research as no more than a convenient stereotype. The English countryside is highly diverse, and most significant of all, shows great variety over short distances (Thirsk, 1984, ix).





3 Thirsk is of course referring to English agricultural history here. 4 At this point there is a weak link in the argument: English population growth certainly slowed down in this middle period, displaying varying periods of stagnation and decline, but London continued to grow, as did the other towns from the beginning of the eighteenth century on, and it was the urban market that was crucial to the sale of agricultural products. Moreover, the choice of the period 1650-1750, essentially defined by the link between demographic changes and price changes, is surprising. In the volume of essays in her honour, one of her students, Peter Large, demonstrates that, in fact, in the manor of Ombersley in Worcestershire, cereal-producing farmers with small flocks of sheep had great difficulty from the early 1590s to the beginning of the 1630s because of large fluctuations in grain prices, as Margaret Spufford had already shown to be the case in Cambridgeshire (Large, 1990). 5 For instance the Journal du Dimanche, 26 Dec. 2010, p. 11, article headlined ‘World Grain Prices Lift Off ’.

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Despite my admiration for the work of this superb historian, I have offered criticism of it in two articles (Poussou, 1999b and 1999c); at Gérard Béaur’s request, I shall attempt to expand and complete this here. First of all, it is obvious that the term ‘alternative agriculture’ is unclear and very much open to question. In order to accept it, it would have to be shown that the primacy of cereals and meat, which Thirsk and many other writers, starting with Fernand Braudel (Braudel, 1979, 81-152), claim was characteristic of agriculture in the West6, had been replaced by other products over the long phases that she delimits. This, however, is not the case, not even at the end of the twentieth century. It would therefore have been preferable to speak of ‘alternative crops’7 for, taken as a whole, the ‘western’ agricultural system has not much changed: it has simply made more room for new products. Was the essential purpose of these new products to ‘help…farmers’ cope with falling cereal and meat prices (Thirsk, 1997: 25 and 29)? This is not at all clear for Thirsk, even though she is also the author of a book on the growth of English consumer society from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century (Thirsk, 1978). Alternative Agriculture looks only at supply and barely speaks of demand, but the latter was just as important as the former if not more so. It is quite clear that change in European rural societies, that is to say their development, ‘was linked to the parallel growth of nearby towns and other markets, farther away… particularly in countries like England, the Netherlands and northern France’ (Pinilla, 2009b: 12). Joan Thirsk’s study of how ‘alternative crops’ developed during the period 1650 – 1750 shows this very clearly: she emphasises the growth of industrial crops, of horticulture and market gardening, and concentrates, quite rightly, on the interest in improving agricultural techniques and methods (Thirsk, 1997: 21-42). But in all this, English farmers were only responding to the new possibilities of the market and only profiting from a remarkable increase in demand, which can be explained both by the very robust growth of London and the rapid development of British trade and industry. G. E. Mingay pointed this out in his 1998 review of Thirsk’s work: ‘In some instances the original stimulus to innovation or expansion was an external one’ (Mingay, 1998). Consider the case of market gardening and horticulture; the explanation for their development lies in the growth of London’s population, which doubled in the first half of the seventeenth century, from 200,000 to 400,000, reaching 575,000 by the end of the century, 675,000 by 1750 and 900,000 in 1801 (Clark, 2000: 316 and 650). Not only did market gardening and tree crops fail to lose ground to ‘mainstream agriculture’8 between the start of the



6 Thirsk speaks of ‘Western peoples’, which includes North American agriculture, even though there are great differences between the systems and practices in Europe and America. 7 Chapters iv and v of the work were entitled, appropriately, ‘alternative crops’ (Thirsk, 1997). 8 Thirsk often uses this term to refer to the primacy of cereals and stock raising.

2. another look at joan thirsk’s concept of ‘alternative agriculture’

sixteenth century and the middle of the seventeenth; but instead the growth of London from 80,000 to more than 400,000 inhabitants was sufficient to induce an ongoing process which clearly shrank the traditional agricultural system in the home counties and the South-East, especially as certain real specialisations, such as hops, were developing in Kent (Thirsk, 1997: 96-103). In many parts of these regions the ‘dominant’ system lost ground in the end. This can also be seen on the other side of the Channel, in the Île-de-France: in 1740, at Montreuil-sous-Bois, fruit trees took up a quarter of the surface area and almost as much in the parishes in the Montmorency valley (Quellier, 2003: 87-88). After the civil war known as the Fronde (1648-1653), market gardening and fruit orchards replaced cereals and wine. These new crops became permanent for several centuries, so there was no reversion to the previous system, contrary to what Joan Thirsk envisaged (This volume). The whole history of the area around Paris was dominated by the growth of the capital (220,000 inhabitants in 1600, 430,000 in 1650, 510,000 in 1700 and 620,000 in 1789) and the development of new tastes; in particular social elites and the middle classes acquired a liking for garden and orchard produce (Quellier, 2003: 121). Later, from the middle of the nineteenth century, gardening in the Seine valley downstream from Paris grew greatly in response to the rising demand from the capital, where the population grew six-fold, and also because Parisians developed a steadily increasing desire for flowers. Of course, the profitability of gardening in comparison with the hitherto predominant vines and cereals was clear, but this change resulted above all from demand and new fashions, made possible by an increase in the standard of living (This volume). In some cases, as in Antwerp after 1550 and through the following century, as Michael Limberger shows in his paper at this conference, it was not just that rising urban demand stimulated growth: town-dwelling landowners also took a hand by encouraging the agricultural boom, by investing their capital and by granting their farmers leases of 21 to 28 years’ length, which encouraged them to make improvements (This volume). It should also be noted that at Montreuil, in the second half of the seventeenth century, the growth of the gardening community was linked to the arrival of a hundred or so Parisians, who settled down and established estates on which they employed these gardeners (This volume). More generally, the development of alternative crops was linked less to general changes in the price of mainstream crops than to shifts in the demand for the products of alternative agriculture, as Florent Quellier has demonstrated for the relation between changes in the price of wine – in France wine was the third most important dominant agricultural system, alongside the cereal growing and stock raising that Joan Thirsk put forward for Great Britain (Poussou, 1999 b) – and the conversion of land from grape to fruit production in the area around Paris. It was the increasing consumption of fruit by Parisians that provided the principal impulse; changes in wine prices were only a secondary factor and there were no automatic links between wine prices and the dynamic of fruit-growing (Quellier, 2003: 120-121). Moreover,

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although this led to the replacement of vineyards by the cultivation of fruit and fruit-trees in areas near towns, in France overall, there was a remarkable increase in winegrowing in response to increased demand, which went on from the middle of the seventeenth century until the time of the Third Republic (1870-1940) (Poussou, 2011 and 2013). This responsiveness to demand was particularly true of industrial crops. Thus, the shifts in the cultivation of pastel woad around Toulouse were in no way governed by variations in the price of grain or of cattle, and its overall decline, in England as in France, is chiefly explained by the introduction of indigo into Europe. In Flanders, the widespread cultivation of dyeing plants from the twelfth century onwards did not happen for agricultural reasons but because of the growing textile industry: ‘the development of the cloth trade led to the cultivation of dyeing plants, particularly weld (guède)’ (Derville, 1995: 49). In Flanders, more generally, when ‘industrial crops invaded the fields, it was obviously because of market demand’ (Derville, 1995: 53). Isabelle Theiller makes a similar point about the large number of markets in eastern Normandy at the end of the middle ages; she emphasises the role they played in developing regional agricultural products and specialisations, following the lead of the Rouen merchants who predominated in that rural area (Theiller, 2009). This was also true for the production of madder in France in the eighteenth century, which was entirely a response to the needs of the market (Béaur, 2009: 123), and also for the cultivation of flax in Brittany, driven by the commercial success of locally produced cloth. A particularly interesting example is the use of Spanish broom (also known as weaver’s broom) in the Lodève area during the nineteenth century: this was a plant with fibres that could be used to make a very rough cloth but also baskets and espadrilles. In the eighteenth century it was ‘a marginal plant harvested by the peasants for their own domestic needs in cloth’. As long as the countryside was well populated and mainly plough-land, as in Thirsk’s model, it was found only on barren or uncultivated land, but it spread in the seventeenth century after deadly plague epidemics left land unworked for want of labour. Because it fixed nitrogen, the plant entered into crop rotations during the eighteenth century. It spread across part of the Lodève region, and broom plantations became real productive spaces, until finally it met competition from industrial crops in the middle of the nineteenth century (Olivier, 2005 and 2009; Fabre, 2010). There are two interesting points in this example. First, contrary to what Thirsk wrote, changing cereal or livestock prices were not the only reasons for the spread of alternative crops: in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after the fall in population, it was easier to set up rabbit warrens than to plough the land and grow cereals. Secondly, as the dominant agricultural system improved and as agricultural progress made it more complex, with increasingly complicated and flexible rotations, it was quite feasible to fit new crops into these rotations, thereby increasing profits. At that point there was no opposition between ‘alternative crops’ and the dominant system. For example, in the Haute-Marne, substituting clover for traditional fallow made

2. another look at joan thirsk’s concept of ‘alternative agriculture’

it possible to transform local agriculture without changing the agricultural system; the dominant productions remained barley, wheat, and hemp, while cattle production increased (Gautier, 2006). The example of potato growing in Scotland shows still other factors coming into play. On the one hand the potato could be perfectly fitted into the existing agricultural system, as it could be grown on soil too acid for other crops. On the other hand it helped resolve the problem of food shortages and even famine, which had been a frequent threat in the seventeenth century and before. Thus although there was no link with cereal and livestock prices, the very difficult years at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, particularly the five years of famine from 1695 to 1700, known as the Seven Ill Years or the King William Dearth Years, strongly pushed farmers to grow potatoes, particularly in the Hebrides, where they took up more and more land after 1743. It is therefore difficult to think of potatoes as an ‘alternative crop’; on the contrary they became a permanent fixture, the agricultural crop that allowed the Scottish agricultural population to improve its living conditions and free itself from the burden of scarcity and famine (Handley, 1953). Although the reasons for the spread of vineyards in France in the eighteenth century were completely different there are some points in common: it took hold on difficult land that was not suitable for cereals, such as the low-lying tracts in the flood plain of the Gironde (palus)9 (Lavaud, 2005), and did not upset existing agricultural systems. The takeover of common land also made it possible: for example, in the Gard, the growth of the area under vines from 51,151 to 71,583 hectares came about by privatising common land (Musset, 2002).

III. Alternative crops rather than alternative agriculture Should we even be talking about ‘alternative crops’? On closer examination, two other terms would seem to be better suited to current use: they are frequently ‘complementary crops’, which are often ‘industrial crops’; only in certain precise cases are they ‘alternative’. Mingay emphasised that ‘many of the innovations of the two earlier periods were of the nature of offering supplementary sources of income rather than alternative ones, for if the bulk of farming remained little affected by the new developments “alternative agriculture” may not be the most appropriate description’ (Mingay 1998). These crops had existed since the Middle Ages. In a previous article I mentioned the example of the hemp industry around Reims, which ever since the thirteenth century had produced cloth for export over very long distances (Desportes, 1979). Increased production came out of an industrial and commercial success story,



9 When reclaimed, this land became very fertile, but stayed very damp; there were still many vines there in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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even in the ‘filled-up world’ (monde plein) of the central Middle Ages, when cereal and stockbreeding prices were riding high. In these instances, there was no link between the industrial crop and the movement of the ‘principal’ agricultural products. In the same way, in Spain, in the region of Valencia, from the fourteenth century on, peasants ‘replaced’ their cereal crops with mulberry trees; in fact they did not ‘replace’ the cereal crops because mulberries could co-exist with them as a complementary crop, not an alternative. The same is true of rice and sugar crops, the produce of which was exported, often to England10. These complementary and/or industrial crops developed fully from the early modern period onwards, as result of several combined factors: population growth, particularly the growth of urban population, industrial and commercial development, changing tastes and a growing interest in ‘luxury’ items, which made their place in agricultural production independent of the ups and downs of prices for cereals and animal stock. Nor should we allow ourselves to be misled by the temporary recession caused by the Black Death; ever since the twelfth century the economy of western and north-western Europe and, to a lesser degree, that of northern Europe, was an expanding economy, and its industrial production and trading exchanges never stopped expanding, even before it was speeded up by the industrial, shipping and commercial ‘revolutions’ in the period from 1750 to 1850. An example of this continuous and only occasionally interrupted growth, is provided by barley-growing in Scotland. Barley took up more and more land there because it was needed for brewing and malting, and many farmers were involved in its production. The first period of growth came at the end of the middle ages, but it was mainly in the late sixteenth century that production surged ahead powerfully, at first around Edinburgh and then in the rich cereal-growing lands in its hinterland, the Lothians. This tide flowed even more strongly at the end of the eighteenth century; barley became the main cereal crop because of the rising urban population, which created a sizeable demand for beer but also for whisky. Barley was in no way a ‘subsistence food’, a ‘food’ cereal; the crop was destined for industrial production. In my earlier article, I referred to Peter Mathias’ study of the brewing industry in England, in which the author cited Gregory King’s estimation that barley was already

10 One of interesting aspects of Calatayud’s study of the Valencia region is that wheat was always a dominant crop but that it always was grown along with complementary crops. The latter changed according to the circumstances: mulberry trees, on the decline at the end of the eighteenth century, were replaced by hemp, which in turn, made way at the end of the nineteenth century for orange trees and market gardens (This volume). During the discussions at the third conference at Treviso, Gérard Béaur rightly emphasised that the replacement of cereals by tree crops puts the question into a different context: on the one hand, trees are for the long term, but on the other, they require considerable investment. Thus, they are not comparable to alternative cultures such as hemp that were studied by Joan Thirsk and her students; hemp could easily be abandoned, as Caroline Le Mao has shown in her paper at this conference (This volume).

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by far the main cereal cultivated in England at the end of the seventeenth century (Poussou, 1999 b: 141-143; Mathias, 1959: 388). Examples of the growing incidence of industrial crops are many and very often they were not linked to great changes in the cereal or stock-breeding economy. Joan Thirsk herself studied the growth of woad in England. Woad cultivation was linked to the needs of the English textile industry, which had a hard time procuring it on a regular basis from outside the country. Woad-growing began at the end of the sixteenth century, so it was not linked to a slump in the price of the main agricultural products, which did not take place until the second half of the seventeenth century (Thirsk, 1997, 79-96). In fact, one can only agree with Gérard Béaur when he evokes ‘the absence of any statistical relationship between the changes in harvest prices and textile production over the course of the eighteenth century’ (Béaur, 1994: 75). In every period farmers have managed to find small amounts of space to grow plants that guaranteed them high profits; one such was liquorice, which has been studied by one of Thirsk’s disciples, John Chartres. The plant had anti-inflammatory virtues, especially powerful against throat and stomach maladies and it was also useful in crop rotations (Chartres, 2004). From another point of view, its development had some similarity with the history of weaver’s broom in the Lodève: that is, it constituted a very localised implantation within a small region. It was already clear in Thirsk’s book, and even more so in the collection of essays in her honour edited by Richard Hoyle (Hoyle, 2004) that studies of ‘alternative agriculture’ had not only to examine long-term developments in agricultural systems; they should and must also look at ‘alternative crops’: this is effectively how Richard Hoyle studied, in that collection, the growth of woad in England in the 1580s, at a time when agricultural prices were clearly tending upwards, not down. The reason is very simple: complementary crops, industrial, or not, as in the case of liquorice, ensured higher profits for farmers. They were easily fitted into their regular arrangements of the holding: as they often required a great deal of work, they were most frequently grown on small plots, often in gardens or on little patches of land temporarily set aside for that purpose. Gérard Béaur rightly reminds us of Jean Meuvret’s dictum that in France gardens were often places for agricultural experimentation, mainly because they were exempt from tithing, and, as Meuvret added, ‘many of these plants were not destined to feed the population but as raw materials to be used by artisans or in industry’ (Béaur, 2009: 122). This was true even when the agricultural system was organised around them, as was the case in the Trégor and Léon regions of Brittany during the early modern period, where flax was grown for cloth production. It became the central crop there, just as occurred in Ulster around Armagh, in the second half of the eighteenth century (Young, 1800), but in Brittany it took up only 10 % of the land (Tanguay, 1994). Apart from barley, these alternative crops were never intended to take up the whole of the cultivated land, but, from the moment when agricultural progress took off, many of them became part of the mechanism of growth because they were useful in crop rotations. Viewed from this angle, their growth was also

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connected, not to shifts in cereal and stock breeding prices, but rather to their own particular path of development. This was the case with hop-growing in the East and South-East of England, which had been going on for many centuries, since Anglo-Saxon times. In the fifteenth century, brewers, many of Dutch or Flemish origin, imported hops from the Netherlands. But from the beginning of the sixteenth century, at the moment when London was moving into its great period of population growth, hop-growing increased and continued to grow throughout the second half of the century ‘because hop prices rose, and the demand could not be met by any substitutes’ (Thirsk, 1997: 99).There we have it: Joan Thirsk herself shows that growth was not connected to the price fluctuations of essential productions since this was a period when their prices were rising. In passing, the place Thirsk gives to these new crops leads to an obvious methodological risk; as I have already pointed out, most of them were grown only on very small plots; liquorice, studied by John Chartres, is the most striking example (Chartres, 2004). There is thus a danger of reducing the subject to a list or a catalogue of crops that certainly enjoyed real development and sometimes great expansion, but whose quantitative impact remained quite small because they occupied only a small area. Unfortunately, in her work, Thirsk very rarely gives us an idea of the actual surface area covered by the new crops and the amounts produced; this is the case, for example of her discussion of the cultivation of safflower, or weld (also known as dyer’s weed or dyer’s greenweed). Is it all that certain that they were not simply a supplement to the dominant products, as was the case with the increase in orange trees and market gardens in late nineteenth-century Valencia? In that instance, introducing new commodities did not reduce the amount of wheat produced (Catalayud, 2013). At this point, we should sum up before moving on. The essential and extremely positive contribution of Joan Thirsk’s work was undoubtedly to remind us that in the agricultural history of Europe, far too much emphasis has been put on the production of food cereals and traditional types of stock-raising mainly aimed at meat production. There certainly were other crops, and in her eyes, another agriculture, which she called ‘alternative agriculture’. It seems to me that this term is not appropriate, since, overall, it was never a main sector in agriculture. For the period following the Black Death, roughly 1350-1450 (a period which in England stretches on to the 1490s, because of the Wars of the Roses), her conclusions can be accepted in their entirety,11 apart from a few points as we shall see. The drastic population decline in Western Europe and the shortage of labour drove prices down considerably and were less favourable to the traditional practices of cereal and meat production. As a result, much arable was converted to grassland, where it proved profitable to keep flocks of sheep, mainly for wool but also for cheese from the ewes. In other places farmers preferred to raise herds of cattle, often milk cows. The 11 This summarises pages 7 to 20 of Alternative Agriculture.

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spread of rabbit warrens and deer parks was a bigger innovation. We should also note the proliferation of dovecotes and of fish-farming in ponds, moats and even ditches. More flax, hemp and saffron were produced. Ley farming was widely practiced, which meant leaving part of the arable land uncultivated. Because of the worsening economic situation, cereals and traditional forms of stock-breeding actually declined in size relative to other crops. In this period these productions may rightly be called ‘alternative’ because they were a substitute for others and also, as with ley farming, were derived from other agricultural systems. The difficulty with Thirsk’s examples however is that, apart from the great transformation of ploughed fields into meadows, the examples cited often come from individual farms or estates from which it is not possible to deduce broader change: this is particularly the case with rabbit warrens and deer parks. The shrinkage of ploughed fields and meat production is undeniable but what exactly did it represent? Was it not mainly local change, as was for example the creation of new forests in France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Brosselin, 1996)? To be sure, the planting of maritime pines in the Landes at that time was a wide-scale and general transformation which began a new way of using natural resources that looks forward in many ways to policies devised for an ‘alternative agriculture’ at the present (Lerat, 2010). But there was no return to the previous situation, a condition which Thirsk makes almost an obligatory test in her work. Specialisation in olive oil in sixteenth-century Majorca was a similar process. The island economy had been based on cereal and wool; it collapsed in the seventeenth-century crisis; in the plain the farmers continued to practice the old agriculture, but in the rest of the island they turned to olive and, to a lesser extent, almond trees. The textile industry was destroyed for want of raw materials, but so was cereal production because the labour needed to keep up the olive trees was incompatible with cereal cultivation. Once an alternative crop, olives now became dominant, but there was no return to the primacy of cereal growing and sheep raising (This volume).The only idea of Joan Thirsk that applies here is that changes may arise from difficulties related to the cost of agricultural production, even outside the period model that she proposed. With the return to economic and demographic growth in Europe from the fifteenth century, particularly with the rapid growth in England, Thirsk’s argument begins to break down. Agricultural changes in England began in the sixteenth century, though they speeded up in the second half of the seventeenth century. A study of Ombersley village by one of Thirsk’s former students, illustrates this process well, all the more so in that it did not involve large farmers. During the seventeenth century, the strength of growing demand for cereals in the markets near to the West Midlands led the farmers of Ombersley to adopt the use of clover quickly and initiate substantial improvements in agricultural productivity, even though they did not have large amounts of capital for this purpose (Large, 1990). From the seventeenth century onward, the turn to other agricultural productions, which had begun well before the

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middle of the seventeenth century, was not basically linked to the price of cereals and meat: it occurred because of their intrinsic advantages, or lack of them. This advantage could apply at a particular time over a short period, as Caroline Le Mao shows in her conference paper on hemp production in the Bordeaux hinterland during the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697) (This volume). It could last longer when it met sustained demand, as in the case of barley and hops in Great Britain, flax in Brittany and Ireland, and orchards, market gardens and horticulture around Paris. These crops could be associated with already dominant forms of production, such as sheep rearing, or pig farming on the big cereal farms of the Île-de-France towards the end of the seventeenth century (Moriceau, 1994, 374-403). They could also exist within the framework of agricultural systems where geography did not leave much space to dominant products. Such was the situation on the northern shores of Brittany, where flax, hemp, vegetables and leguminous plants held a much larger place: according to Jacques Cambry, the first signs of the ‘Golden belt’ had already appeared clearly in the eighteenth century (Charpentier, 2013: 68-71). Indeed, in the eighteenth century, the rich and comfortably-off inhabitants of Saint-Malo influenced this development by building country houses with large vegetable and fruit gardens, both to supply the needs of the town and for ship victualling. This is very like the example of Montreuil, as mentioned above (This volume). The creation of these gardens can also be explained by the spread among the rich and better-off people of Saint-Malo of a very marked taste for flowers in the house (This volume). Furthermore, agricultural progress has to be taken into account, particularly the advances made in new crop rotations and methods of soil fertilisation. These made it possible to introduce new plants and allot more space to forage and to industrial plants, as had already happened in Flemish agriculture in the thirteenth century. Thus English agriculture changed constantly from the seventeenth century onward, though cereal and meat production continued to dominate it. The key to the process was the decline in uncultivated land, which made it possible to grow a more diverse array of plants, as happened on the open fields of Oxfordshire from the seventeenth century onwards (Havinden, 1968). At the same time the turnip was emerging from the gardens of High Suffolk to become an essential element of its agriculture; this was a real ‘agricultural revolution’ (Kerridge, 1968).

IV. T  here are other agricultural systems than those discussed by Joan Thirsk Must we accept that the only dominant agricultural systems in early modern Europe were those recognised by Joan Thirsk? Clearly not, since her discussion leaves out the role of vines in a great part of the Kingdom of France, Flemish agriculture and also the extremely important role of the potato in the Irish agricultural economy; of the latter, Joan Thirsk herself tells us that

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as early as 1650, ‘Cromwell’s soldiers saw fields full of them’ (Thirsk, 1990). Nor should we neglect agricultural systems in mountain regions, which followed a different logic and obeyed other constraints. Vines or potatoes, could become a virtual monoculture for small farmers, but, although they were the dominant product on large winegrowing estates, they went along with cereals or stockbreeding. However, the changes in winegrowing areas had no connection with cereal prices. In France, as Ernest Labrousse showed (Labrousse, 1933 and 1944), though cereal prices rose over the long term, wine-growing areas grew even more rapidly. Even before the Black Death, Flemish agriculture had made great use, not only of leguminous plants and field mustard, but also of plants used in dyeing, particularly madder, or industrial plants such as flax. Erik Thoen has also pointed out that the technical innovations in English agriculture that Thirsk links to the crisis between roughly 1350 and 1500 had mostly been put in place as early as the thirteenth century. This was because of the number and size of English towns, and because of the way feudal structures left room for peasant investment (Thoen, 1990). The price of cereals played an even smaller role here: as early as the thirteenth century, Flanders had managed to import cereals from the Baltic when it needed them, and this became standard practice in the United Provinces during the seventeenth century. We should note though that this is one of Thirsk’s fundamental ideas: low cereal prices were supposed to favour the introduction and development of other crops. But is it possible to talk of alternative crops, since neither Flanders nor the United Provinces, ever returned to ‘mainstream agriculture’ when the high cereal prices on which she insists, came back? There is no difficulty in finding ‘secondary’ crops that turned out to be extremely durable and which, like hemp (This volume), varied as a function of a specific demand. The agricultural systems that Thirsk defined for England were thus not the only ones in Europe and in any case her analysis has only partial usefulness for other countries. The wine-growing regions, Flanders, a large part of Ireland from the seventeenth century and mountain regions at any period do not fit into her model of an agriculture that is flexible because it is ‘alternative’; these systems had always had enjoyed several types of production and activities, rather than only turning to them when ‘mainstream agriculture’ went into decline. As for agriculture in poor countries, it made room for the potato from the seventeenth century on, not because the price of grain fell but because it was a much cheaper food, capable of providing great nutritional resources from plots of land which very small farmers, whether owners or tenants, could turn to account. Potatoes also had the advantage that they could be grown alternately with flax. This created an agricultural system on as simple a level as that of the small winegrowers but one that allowed a large and rapid increase in population, even if it ultimately led to an appalling dead-end (O’Grada, 1995). Finally, most mountain regions were left completely outside this blueprint; there was hill farming in Great Britain, particularly in Wales and Scotland (Poussou, 1999 a) but this is totally absent from her work. This is

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true even though there are examples of change in such agricultural systems in Britain – the Highland clearances, for example – and the changeover, from the seventeenth century onwards, of the agricultural economy in the Pre-alps of western Switzerland with the switch to production of the hard cheeses, Emmenthal and Gruyère (This volume). The economy of mountain regions gives us the chance to look at an important question which, after a brief hesitation, Joan Thirsk left out of her overview (Thirsk, 1997: 204-216): the role of complementary activities in past agricultural systems. These activities corresponded to societies with a preponderance of large numbers of small and even middling farmers, whether landowners or not. The living they earned from the land was usually meagre and almost always insufficient, and this led them to carry on a very wide range of complementary activities. Some, which do not really concern us here, depended on proximity to a town (de Saint Jacob, 1960) or to the presence of roads and rivers. Others arose from geographic circumstances and were closely linked to agricultural activities or at least could fit in with them. In my previous article I mentioned the case of kelp-gathering on the shores of the Scottish Highlands, which developed from the 1720s onward and became the main activity of many households (Gray, 1951-1952). Likewise, the collection of seaweed (goémon) ‘was an essential activity on the north shores of Brittany, broadly speaking, from Aber-Benoît to the Côte de Göello’ (Charpentier, 2013 a: 74). Flax-growing and hemp-growing fell into the same category: they were often only a complementary crop, as was tobacco. In these cases, the complementary activity usually fitted into farming activities or was added to them. Sometimes, in mountainous regions, these complementary activities were small-scale, land-related industrial activities such as wood-cutting, which occurred in the plain near the iron foundries, mostly in winter months. But this was not always possible or sufficient, which explains the hordes of migrants who came down from the mountains. Some forms of migration were seasonal, some temporary, but others were for long periods, often for life, as with the Swiss, Scots or Irish who went to fight in foreign armies. These were not agricultural activities but they nonetheless corresponded to farmers’ need for more income, to meet expenses such as taxes, as in the case of mountain dwellers, or because agricultural production was not enough to meet yearly needs (Poussou, 1983). This was the fundamental basis of Thirsk’s argument, since the phasing-in of ‘alternative agriculture’ depended on changes in the need farmers felt to bolster their revenues.

V. R  easons to abandon the concept of alternative agriculture, despite the positive contributions of Joan Thirsk’s analysis To sum up, Joan Thirsk, who wrote in the context of an English agricultural history that was essentially centred on the production of food cereals and

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meat, had the clear and great merit of reminding us that the agriculture of her country and of others amounted to more than just those two dominant products and that in various periods their share of the land and of the farms they occupied was cut back to make way for other products. She revived interest in other crops that had not been adequately treated in English agrarian history; her students and disciples accordingly devoted a large place to them in the Festschrift produced in her honour (Hoyle, 2004). These were extremely significant contributions to the agrarian history of our neighbours across the Channel. But if similar work had been done for France the contribution would have been less significant, since in our country vines and industrial plants have been afforded much greater attention in historical studies. As well, Joan Thirsk was absolutely correct to emphasise that agricultural crises brought about very great changes in crops and in farmers’ activities. Thus the crisis of 1890-1915 led to the development of new crops in the eastern plain of the Po: sugar beet and tomatoes (Cazzola, 2013). But one whole section of her analysis does not seem to me to hold up. Let us start with the use of the term ‘alternative agriculture’ itself. Thirsk did not create this concept. It is a present-day term that owes a great deal to John Pesek, Professor of Agronomy at the State University of Iowa, who proposed a definition of it that has since been universally adopted (Pesek and Goodman, 1989). Alternative agriculture was defined, at the end of the twentieth century, as ‘a systematic attempt by farmers to reduce agricultural pollution, increase sustainability and improve efficiency and profitability’.12 It puts the emphasis on natural processes and seeks to reduce as much as possible recourse to fertilisers and pesticides, keeping them for selective use, so as to preserve the soil and its biological integrity. It comes out of agro-ecology which aims to preserve the balance of ecosystems and complementarity between flora and fauna. All this is explained in greater detail by John Pesek and Robert Goodman in their 1989 work, Alternative Agriculture, which Thirsk cites. ‘Alternative agriculture’ was about abandoning ‘conventional agriculture’13 – which today is the most widespread form of agriculture in the world, an agriculture that is intensive and obsessed with productivity, using advanced mechanisation and heavy, even massive, doses of pesticides and chemical fertilisers – in favour of organic farming, which is more respectful of nature. Abandoning conventional agriculture for alternative organic agriculture corresponds to a real change in the agricultural system. Nothing like this happened in England between the mid-fourteenth century and the present; the changes Thirsk describes were never more than partial. Moreover, the great transformations in English agriculture, which she herself has so often and so well described, were the replacement of open fields by enclosures and the increasingly frequent use of new forms of cultivation. These had no direct

12 See the very detailed and useful definition of alternative agriculture in Wikipedia. 13 This became a common term in works on agronomy in the 1970s.

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link to the periods of shifting cereal and meat prices that she outlined. These transformations were on a much larger scale than the choice of growing colza, or madder or pastel woad, on plots of really quite modest size. It is clear that agricultural progress has been ongoing in England since at least the middle of the sixteenth century, and there is evidence to support the view that the process began in the last two centuries of the Middle Ages (Beauroy, 1998). We also know, in agrarian history, that in some cases transformations that increase or stabilise landed income may originate in the intensification of agricultural work, as was the case with the Anabaptist farmers of Hesse-Rhineland (Mahlerwein, 2002). Indeed, the very existence of the contemporary concept of alternative agriculture according to the definition I have just quoted is not in any way appropriate to these circumstances. It therefore seems obvious to me that we should abandon it in our studies of agricultural history. As also we should abandon the idea that these changes were necessarily prompted by falling revenues from cereal and meat production. Prices mattered a great deal of course, but over the period of six centuries considered here, they were never the only or indeed the predominant factor; thus after the Black Death the lack of manpower was undoubtedly just as important. In any case the price of industrial plants was never, at any time, linked to variations in agricultural prices. And, finally, agriculture in the past had always had room for complementary activities alongside the dominant activities, as was inevitable. There are also instances of crops being maintained for geographical reasons: falling cereal prices did not prevent cereals from being grown in the secano zones in Majorca or in the region of Valencia. Another reason for an alternative crop arose from the specific needs of an institution or region. At the end the eighteenth century, the Hopital général of Dijon continued to invest in its vines, despite falling wine prices, both because of the hospital’s own needs and because vineyards required investment over the long term (This volume). In fact, variations in demand were much more significant than crises themselves, which incidentally, were much more varied and complex than those Thirsk discusses. Thus, sometimes crises were even caused by government policy, as in the ‘wheat battle’ launched in the 1930s by the Italian Fascist regime (This volume). We can still continue to use the term ‘alternative crops’ because it is not freighted with the same inconvenient connotations for historians as ‘alternative agriculture’. However, I think that it would be much better, depending on the situation, to speak of substitution crops, complementary crops or industrial crops.

Conclusion This third agricultural history conference at Treviso has clearly demonstrated that reality was far more complex than Joan Thirsk showed. In brief, we may say that the main instances in which alternate crops made an appearance are

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the following: (1) When new crops appeared and developed which could be substituted for the dominant crops but could also be grown alongside them. (2) When the old crops continued to be developed on a lesser scale, though still remaining available as substitutes or inserts. (3) Sometimes, these changes corresponded to very considerable changes, or at least partial ones, in the existing agricultural system; but this was far from being the usual outcome. In addition the process was often very complex and involved a mix of many factors. Thus, the expanding growth of fruit trees in the alpine areas of Valais and Trentino-Alto-Adige from the end of the nineteenth century can be explained by the winegrowing crisis that followed the oïdium epidemic, by the creation of new land when the valleys were drained and finally, by a growing demand from the markets, which paid good money for fruit; but strong market volatility kept pressure on producers to re-adapt constantly (This volume). It should also be remembered that developments in the non-agricultural economy could also have an impact on agricultural change. Railways provided one such disruption. The coming of the railway and the policies of the rail companies led to the rise of market gardening and fruit growing in the middle Garonne region and in the lower valley of the Rhône (Deffontaines, 1932; George, 1935), and also to the very rapid expansion of the Roussillon vineyards after 1852 (Camiade, 2004). Lastly, the flexibility of farmers, which Joan Thirsk did consider, was even greater than she claims. Many of the sources cited in the present article demonstrate this. One good example is the production of ‘white’ veal for Paris between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Under Louis XIV it was carried on mainly in the Pays d’Auge region of Normandy, but at the beginning of the eighteenth century it shifted to the Île-de-France, when farmers succeeded in raising veau de Pontoise in the Vexin française region. But then in 1839 the railway came to the Vexin, making milk production much more profitable; thenceforward farms in the Gâtinais and the Brie took over breeding veal calves for Paris. Later still, at the end of the nineteenth century the same forces pushed the production of white veal farther afield, towards Champagne and then to the Charentes and Limousin (Fanica, 2013). Nevertheless, and it bears repeating, Joan Thirsk’s great merit was that she focused greater attention on alternative crops than they had hitherto received. Her work was very provocative; it forces us to reflect on global problems and perspectives in agricultural history, and on the flexibility of crop allocation – Jean-Michel Chevet’s work provides an excellent overview of this process, for both France and Great Britain (Chevet, 1999). But Thirsk also wrote within the tradition of English agrarian historical studies, which has its own particular interests and problems (Poussou, 2002). Her positive contributions are much more significant to that field than they are to French agrarian history, which has long given more room to winegrowing and to other agricultural activities besides the production of cereals and meat.

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Bibliography Béaur, Gérard (1994), ‘L’histoire de l’économie rurale à l’époque moderne, ou les désarrois du quantitativisme. Bilan critique’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 1, p. 67-97. Béaur, Gérard (2009), ‘Alternative agriculture or agricultural specialisation in early modern France’, in John Broad (ed.), A Common Agricultural Heritage? Revising French and British Rural Divergence, Agricultural History Review (suppl.), 2009, p. 121-137. Beauroy, Jacques (1998), ‘Les Coke de Holkham et le Norfolk System of Husbandry (1417-1805)’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 10, p. 9-46. Braudel, Fernand (1979), Civilisation matérielle, Economie et Capitalisme xve-xviiie siècle, t. i, Les Structures du Quotidien, Paris, Armand Colin. Broad, John (ed.) (2009), A Common Agricultural Heritage? Revising French and British Rural Divergence, Agricultural History Review (suppl.). Brosselin, Arlette (1996), ‘L’introduction des résineux en Bourgogne et la transformation des paysages ruraux (xviiie-xixe siècles)’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 5, p. 111-118. Calatayud, Salvador (2013), ‘Les nouvelles cultures dans les crises agricoles en Méditerranée’, Conference paper, Third Treviso Conference. Camiade, Martina (ed.) (2004), L’Albera. Vinyes y viniaters. Vignes et vignerons, Perpignan, Albera Viva. Cazzola, Franco (2013), ‘Après la crise agraire. Nouvelles cultures pour l’industrie dans la plaine orientale du Pô: la betterave sucrière et la tomate (1890-1915)’, Conference paper, Third Treviso Conference. Charpentier, Emmanuelle (2013), Le Peuple du rivage : le littoral nord de la Bretagne au xviiie siècle, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Chartres, John & Hey, David (dir.) (1990), English Rural Society 1500-1800. Essays in honour of Joan Thirsk, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Chartres, John (2004), ‘A Special Crop and its Markets in the Eighteenth Century: The Case of Pontefract’s Liquorice’, in R. W. Hoyle (ed.), People, Landscape and Alternative Agriculture: Essays for Joan Thirsk, Agricultural History Review, p. 113-132. Chevet, Jean-Michel (1999), La Terre et les Paysans en France et en GrandeBretagne, du début du xviie siècle à la fin du xviiie siècle, Paris, Messene. Clark, Peter (ed.) (2000), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Vol. ii, 1540-1840, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Deffontaines, Pierre (1932), Les hommes et leurs travaux dans les Pays de la Moyenne Garonne, Lille, Silic et Facultés Catholiques. Derville, Alain (1995), ‘L’agriculture à la flamande: des origines médiévales aux descriptions de 1800’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 4, p. 47-68. Desportes, Pierre (1979), Reims et les Rémois aux xiiie et xive siècles, Paris, Picard. Fabre, Eric (2010), review of Sylvain Olivier, Le Genêt textile : plante sauvage, plante cultivée, in Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 34, 2, p. 118-120.

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Fanica, Olivier (2001), ‘La production de veau blanc pour Paris. Deux siècles de fluctuations (xviie-xxe siècle)’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 15, 1, p. 105-130. Furió, Antoni (2013), ‘Commercial Agriculture, Irrigation and the Crisis of the late Middle Age. The case of Valencia’, Conference paper, Third Treviso Conference. Gautier, Michel (2006), ‘A quoi a servi le trèfle ? L’évolution de l’agriculture du Haut-Maine (xviie-xixe siècle)’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 26, 2, p. 11-52. George, Pierre (1935), La région du Bas-Rhône, étude de géographie régionale, Paris, Baillière. Gray, Malcolm (1951-1952), ‘The Kelp Industry in the Highlands and Islands’, Economic History Review, iv, p. 197-209. Handley, James E. (1953), Scottish Farming in the Eighteenth Century, London, Faber and Faber. Havinden, Michael A. (1968), ‘Agricultural Progress in Openfield Oxfordshire’, in W. E. Minchinton (ed.), Essays in Agrarian History, Newton Abbot, David and Charles, 1968, p. 147-160. Hoyle, Richard W. (ed.) (2004), People, Landscape and Alternative Agriculture: Essays for Joan Thirsk, Agricultural History Review. Kerridge, Eric (1968), ‘Turnip Husbandry in High Suffolk’, in W. E. Minchinton (ed.), Essays in Agrarian History, Newton Abbot, David and Charles, p. 143-146. Labrousse, Ernest (1933), Esquisse du mouvement des prix et des revenus au xviie siècle, Paris, Dalloz. Labrousse, Ernest (1944), La crise de l’économie française à la fin de l’Ancien Régime et au début de la Révolution, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France. Large, Peter (1990), ‘Rural Society and Agricultural Change: Ombersley 15801700’, in John Chartres and David Hey (eds.), English Rural Society 1500-1800. Essays in Honour of Joan Thirsk, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 105-138. Lavaud, Sandrine (2005), ‘Paysage et mise en valeur des palus du Bordelais au Moyen Âge’, Archéologie mediévale, 23, p. 27-38. Lerat, Serge) (ed.) (2010), Landes et Chalosse de la fin de l’Ancien Régime à 1980, Pau, Cairn. Mahlerwein, Gunter (2002), ‘Le rôle du travail dans la révolution agricole. L’exemple de la Hesse-Rhénanie aux xviiie et xixe siècles’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 18, 2, p. 41-64. Mathias, Peter (1959), The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Minchinton, Walter E. (ed.) (1968), Essays in Agrarian History, Newton Abbot, David and Charles. Mingay, Gordon E., review of Joan Thirsk (1998), Alternative Agriculture: A History, Agricultural History Review, xlvi, 2, p. 220-222. Moriceau, Jean-Marc (1994), Les fermiers de l’Île-de-France xve-xviiie siècle, Paris, Fayard.

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Musset, Benoît (2011), review of Noelle Plack (2009), Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution. Rural Society and Economy in Southern France c. 1789-1820, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 35, 1, p. 224-225. O’Grada, Cormac (1995), The Great Irish Famine, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Olivier, Sylvain (2005), ‘Le Genêt textile (xviie-xixe siècle). Une dynamique agricole en Lodévois’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 23, 1, p. 137-168. Olivier, Sylvain) (ed.) (2009), Le Genêt textile : plante sauvage, plante cultivée, numéro spécial, Les Cahiers du Lodévois, 34. Overton, Mark (1996), Agricultural Revolution in England: the Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500-1850, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Pesek, John & Goodman, Robert (1989), Alternative Agriculture, report submitted to the Committee on the Role of Alternative Farming Methods in Modern Production Agriculture, Board on Agriculture, National Research Council (USA). Pinilla, Vicente (ed.) (2009a), Markets and Agricultural Change in Europe from the 13th to the 20th Century, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe, 2. Pinilla, Vicente (2009b), ‘The impact of markets in the management of rural land’, in Vicente Pinilla, (ed.), Markets and Agricultural Change in Europe from the 13th to the 20th Century, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe, 2, p. 11-36. Plantes et cultures nouvelles en Europe occidentale, au Moyen Age et à l’époque moderne, (1990), special issue, Cahiers de Flaran, 12. Plack, Noelle (2009), Common Land, Wine and the French Revolution.Rural Society and Economy in Southern France c. 1789-1820, Surrey, Ashgate. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (1983), Bordeaux et le Sud-Ouest au xviiie siècle : croissance économique et attraction urbaine, Paris, Jean Touzot and ehess. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (1999a), La Terre et les Paysans en France et en GrandeBretagne aux xviie et xviiie siècles, Paris, sedes/cned. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (1999b), ‘L’agriculture alternative : à propos d’un livre de Joan Thirsk’, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 12, 2, p. 131-147. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (1999c), review of Joan Thirsk (1997), Alternative Agriculture: A History from the Black Death to the Présent Day, Histoire et Sociétés Rurales, 12, 2, p. 185-187. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (2002), ‘L’histoire agraire de l’Angleterre à l’époque moderne vue de France’, in Nadine Vivier (ed.), Ruralité française et britannique xiiie-xxe siècles : Approches comparées, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, p. 43-67. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (2011), ‘La croissance exceptionnelle du vignoble et du commerce du vin en France au xviiie siècle, et ses liens avec l’apparition de goûts nouveaux’, Cahiers d’histoire de la vigne et du vin, 11, p. 49-67. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (2014), ‘L’histoire du vignoble, de la viticulture et de la consommation du vin en France, de Louis xiv au début du xxe siècle’, Actes de l’Académie nationale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Bordeaux, xxxix, p. 91-127.

2. another look at joan thirsk’s concept of ‘alternative agriculture’

Quellier, Florent (2003), Des fruits et des hommes: l’arboriculture fruitière en Île-deFrance (vers 1600-vers 1800), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Saint-Jacob, Pierre de (1960), Les paysans de la Bourgogne du Nord au dernier siècle de l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Les Belles Lettres. Tanguy, Jean (1994), Quand la toile va. L’industrie toilière bretonne du XVIe siècle au XVIIIe siècle, Rennes, Apogée. Theiller, Isabelle (2009a), ‘Markets as agents of local regional and interregional trade. Eastern Normandy at the end of the Middle Ages’, in Vicente Pinilla (ed.), Markets and Agricultural Change in Europe from the 13th to the 20th Century, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe, 2, p. 37-46. Thirsk, Joan (ed.) (1972-2000), The Agrarian History of England, 11 vol., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Thirsk, Joan (1978), Economic Policy and Projects: The Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Thirsk, Joan (1984a), The Rural Economy of England, London, The Hambledon Press. Thirsk, Joan (1984b), ‘Preface’, in Joan Thirsk, The Rural Economy of England, London, The Hambledon Press, p. ix. Thirsk, Joan (1990), ‘L’agriculture et les plantes nouvelles en Angleterre aux xvie et xviie siècles’, in Plantes et cultures nouvelles en Europe occidentale, au Moyen Age et à l’époque moderne, special issue, Cahiers de Flaran, 12, p. 69-80. Thirsk, Joan (1997), Alternative Agriculture: A History from the Black Death to the Present Day, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Thirsk, Joan (1999), ‘L’agriculture en Angleterre et en France de 1600 à 1800: contacts, coïncidences et comparaisons’, Histoire, Economie et Société, xviii, 1, p. 5-24. Thoen, Erik (1990), ‘Technique agricole, cultures nouvelles et économie rurale en Flandre au bas Moyen Age’, in Plantes et cultures nouvelles en Europe occidentale, au Moyen Age et à l’époque moderne, special issue, Cahiers de Flaran, 12, p. 51-68. Vivier, Nadine (ed.) (2002), Ruralité française et britannique xiiie-xxe siècles: Approches comparées, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Williamson, Tom (2002), The Transformation of Rural England: Farming and Landscape 1700-1870, Exeter, Exeter University Press. Young, Arthur (1800), Voyage en Irlande (t. 7 et 8 of Le cultivateur anglais ou œuvres choisies d’agriculture, d’économie rurale et politique d’Arthur Young, (Maradan éd.), 17 vol., Paris.

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Alternative Agriculture and the City

Mic ha e l Li mberger 

3. Turnips, Flax and Clover Farmers, Landowners and Agricultural Innovation in the Antwerp Countryside in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries I. Introduction. An astonished visitor In 1644, the English agronomist Richard Weston travelled to Flanders, where he visited Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp. He paid particular attention to the type of husbandry in Flanders and Brabant, which impressed him with its very high productivity. On his trip, he remarked the differences in soil quality between the area near Bruges and Dunkirk and that between Ghent and Antwerp. While the countryside near Bruges was characterized by rich fields growing wheat and barley, and excellent meadows and pastures, the land between Ghent and Antwerp was sandy and partly heath. In the sandy soil of the Waasland, an apparently infertile area situated between Ghent and Antwerp, he noticed how the local farmers were combining the cultivation of high-yield crops such as flax, which required a sophisticated crop rotation, with the extensive use of manure as fertilizer (Weston, 1654). Weston was especially intrigued by the cultivation of flax in combination with grain, turnips, and clover. As a local merchant told him, these crops were more profitable than wheat or rye, making the Waasland the richest part of the Flemish countryside1.

II. Flemish husbandry Weston’s pamphlet was part of attempts by seventeenth-century English agronomists, of whom Samuel Hartlib was the most prominent, to raise the profitability of agriculture through scientific improvements (Thirsk, 1985: 534). Weston, and other writers after him, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, referred to the agricultural practices they observed in Flanders as ‘Flemish husbandry’, a term which became a widespread model for agrarian improvement in England. The document is also of the highest relevance for Belgian agricultural history, because it is the first evidence of the existence



1 The Waasland’s reputation as one of the most advanced agrarian areas of early modern and nineteenth-century Flanders has been questioned in a recent article by E. Thoen, W. Ronsijn and L. Vervaet (forthcoming). Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 59-77.

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DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119524

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of these advanced techniques. Paul Lindemans referred extensively to it in his history of Belgian agriculture (Lindemans, 1952). How accurate Weston’s observations are, or how representative of the seventeenth century cannot be proven because there is no other comparable source describing the agrarian system of seventeenth-century Flanders in such detail. We can only try to discover stray references to these techniques in scattered sources, such as leases, farm inventories or the like, as Lindemans and others have done. However, Weston’s description of the system of crop rotation broadly coincides with information in geographical descriptions, such as the geographical dicitonaries by Vandermaelen (1834a and 1834b), and later farming handbooks from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Schwertz, 1807-1811, Radcliff, 1819, for a more exhaustive list, see Lindemans, 1952: 14-16). What Weston’s testimony therefore shows is that alternative crops and forms of crop rotation, other than the traditional threecourse rotation of winter grains, summer grains and fallow, were common knowledge in parts of Flanders by the middle of the seventeenth century, in particular in the area between Ghent and Antwerp. This practice of ‘Flemish husbandry’, however, had its origins even earlier, in the late Middle Ages. Authors such as Verhulst and, more recently, Thoen and others, trace the origins of the different elements in Flemish husbandry back to the thirteenth century (Thoen, 1977). Already by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, farmers had started to cultivate alternative crops during the fallow period in order to increase output (van Uytven, 1984; Verhulst, 1990). Another way the traditional three-course rotation was altered was by sowing alternative crops, such as beans, peas, flax, weld and vetches, during the second phase of the rotation cycle, instead of the traditional summer grains, oats or barley. This practice was called verantzaden or hoervruchten in documents from the period – terms which had a clearly negative connotation. These alternative crops could also be sown in with the summer grains, in order to increase the output per hectare, a practice which was called dubbelvuchten. All these techniques were quite common in late medieval Flanders and Brabant. At first the owners of farms placed restrictions on these practices in the lease contracts and obliged the farmers to stick to the three-field rotation, in order to avoid exhausting the soil. But at least as early as the fifteenth century, the restrictions were applied only to the last three years of the lease or even to just the last year. Many contracts stipulated that a third of the land was to be left sown with winter grains, a third with summer grains and a third fallow (Limberger, 2008: 96-97). The customary law of the village of Deurne refers to the so-called farm law (hofrecht), which stipulated that the lessee had to leave a third of the land fallow and that he was not to remove any manure from the dung heap (De Longé, 1875). As the usual length of a farm lease was twelve years, this left the lessee free to introduce alternative crops during much of that time. For smallholders cultivating their own land there were no such restrictions and it is therefore supposed that the tendency to abandon the three-field system was greater than on bigger, leased farms. Consequently

3 . t u r ni ps, f lax and clove r

Adriaan Verhulst speaks of a first ‘agrarian revolution’ that had taken place by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Verhulst, 1990: 24). It is generally thought that it was smallholders in particular who modified their crop rotation by introducing alternative crops. Weston’s text however, makes it possible to think that, at least in the middle of the seventeenth century, landowners and capitalist farmers were also actively involved in the implementation of these techniques, through specific systems of long-term leasehold described as ‘taking farms upon improvement’ (Weston, 1654: 7). We may therefore wonder to what extent Richard Weston’s testimony relates not only to agricultural practice in Flanders (or parts of it), but also to the influence of cities such as Antwerp on their surroundings. This would be in line with the observations of agricultural historians like Joan Thirsk and Mauro Ambrosoli, who saw an increasing interest in applying agricultural knowledge to estate management from the sixteenth century onwards in different parts of Western Europe (Ambrosoli, 1997: 305-306; Thirsk, 1985: 545-547; 2000: 27-41). Put in other terms, does his description provide evidence that the involvement of townspeople in agriculture also helped advance alternative agrarian techniques in the Low Countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or were the sophisticated crop rotation systems to which Weston refers rather an initiative by farmers and smallholders attempting to respond to the market opportunities and market pressures? Until now, such initiatives coming from urban gentlemen farmers have been considered of secondary importance. These people are seen as owners of country estates with recreational dwellings, more interested in parks and rose-gardens than in actual farming (Baetens, 1991; 159-180). In this paper I want to investigate this question by looking at land improvement through the introduction of new crops and systems of crop rotation in the framework of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Antwerp. This area was characterized by the massive participation of urban dwellers in the rural land market, agricultural innovation that responded to market-oriented production, and the formation of specialized agricultural zones around towns for cattle-fattening, market gardening and so forth (Limberger, 2008: 103-120). In particular, I will examine the role of urban investments in the spread of agricultural innovations during Antwerp’s economic boom and during the recovery from the destruction of the Netherlands Revolt.

III. Antwerp and its countryside The countryside around Antwerp has some major variations in soil fertility. North of Antwerp, along the banks of the river Scheldt, there was a strip of polder land, which had been diked before the twelfth century (Soens, 2013). These polders were very fertile and especially suitable for cattle grazing and haymaking. They were however situated in an exposed location near the river,

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Map 3.1. The surroundings of Antwerp

rendering them vulnerable to flooding. Moving northeast from Antwerp, the proportion of sand in the soil increases, reaching its highest level in the Kempen area. The Kempen (or Campine) is a sandy plain stretching from the Scheldt to the Meuse valley in the east. The area had been covered by forest until the High Middle Ages. It was then cleared but then fairly soon abandoned, giving way to heath (Van Onacker, 2014; De Keyzer, 2014). South of Antwerp, the sandy Flemish region, characteristic of much of the county of Flanders, extended to the Western part of Brabant. However, there were two pockets of more fertile soil, along the river Scheldt, and southeast of Antwerp, between Antwerp, Mechelen and Lier, an area known today as the Antwerp vegetable region (Antwerpse groentenstreek). The presence of clay in this small area along the rivers Scheldt and Rupel also made it an important zone for brick-making (Gysels and Baccaert, 1993). The area described by Richard Weston, that is, the countryside between Ghent and Antwerp, commonly known as Waasland, was separated from the city of Antwerp by the river Scheldt, which is nearly five hundred metres across near Antwerp, and had to be crossed by ferry. The land, moreover, belonged to the county of Flanders and was thus situated outside Antwerp’s jurisdiction. This meant that the relation between the Flemish countryside of the Waasland and Antwerp was not as strong as that between Antwerp and the area inside the duchy of Brabant (Bousse, 1975). Still there were landholdings in the hands of Antwerp merchants on the left bank of the Scheldt, especially in the polders near the river (Soly, 1977: 60-64; Baetens, 2014). These differences had a great impact on the agrarian structure in the different zones (Map 3.2).

3 . t u r ni ps, f lax and clove r

The main crops in the countryside near Antwerp were rye and oats, and wheat in some villages south of Antwerp. Rye was by far the major crop, making up two-thirds of all the rent payments in kind, and even 90 % of the winter crops. The documents also mention buckwheat (in the sandy Kempen area), barley, flax, turnips, rapeseed, peas, vegetables and different sorts of fruit, including apples, pears, cherries and vines (Limberger, 2008: 92). Most farms had livestock, consisting of cattle, sheep, horses, and poultry. Between 15 and 30 % of the land was kept as meadows for livestock, which was also important as a source of fertilizer. The importance of fertilizing was heavily stressed in lease contracts. The farmer of the Anderstad farm, near the town of Lier, was required to ‘sow nine bunders (c. 12 ha) of land every year with rye and to fertilize them well and laudably’. Almost all the lease contracts of the period in the Antwerp area contain passages specifying that straw and manure had to be kept on the farm or that the lessee was not allowed to use any of it outside the leasehold, or to sell it. In many cases, the farmer was obliged to leave the manure on the farm at the end of his lease (Limberger, 2008: 97-99). The rise of Antwerp in the sixteenth century could not fail to have an impact on the agrarian structures of the surrounding area. Studies on other big urban centres such as London and Paris, and their hinterland, show how the demand for food and other rural products in these cities influenced agriculture in the nearby countryside (Langton and Hoppe, 1983). In London, for instance, the urban supply area grew considerably during the early modern period. Market gardening spread quickly, increasing local specialization and intensive farming on enclosed land. Finally, important merchants engaged directly in food production or sank capital into improving productivity. London merchants bought land in the country, which also speeded up agricultural change (on London: Fisher, 1934-1935; Wrigley, 1978: 229-234). In the area around Paris, horticulture and the cultivation of fruit-trees became widespread in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Quellier, 2003). On the other hand, urban centres sometimes failed to trigger specialization, and drained off the surplus from the countryside instead of investing it in the agriculture of their hinterland. This was the case with Madrid and most great towns in northern Italy. This failure was mainly due to institutional circumstances limiting peasants’ access to the urban market (Wrigley, 1990: 15; Epstein, 1993). In the case of Antwerp, the city population rose fivefold between 1437 and 1560, from 20 000 to 100 000 inhabitants. Accordingly the demand for food, fuel and raw materials multiplied in similar proportions. The urban market absorbed the agricultural surplus of its surrounding countryside. Even so, grain and other foodstuffs had to be imported. Lodovico Guicciardini described the local food supply in his Descrittione di tutti I Paesi Bassi, published in 1567: ‘The food supply is excellent. Victuals are drawn from abroad and from the countryside on a daily basis. So much is brought by boat or by horse and cart that the ingredients of a simple meal are always to hand. And what is more,

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Map 3.2. The agrarian areas of Belgium Source: Adriaan Verhulst, Het landschap in Vlaanderen in historisch perspectief, Antwerpen, De Nederlandsche Boekhandel, 1966, p. 58.

there is always a wide choice of more refined food and drink’ (Guicciardini, 1567: 82). Local and regional produce formed the basis of the town’s food supply, even though imports were necessary, especially in case of bad harvests (Limberger, 2012). Strong demand and high food prices in Antwerp stimulated regional production for the urban market. There were different ways of increasing the agricultural output of a given area. Mark Overton distinguishes different options: land reclamation or improvement, a changing ratio between grassland and arable, a reduction in fallow, the introduction of fodder crops, a changing balance among different crops and regional specialization. Switching between arable and pasture allowed farmers to adapt to shifting demand patterns for animal products and arable crops. Furthermore, the energy output of arable farming was much higher per unit than with livestock farming. Reducing fallow, by growing pulses or fodder crops in the third year of the crop rotation, or between two

3 . t u r ni ps, f lax and clove r

grain harvests, for instance, provided an additional harvest. Fodder crops, in combination with stall-feeding, provided a way to increase the number of livestock, without having to extend pasture and hence diminish land available for arable. At the same time, fodder crops such as turnips or clover fertilized the land and helped to keep weeds down (Overton, 1996: 88-99). Around Antwerp, rye, oats and, to a lesser degree wheat, remained the prevailing crops. Flax was grown in the Kempen as well as on various farms between Lier and the Scheldt belonging to the Abbey of St. Bernhard at Hemixem (Limberger, 2008: 81; Lindemans, 1952: II, p. 219 note 15). One contract dating from 1522, from Wommelgem, 8 km east of Antwerp, stipulated that the lessee had to sow 2 bunder (2.6 ha.) of fallow with turnips and on the rest 2 viertel (160-200 l) of linseed2. Guicciardini described the Kempen as a barren region: ‘only the area of the Kempen is very infertile’. In the 1588 edition of his Descrittione however, it was added: ‘but the labour & diligence of people, together with much manure, make it fertile and good’3. This comment is very like Richard Weston’s observations on the Waasland some decades later. The key factors seem to have been the input of fertilizer and intensive labour. The use of large amounts of fertilizer, including urban waste, was one of the major characteristics of Flemish husbandry (De Graef and Soens, 2014). It is however difficult to decide who took the initiative for this improvement from this rather neutral statement. The phrase ‘the labour and diligence of people’ could be read as a hint of a bottom-up improvement rather than systematic action, especially as the author made no reference to any involvement by townsfolk. There were two areas near Antwerp where agrarian specialization was pushed further than in the rest of the surrounding countryside. One was the polder area along the river Scheldt, north of Antwerp, where there were extensive pastures also referred to as ‘waterlands’. These meadows were used primarily as cattle pastures, but also for growing hay and oats. Among the lessees of these pastures were numerous Antwerp butchers who used them for fattening cattle and oxen. Fattening imported oxen in the meadows near Antwerp became increasingly important and was a profitable business, especially after the 1540s (Limberger, 2012: 112). Moreover, in the polders North of Antwerp, between Lillo and the town of Bergen op Zoom, the madder plant, used in dyeing, was grown in great quantities (Asaert, 1973). The other major type of specialized agriculture near Antwerp was gardening. Market gardeners (hoveniers) rented numerous plots close to the town walls, near St. Willibrodus’ field, northeast of the town and the Roodepoort, and in the



2 Antwerp City Archives, Collectanea, 3, fol. 63r. 3 ‘…ma il travaglio et diligentia degl’huomini sopplisce di sorto con molto bestiame che lo fanno fertile et buono’ (Guicciardini, 1588: 65).

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south, outside St. George’s gate. The aldermen’s registers contain various references to large gardens in those areas (Limberger, 2008: 113; Baetens, 1989: 178). These hoveniers cultivated vegetables and fruit. Lease contracts refer to cherry, pear, apple and nut trees. Gardening was also an important agricultural activity for small farmers and cottars who did not have a grain surplus big enough to sell on the market. Gardening was highly labour-intensive and therefore particularly suitable to smallholdings. There were also specialized gardeners in some of the villages surrounding Antwerp, such as Mortsel or Borgerhout. Most farms and even small houses in the countryside around Antwerp had a vegetable garden, part of whose products could be sold in town.

IV. The role of townsmen By the fourteenth century, townsmen, particularly the Antwerp merchants, were active in the land market of the surrounding countryside. When the city enjoyed an economic and demographic boom from the 1490s onwards, the activity of Antwerp merchants increased sharply. The list of urban landowners buying farms, plots of land and other real estate was impressive: it contained among others famous Italian merchants such as the Medici, de Affaitadi, Ducci, Spaniards such as de Bernuy and de Haro, Germans such as Rehlinger, Meuting and Tucher, as well as renowned local entrepreneurs such as Grammaye, Schets and Pruynen. The holdings of Antwerp merchants consisted mainly of farms, many of them close to a hof van plaisantie, a pleasure-dwelling in the countryside; others held sizeable plots of farmland in the polders along the river Scheldt (Baetens, 1985, 1991: 162-166). Some of the most prominent members of the Antwerp merchant community also purchased entire seigneuries, thereby gaining quasi-noble status. In order to establish larger, coherent holdings, townsmen also began systematically to buy up odd plots adjoining their property. This strategy is to be found in a document concerning a holding of the Spaniard Fernando de Bernuy, in Oorderen, situated in the Antwerp polder area. Between 1522 and 1539, he extended his holding of 37 ha to no less than 95 ha by buying numerous odd plots from different owners (Limberger, 2008: 194). By the end of the sixteenth century, townsmen held a considerable share of the total landed property around the city: between 20 and 30 %. Taken together, townsmen, Church institutions and the gentry owned from 80 to 85 % of the land. Among the local tenants, temporary leases became the predominant way of holding land. In her study of alternative agriculture, Joan Thirsk refers to the influence of the London court and merchant class in promoting the cultivation of new types of vegetables and industrial crops in the English countryside (2000: 36-37). There is however little evidence that urban landowners in Antwerp were actively promoting new crops or agrarian practices. It is true

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that many of the owners of country estates owned books on agriculture, such as Charles Estienne’s L’agriculture et maison rustique. A Dutch edition of this popular book was also published by Plantin in Antwerp in 1566. The owner of a landed estate could learn from Estienne’s book the best way to build a farm building, to choose a good farmer, to lay out a vegetable garden or orchard, or to buy livestock. The chapter on farming gives general advice on ploughing, harrowing and sowing different crops, including which are grain, pulses and flax. Clover is mentioned as a traditional seed for meadows, ‘which the elders liked to sow like vetches, and they sowed them in January as Cato and Palladio taught’ (Estienne, 1566: 246, 265-268). However, there are no specific instructions on how to insert these crops in particular systems of crop rotation, and none in other pamphlets or books that have so far been discovered. A closer analysis of lease contracts for the farms under study reveals no revolutionary innovations in crop rotation or the like. The texts of the contracts are generally quite conventional: that is, they are primarily concerned with keeping up soil fertility, precisely by limiting the leaseholder’s freedom to innovate. They strongly insist on the maintenance of the farm, the land and the stock of fertilizer. They did however, tend to favour intensifying the main regional crops, rye and wheat. In the most fertile areas south of Antwerp, wheat occupied an increasing share of the payments in kind that farm owners took from their leaseholders. In other places, the predominant crop continued to be rye, but the lessee was allowed to cultivate rye during two subsequent years, so that the output of bread grain doubled (Limberger, 2008: 109). This practice was even stipulated by the owner of a farm in a contract of 1537, referring to the local ‘farm law’.4 This not only meant that the owners allowed the lessee to increase his production of bread grain, on condition that the land was sufficiently fertilized and that a third was left fallow; in some cases, they even demanded such an increase. What then was the impact of the urban bourgeoisie on the spread of agricultural innovation? In the first place, when Antwerp burghers bought up farms and other land, they tended to farm it out by lease. The increasing predominance of leaseholding can be seen as an incentive to market-oriented agriculture. Leaseholders were more exposed to market forces than landowning peasants, because they had to sell part of their surplus on the market in order to pay their leases. Moreover, for large farmers, farmhands’ wages sent their operating costs even higher. Second, the purchase of farms by townsmen encouraged investment in agriculture. Farms were mostly leased out with the existing farm buildings, fences, dykes and sluices, while the farmer provided the livestock, crops and farming gear and paid for ordinary repairs. But many farms were enlarged and adapted at the owner’s expense (Lindemans, 1952: I,

4 Antwerp City Archives, Privilegiekamer 1176, f. 26r. Contract of the Middelmolen farm at Deurne, cited in Nooyens 1981-1982; I, 433.

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214-6, 225), so townsmen who bought farms contributed a considerable share of the capital needed to operate them. In some cases, merchants’ policy of enlarging their holdings by purchasing adjoining plots had raised farm size and profitability. At first glance, to be sure, the information contained in lease contracts suggests that attempts to apply new agricultural techniques or specialization (in Richard Weston’s sense), remained limited. Some ‘top-down’ innovation of that kind can be seen in the requirements of certain leases that more of the lease should be paid in rye or in wheat, or that some alternative crops such as turnips or flax should be grown, as noted earlier.

V. Crisis and recovery Between the heyday of Antwerp’s expansion and the time when Richard Weston visited the city, almost a hundred years had passed. These were years of turmoil, wars and later, recovery. The Golden Age of Antwerp came to an end as a result of the religious troubles of the 1560’s and the Dutch revolt. During the last decades of the sixteenth century, Antwerp was the theatre of violence, warfare and economic crisis. Many of the international merchants and thousands of others emigrated, leaving the city with a much-reduced population. Warfare had a big impact on the countryside around Antwerp. A survey made around 1593 depicts vast destruction of land and crops. Harvests were confiscated or simply stolen by the soldiers. Farmers held back from cultivating their fields for fear of losing their crops. Villages had been destroyed, inhabitants had fled, cattle had disappeared. The remaining population suffered from poverty and hunger and was subject to extortion, taxes, protection payments and other impositions. The countryside was plagued by robbers, wolves and boars. During the siege of Antwerp, the villages around the city were burned down in order to prevent them from serving as hiding places for the Spaniards. A declaration from Ekeren, north of Antwerp, specified that the land had lost two thirds of its value, because people could not pay the taxes collected for diking (Cosemans, 1936). At the beginning of the siege of Antwerp in 1584, one of the strategies used to preserve the city from conquest by the Spanish was to break the dykes on the city’s northern side. Although at first Antwerp butchers and cattle fatteners, who used the meadows around the city for their cattle, resisted the measure, the polders along the Scheldt, to the north of Antwerp as far as the villages of Berendrecht and Zandvliet, were flooded, making agriculture impossible (Prims, 1941: 197). The area south of Lillo and Stabroek was probably re-diked in 1587; the polders of Lillo, Stabroek, Zandvliet and Berendrecht only in 1650. Only the villages of Oorderen and Wilmarsdonk remained above water level. It was not until about 1590, after the end of the fighting, that the Antwerp countryside recovered; in some places villages remained uninhabited until after 1600 (Guns, 1972: 23-29, 44-52).

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During the period of recovery, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Antwerp townsfolk once again began to buy up farmland. The low land prices attracted urban investors. Antwerp capital was invested in landed property even more than it had been in the sixteenth century. Agricultural activities resumed, especially during the period of the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621). The experience gained in previous centuries helped re-establish the farms and fields, and lease prices tended to rise rapidly (Aerts, 2004: 427-428). The main features of the Antwerp countryside seem to have been restored by the mid-seventeenth century. The view of Antwerp by J. C. Visscher, entitled Marchionatus Sacri Romani Imperii reflects some of its sixteenth-century characteristics. North of Antwerp, the polder area was depicted as meadows with cattle grazing. On another map from the late seventeenth century, the Steenborgerweert area north of the town walls was still described as meadows used primarily for fattening cattle (Prims and Dierckx, 1933: 9; De Nave 1978: 91 note 45). Richard Weston also says, in reference to the polder areas near Antwerp: The soil did not much amend until I came within two miles of Antwerpe, which was thirtie English miles from Gaunt. There I saw goodlie Marsh or feeding ground for cattle, which was kept with a strong Banck for being overflowed by the River Sceld, under which notwithstanding there lay Sluces to let in the water when they pleased, and Ditches were made in the Marsh to convey it back into the River at low Tides when they thought fit’ (Weston, 1654: 5). A study of the agrarian structure of the village of Zwijndrecht in the seventeenth century, based on probate inventories, confirms these characteristics. Zwijndrecht is situated on the left bank of the Scheldt next to Antwerp. The Borgerweert polder along the Scheldt was mainly used for cattle fattening. In the rest of the village area, clover and flax were among the crops most frequently mentioned in the inventories. They made up 16.5% and 9.3% of the references, surpassed only by rye (24.2%), and on the same level as buckwheat (14.4%) and oats (13.4%) (Verelst, 1990: 405-408). Similar observations have been made about other places in the Waasland (Van Hoorick, 1999: 214-215). The countryside surrounding the city walls to the east and the south shows a variety of different crops in many small fields and gardens. These are the same areas given over to horticulture as those which appeared in the sixteenth-century documents. A quantitative indicator of agricultural improvement in the seventeenth century can be found in the estimated value of the land in the villages near Antwerp. In 1686 a survey of land values was taken in connection with a 20% tax on landed property. The values were highest in the gardens around Antwerp and in the fertile farms south of Antwerp. A second highly fertile area was that of the polders north of the city. But the land values south-east

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Map 3.3. Marchionatus Sacri Romani Imperii ( J. C. Visscher, 1587-1562) (detail)

of Antwerp, between the city and Lier, were also considerable. Only further east, in the Kempen, can we find much lower values (Prims, 1954). The figures reflect a similar geographical pattern to those of the tax evaluation of land in 1570, shortly before the Revolt (Blondé and Limberger, 2004: 318-319). This shows that although the Revolt brought about the economic and demographic decline of Antwerp, the city continued to exert a stimulus on the agriculture of its surroundings, as shown by the urban impact on land values. The recovery of the countryside after wartime destruction required intensive labour and fertilizing, and therefore investment in livestock or fertilizer. According to Richard Weston’s text, improving a farm typically followed a private agreement between the owner and the lessee, who took the farm on a 21-year lease, paying a rent set higher than its actual value. Subsequently, any value added to the land would be reimbursed by the owner. The estimate of value was to be made by four impartial experts chosen by both parties. Weston mentions a man within three miles of Antwerp who had taken a farm which was covered by heath upon improvement. At first the man was not sure whether to buy the farm, but then he found that the farmer had already improved it over the previous five years. Improvement in this case consisted in breaking and ploughing the ground, removing the heath, fertilizing the soil with large quantities of manure, then sowing first rye, then oats, and finally clover, which could be mowed three times and then kept as pasture. For land sown in flax the rotation was similar. The farm in question was improved by the farmer by planting twelve acres of fruit and nut trees, including pear, apple, cherry, chestnut and walnut, as well as ashes, oaks, elms and the like. Furthermore he had grown flax, turnips, clover, Roman beans, and different types of grain

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Map 3.4. Land values per bunder in 1686, in guilders Source: De Vijlder, 2018.

as well as hops, so that is became a highly productive farm with a variety of crops (Weston, 1654). Weston’s informant claims that taking a farm on improvement in this way was an ordinary way to lease barren land. Lindemans refers to similar practices of improvement in different parts of the Southern Netherlands throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were related to farms which had not been cultivated for a certain period and therefore needed thorough ploughing, harrowing and fertilizing before producing good yields. For example the customary laws around Aalst, dating from 1618, stipulated that the owner had to compensate the farmer at the end of his lease for the labour, manure and seed and other improvements to which he was entitled. According to lease contracts from the abbey of Ename near Oudenaarde, at the end of the

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lease the value was estimated by two experts, who could be neighbours, and, if they did not agree, by two more, appointed by the village aldermen. Similar agreements were made in Brabant, where the lessee was compensated for improving land left waste in the wake of warfare, with half the harvest of the winter grains he had sown during the last year of his lease (Lindemans, 1952: 274-276). While most of these examples referred to improving farmland that had been left waste in particular circumstances, it seems that improvement contracts were also used to transform heath into farmland. An example of such an agreement is mentioned in the accounts of the ducal domain of the land of Mechelen, referring to numerous plots of heath between Antwerp and Lier, dating from 1575: different plots of heath, moor, and ‘schommen’5 situated in Lier, Ballaer, Hoick and Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Waver, were given in lease to various people for a term of 28 years, with the object of bringing them under cultivation and converting them into farmland6. What should be noted however in the case Weston cites, is the fact that the lessee would take on the farm for a higher sum than the actual lease-value. This means that the lessee advanced the cost of the improvement, and the landowner then reimbursed the increased land value after the end of the lease.

VI. Preliminary conclusions Richard Weston’s observations on the system of crop rotation in the Waasland, between Ghent and Antwerp, in the middle of the seventeenth century shed some light on agricultural developments around the big Flemish cities. Peasants, farmers and urban landowners could draw on a long tradition of intensive agriculture, which included a variety of crops such as different types of grain, pulses, industrial plants like flax and oil plants and fodder crops such as clover. These were cultivated in a complex order which contributed to a very high output and produced several harvests each year. Finally, they used a great deal of fertilizer, mainly manure from their livestock, but also other varieties such as urban waste, ashes, marl and even industrial waste. The role of the city in this development was manifold. The urban market stimulated higher agricultural output and specialization in livestock farming or cash crops. These could come in the form of the so-called traditional bread grains, wheat and rye, for which there was high demand, but they might also be alternative crops such as fruit and vegetables, flax, hemp or hops. Proximity to towns made access to the market easier, which lowered farmers’ costs and offered opportunities such as the availability of urban fertilizers. Farming around towns also attracted urban investors. Townsmen purchased farms

5 A type of infertile soil acccording to the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. 6 General State Archives Brussels, Chamber of Accounts, reg. 11915, fols 39-43. Accounts of the ducal domain, Land van Mechelen, 1590.

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and thereby invested in agriculture. They could use some of the agricultural output for their own food supply, establish a country residence or villa rustica, and at the same time monitor the lessees on their farms. This may have been particularly valuable after the destruction caused by the Dutch revolt at the end of the sixteenth century, when the peasantry was impoverished and urban capital may have made an important contribution to agricultural recovery. But Weston also highlighted the role of capitalist farmers who engaged in farm improvement at their own expense, using a sequence and combination of different crops and plenty of manure, an investment guaranteed by the contractual clause whereby improvements were compensated at the end of the lease. Finally, it may be asked whether the urban environment also helped transfer agricultural know-how. Many urban owners of a country residence were interested in gardening and had books on botany and agriculture. The writing of agrarian treatises like Richard Weston’s is a good example of greater interest in agriculture. However, much of the know-how came from experienced farmers and not from books. Armed with capital from the towns, these farmers set out to improve barren heaths and abandoned farms, using practices inherited from their fathers and thereby laid the foundations of the renowned Flemish husbandry. It is therefore significant that Weston advises English landowners who implement his observations on Flemish husbandry on their own properties that they ‘send to Tom or Robin from Ghent, who could provide you a servant, who understands these husbandries as well as any of yours does the husbandry of corn, and by observing his practice you yourselves, or whom you will appoint, may be sufficiently instructed in a year or two so far, as to command such things to be done by others as are not fit and necessary to be done by yourselves’ (Westen, 1654: 25).

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4. Adapting to the Paris Market Montreuil in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century I. Introduction Montreuil, a village just outside Paris, was known for its vineyard since at least the twelfth century (Bennezon, 2005). However, during the winter of 1649 and all through 1652, the area suffered severe damage during the battles of the Fronde (Barlier, 2005). It was also during the second half of the seventeenth century that Montreuil underwent profound social and agricultural changes. With the return of peace and the consolidation of royal power, its countryside, was once again secured from disturbance, only to fall victim to an invasion by the Parisian bourgeoisie. This brought quite spectacular changes for the local population. As occurred in the Montmorency valley, to the north-west of the capital, Montreuil’s close proximity to the Paris market opened up profitable opportunities for its inhabitants (Neveux, 1996; Mérot, 2010). The very existence of this market was one of the factors behind the choice to raise fruit trees, a type of production which, it seems, had been unknown in Montreuil before 1653, a time when the king, the nobles and the middle classes developed a passion for fruits (Quellier, 2003). In the second half of the seventeenth century the adoption of an alternative agriculture, in the form of fruit orchards, was to drastically change the local landscape. It is thus necessary to realize how profound were the agricultural changes and their consequences in Montreuil in order to understand how its environment changed, in such a relatively brief time, from a traditional model based on cereal growing and vineyards, to a new one commanding the admiration of contemporaries. This study is divided into three sections. The first examines the specific characteristics of the land and its population, the second looks at the innovations introduced after the Fronde, in a village that was blessed by an exceptional geographic situation. In the final section several case studies cases will be examined in order to bring out the particular characteristics of the Montreuil gardeners, who were so famous in their day.



* Translation by Judith Le Goff Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 79-94.

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II. A vast countryside focused on feeding Paris II.1 Mixed farming: a vibrant activity ruined by war

Two leagues east of Paris, ‘Montreuil sur le Bois de Vincennes’, was, in the seventeenth century, a big, densely clustered village; its population (about 2,500 in the 1680s) was large, because vinegrowing required a plentiful labour force. The inhabitants lived in a dozen or so streets grouped around the church. Being so close to Paris, they were well positioned to sell a variety of artisanal and agricultural products there. Montreuil’s vineyards were situated on the plains and on the steep slopes leading to the Plaine de France, an immense plateau where the large farms belonging to the Paris abbeys of Saint-Victor and Saint-Antoine-des-Champs stretched out. These were at the heart of a type of farming mainly centred on grain production1. For generation after generation, three prosperous families, the Fremys, the Mainguets and the Bonnins, had retained the monopoly on farming these abbey lands2. The pairing of vines and ploughland is very ancient, being recorded at least as far back as the twelfth century (Bennenzon, 2009). On the plateau vines competed for land with wheat around the small villages surrounding the châteaux of La Boissière, Montreau and Tillemont. Thus the high land of Montreuil was devoted to cereal and wine production, a pattern quite rare to the east of Paris, where only Romainville, Noisy-le-Sec and Pantin together with its hamlet, the Pré-Saint-Gervais had a similar two-crop system (Mac Elhone, 1997). This mixed farming was very profitable as the Paris market generated a great demand for flour and wine. To the west, the territory of Montreuil was bordered by two small villages, Charonne and Bagnolet. Under Louis XIV these two winegrowing parishes still stood between Montreuil and Paris, which is no longer the case today3. The great plain to the south of Montreuil, bounded by the hamlet of La Pissote, ran as far as the fringe of the Bois de Vincennes. Montreuil, with Argenteuil and Luzarches, had one of the largest territories in the Ile de France, stretching to over 2,640 arpents, or about 900 hectares4. The peasants of Fontenay-sous-Bois, Rosny-sous-Bois, Noisy-le-Sec and Romainville passed through it on their way to Paris by way of the Porte Saint-Antoine and the Bastille. Montreuil was also not far from a major transport link between the rich cereal lands of



1 Archives départementales de la Seine-Saint-Denis (hereafter ADSSD), E cxxxi/192. Étude Huré, Inventaire après décès (hereafter IAD) of Guillaume de Vitry, 21 February 1696. 2 ADSSD, 2E 6/68, Étude Pesnon, Compte et décharge de la succession d’Edouard Fremy, 17 March 1693; E cxxxi/178, Étude Darenne, IAD François Mainguet, 6 March 1686; E cxxxi/188, Étude Aubert, Abandon de ses biens par Estienne Bonnin, 4 July1704. 3 Montreuil has bordered the capital since Paris was divided into twenty arrondissements in 1860. 4 Paroisses et communes de France, Paris, CNRS, 1974, entry on Montreuil.

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Map 4.1. Location of Montreuil Source: Map of Cassini.

the territory around Meaux, known as the Multien, and Paris, by which the capital received its provisions (Moriceau, 1994). This closeness to Paris, which was such an advantage in peacetime, turned out to be singularly disastrous during the Fronde. The systematic destruction of the countryside around Paris, carried out in order to starve the inhabitants of the besieged city, was a catastrophe for the peasants of the Ile de France. Several times, the Prince de Condé’s army and then the King’s troops effectively sacked the suburban area nearest to the coveted city. Fighting beneath the walls of the capital, first in the winter of 1649, then in July, September and October of 1652, completed the destruction of the villages around the Porte Saint-Antoine (Barlier, 2005). Montreuil was devastated: wheat was pillaged, vines torn up, fodder carried off to feed the soldiers’ horses and many houses and buildings destroyed (Mérot, 2012). II.2 The social composition of Montreuil

During the seventeenth century, in peacetime, Montreuil contained a socially diverse population. There was a relatively large number of merchants, which was not often the case in the French countryside. Montreuil, however, was situated at the meeting point of very different worlds extending all the way from the rural nobility to the poor winegrowers, and local merchants, who supplied them with goods, found themselves in a very special position offering unique economic, social and cultural opportunities (Goubert, 1968; Bennezon, 2012; Bennezon, Lagain, Marvaud, 2013). The very term ‘merchant’ itself encompassed very different social conditions. Some died in extreme

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poverty, while the frequent mention of Parisian bourgeois who came from the village shows that social ascent was possible for the wine merchants who supplied the Parisian taverns (cabarets). The merchants had a great influence on village life representing as they did its permanent openness to the nearby capital (Bennezon, 2009). There were at least fifty-five artisans living at Montreuil. Such a number was exceptional particularly the twenty-four shoemakers (often poor) who made shoes for their more privileged neighbours or worked for a Paris trader5. As elsewhere in northern France, ploughmen (laboureurs) played a very large role in society. Their central role was reinforced by involvement in parish government and the vestry6. Estienne Bonnin and his son-in-law Pierre de Vitry played a fundamental role as permanent reeves (syndics perpétuels) at the end of the century. The twenty-six laboureurs of the village shared sixteen surnames; thus of the hundred or so local peasant families, no more than fifteen held economic and social power. The fortunes of this group varied considerably. The richest of the Montreuil laboureurs, whose estate was worth 15,000 livres in 1704 – far above the level of other farmers in the Plaine de France – was the tenant of the Paris abbey of Saint Antoine des Champs7. Such a fortune could not hide the generally mean level of existence, made worse by the misfortunes of the war, but this seems to have incited certain peasants, particularly among the ploughmen, but also some of the large winegrowers, to adopt new crops in line with contemporary tastes in order to benefit from the prosperity of Paris. In addition, they had useful connections in Paris and were receptive to the demands of an urban clientele wealthier than found elsewhere (Dupâquier, 1977)8. In the last third of the seventeenth century the post-mortem inventories of sixteen ploughmen list in particular carts, horses, various types of hoes, wine barrels, baskets and funnels, not forgetting vinegar barrels. The sixteen ploughmen had ninety gueulebées (barrels for transporting grapes) between them, an average per head (5.6) much higher than that of the one hundred and seven gueulebées owned by 71 simple winegrowers (1.5 per head) at the same time. Not surprisingly, the cellars of twelve of the sixteen laboureurs also contained wine, which suggests they had some capacity to commercialise their production, to buy land from ruined small peasants and to invest in more profitable crops, particularly fruit, as is known to have happened after the Fronde in the Montmorency valley and in the Plaine de France, to the

5 Ibid., p. 167-172. 6 Ibid., p. 345-372. 7 ADSSD, E cxxxi/188, Étude Aubert, Abandon de ses biens par Estienne Bonnin, fermier de Saint-Antoine, 4 July 1704. 8 Jacques Dupâquier notes that in the élection (fiscal jurisdiction) of Paris (not including Versailles or Saint Germain) there was a tax burden of 29.9 livres tournois per household in 1677, as compared, for example, to 12.6 per household in the élection of Amiens.

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north-west and north of Paris or in the Hurepoix, to the south of the capital, ( Jacquart, 1975; Moriceau, 1994; Mérot, 2013). However, not all of them could cope with the totally disastrous economic situation (Bennezon, 2009). The mass of peasants in Montreuil was made up of small, often poor, winegrowers, accounting for about 40 % of the population. With an average estate of 274 livres, or only 152 livres in moveables after deducting debts, winegrowers made up the most deprived group in Montreuil, living in one-room houses, with very traditional items of furniture, like those of peasants in the provinces. They were ill-equipped to escape the ravages of the war. Although there were a great many cottagers (manoeuvriers) in the nearby Plaine de France, there were none in Montreuil, because most winegrowers supplemented the income from their tiny parcels of vines by working for the farmers on the cereal-growing plateau. II.3 A residential village after the Fronde

In the last third of the century a hundred or so privileged families, attracted by the beauty and tranquillity of Montreuil, settled there once the place became safe again after the Fronde: barristers and attorneys from the Parlement, a clerk of the criminal court, a King’s Counsel working with the constabulary and mounted police of the Île de France, some excise officials, and many families of burgesses (bourgeois) plus twenty-two royal and ducal officers and two fountain-makers from the Château of Versailles (Bennezon, 2010). Such a concentration of rich folk and servants of the state was unusual. As owners of seigneuries or large houses in Montreuil, established in a residential corner of the countryside, they introduced city ways, under the eyes of their numerous and no doubt attentive domestics, many recruited from local rural families. They bought up agricultural land to form the parks of their sumptuous residences, as in the case of Pierre Delpech esquire, Receiver-General for His Majesty’s Finances in Auvergne and for the General Tax Farm of France, King’s Counsel and Royal Secretary for the Household and Crown of France and its Finances, and receiver of the abbeys of Saint Denis and Riom (Dessert, 1984). Delpech’s integration into Montreuil mostly came in the form of land acquisition. Between May and October 1698 he acquired fifty-seven lots totalling 629 perches, or more than six arpents in all9. It is interesting to note how extremely fragmented the land was, because of equal inheritance practices, with fifty-seven winegrowers on these two hectares of vineyard. To summarise, the main characteristics of Montreuil were its very ancient specialisation in vines and cereals, the domination of the peasant world by the laboureurs, with the capacity to invest when needed, and the importance of merchants with activities centred on the capital, at a time when many members of the privileged classes had come to settle in the village after the Fronde.

9 ADSSD, Étude Michelarne, E cxxxi/200-201, 1698.

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III. New agricultural choices after the Fronde III.1 Maintaining the parks of the elite

The Montreuil peasants’ low standard of living explains why many of them were looking for new opportunities in the second half of the seventeenth century. Some, perhaps those least capable of investing in tree growing and acquiring fruit trees from the nurserymen of Vitry, profited from enthusiasm of the social elites for Montreuil by tending their parks (Abad, 2002). The people who worked in their master’s ornamental gardens were former winegrowers or ploughmen and they also lived on his estate. 95 % of them could write, which compared favourably to 29 % of the French population in general at the time (Bennezon, 2009).Their physical proximity to the rich helped transform their material, cultural and symbolic universe and gave them an aura completely unlike that of the winegrowers and ploughmen, particularly as the rich frequently served as godparents to their children. They owned clothes for display and many unusual objects such as books, table forks, silver cups engraved with their names, armchairs upholstered in green serge and tapestries, which marked them off from common folk. Knowingly or not, they helped bring urban civility to the village, in the transition from the oral tradition of the humble to the written culture of the elites. It was much more common to find more people among the gardeners who had established a private sphere, along with its consequences – rooms with specialised functions, more beds, locks on storage furniture, often in the form of cupboards – than among the families of winegrowers from which they had originated. It was not however the opulence of their estates, where the movables were worth only slightly more than those of the average winegrower (274 livres), that created such lifestyles; it was the physical proximity of the gardeners to the urban elites in the countryside that set them peculiarly apart, at a time when the King was taking great interest in the work of the horticulturalist Jean La Quintinie (1626-1688) and in the gardens of Versailles. The notables of Montreuil, often Parisians, wanted a qualified work force for their many parks, where the gardeners cultivated the fruits currently in fashion10. III.2 The choice of fruit growing at Montreuil

At that time, the gardeners working in the ornamental gardens of the privileged classes seem to have inspired others, as the notarial records mention ploughmen and large winegrowers who had the means to develop arboriculture after 1653 10 Archives nationales (hereafter AN), Z1g /281c, brevets de taille, 1687.

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(Bennezon, 2009). Before that time any walls mentioned in the archives, in 1650 particularly (during the Fronde), were simply there to enclose parcels of land and should not be confused with those used for the espaliers needed for fruit-growing, raised a few years later. Nor is there any mention of fruits in post-mortem inventories (Quellier, 2013). There are some papers concerning the Hervy family that are particularly interesting as they mention a major evolution: their rank as ‘gardener-winegrowers’ (Bennezon, 2010). In the second half of the seventeenth century a vast transformation took place around Paris by which the countryside was organised and specialisations developed in order to provision the capital. The Plaine des Vertus, around Aubervilliers and Bobigny, was given over to vegetable production and the parishes on the slopes near the Seine to the west of Paris, to mass production of wine (Bennezon, Michel, Muchembled, 2012). In the course of this change, the winegrowers of Argenteuil substituted the ‘grosse Gamay noir’ for traditional grape varieties (mainly Mesliers and Morillions noirs), which subsequently gave them better yields and allowed them to dominate the wine market in Parisian taverns (Dupâquier, 1983). Perhaps competition between the winegrowers in Argenteuil and those in Montreuil explains why the latter turned to fruit trees, particularly as Montreuil already held large gypsum quarries, which had the great advantage of making plaster (for the walls) cheaper there than elsewhere (Pesier, 1994; Abad, 2002; Bennezon, 2005). Also, the subsoil in Montreuil was particularly pebbly and provided an abundance of the stones needed to fill the insides of walls. The new orchard-men were thus following the general trend when they turned to specialised crops with high added value (Quellier, 2003). III.3 The origins of Montreuil fruit-production techniques

The fact that the peasants themselves enclosed the orchards is at variance with the account of Pierre Jean-Baptiste Legrand d’Aussy (1737-1800), author of the Histoire de la vie privée des Français (1782), who thought that the invention and perfection of growing trees in espaliers was due to three contemporaries, Robert Arnaud d’Andilly (1589-1674), Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie (1626-1688) and Edme Girardot (1622-1682) (Legrand d’Aussy, 1782). The first of these, who was one of the Jansenist hermits of Port Royal, devoted himself to growing fruit trees and is said to have had the idea of using espaliers. The second is famous for setting up espaliers in the King’s fruit gardens at Versailles. The third, Girardot, a former King’s Musketeer who had retired to the village of Bagnolet, devoted himself to growing fruit on espaliers after getting the idea of dividing his garden into several small enclosed areas to form little gardens sheltered from the wind. It is said that the peasants at Montreuil, seeing his success, imitated this, especially as it was claimed that one day he had offered peaches to Louis XIV, when the King was passing through Montreuil on a

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hunt. Every year after that, Girardot is supposed to have sent a basket of fine peaches to the sovereign, with the message ‘for the King’s pleasure’. This version however was called into doubt by the writings of the abbé Roger Schabol (c. 1690-1768), posthumously published from his manuscript notes (Schabol, 1770-1771). Schabol was passionately interested in gardening and tree growing and decided to improve his skills at Montreuil. In 1718 he made the acquaintance of the son of the late Edme Girardot and of a man from Montreuil named Nicolas Pépin, who, like Girardot, supplied the King with peaches. Based on the accounts he heard from these two, the abbé stated that there were already espaliers at Montreuil when La Quintinie set them up at Versailles, and that tree growing was taken up first at Montreuil, and not Bagnolet as Legrand d’Aussy had maintained. The Mémoires of his contemporary the Duc de Luynes, published in the nineteenth century, bear witness to the fame of Edme Giradot’s peaches at Court (De Luynes, 1864). This dispute is interesting as Legrand d’Aussy gives preference to innovations linked to people at the Court while the abbé upholds the importance of the peasants’ ability to adapt. III.4 Evidence of more enclosures, seen on the ground

Whatever the case, the second half of the seventeenth century certainly saw massive expansion in fruit growing at the expense of cereals. This change has been corroborated by several campaigns of rescue cxxxi archaeology carried out since 2000 (Dufour, 2005; Lafarge, 2012). Growing fruit trees required a large labour force during the harvest period, which stretched over more than half the year (Simoni-Aurembou, 1982). We now turn to holdings described in the various leases where gardens or a combination of vines and gardens ‘with fruit trees in espaliers’ are mentioned11. In 1678, the post-mortem inventory of the Montreuil ploughman, Antoine Prévost noted marteaux à palisser and clous, hammers and nails, for attaching the branches. Prévost left 500 livres worth of strawberries, asparagus, barley and fruit trees ‘some standard, some only espaliers’12. The value of his production was equivalent to that of a herd of around fifteen cows. From the mid-seventeenth century onward gardeners’ cellars also contained strawberry baskets and noguets, large wicker baskets used to carry fruits to the Paris markets. A donation made by Marie Pépin, the widow of a wealthy winegrower, to her children, who were gardeners, also allows us to find evidence of ‘fruit trees in espalier’ as well as Holland currants, strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, not forgetting vines13.

11 ADSSD, Étude Bidault, E cxxxi/173, lease issued to Jean-Baptiste Guillois, 31 July 1682. 12 ADSSD, cxxxi/174, Étude Bidault, 2 April 1678, IAD Antoine Prévost. 13 ADSSD, Étude Guérin, E cxxxi/186, Donation Marie Pépin, widow of Nicolas Darenne, 8 May 1691.

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With these mentions of espaliers we now begin to glimpse enclosed gardens in the archives. Their walls, called ‘Girardot walls’, could be from three to five metres high and faced east, so that at least one of the two sides was always exposed to the sun. The exceptional yield and quality of the fruit they produced must be attributed to the villagers’ skill. They sawed the trunks of peach trees in two so as to obtain two large slanting branches above the base (Carrière, 1890; Abad, 2002). In this way they obtained trees that spread sideways, with two huge symmetric branches, forming a large V shape, with powerful shoots leading off from them. Another characteristic of the Montreuil walled gardens was that the branches were fastened to the walls à la loque, the loques being small strips of fabric made from old linen, which were then nailed to the wall. This method had the advantage of allowing mould and insects to be cleaned from the espaliers at regular intervals. The gardeners at Montreuil also placed tilted pieces of wood at the top of the espaliers, protruding about 10 centimetres from the wall. This practice prevented water from running down the espaliers and the trees. In addition, it diverted the rays of sunlight, encouraging the tree to grow at the base rather than the top. Every metre along the wall, poles and wagon-spokes were placed under these small pieces of wood, perpendicular to the walls, sticking out about fifty centimetres, to support wooden planks or straw mats. Some of the straw covers were so long that they hung down in front of the trees. In winter and in spring they protected the peaches from snow and frost, giving a very special look to the gardens of Montreuil, which soon came to be nicknamed ‘Montreuil of the Peaches’ (Carrière, 1890). Wall-building was at the heart of the forcing technique that made it possible to produce fine fruit. The walls were made of stones collected in the fields or reused material and then covered in a thick coat of white plaster. These famous walls absorbed the heat of the sun’s rays during the day and gave it out at night to the peaches attached along them. The espaliers began to shape the look of the landscape in Montreuil from the end of the seventeenth century14. According to the abbé Schabol, it was the men of Montreuil who picked the fruit. Their children packed the peaches, with the coloured side uppermost to contrast with the deep green of the vine leaves, and then it was the turn of the women, who set out for Paris in the night, arriving at the market at four in the morning to sell the produce to the fruit merchants (Kaplan, 1988; Moriceau, 1994; Abad, 2002). To summarise: in the second half of the seventeenth century the development at Montreuil of new technical skills first concerned the gardeners of the local social elites and some peasants. The latter, well informed of Paris

14 In the nineteenth century, the walls crisscrossed most of the land in Montreuil. In 1940 there were still 500 hectares. Since 1953, 30 hectares have been classified as a ‘Zone horticole protégée’ and since 1976 they have been entered in the ‘Réserve pour espaces verts’ of the Schéma Directeur d’Aménagement Urbain.

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consumers’ requirements, were still rich enough to invest in fruit trees after the ruin of their fields. Little by little, the raising of long ‘peach walls’ enclosed the landscape in radical way; meanwhile these alternative crops led large parts of the Montreuil population to participate, to a greater or lesser degree, in the growth of fruit tree cultivation.

IV. The creation of a leading group IV.1 Gardeners take over village government

The minutes of parish debates show clearly the growing participation of gardeners in local government. Phillipe Boudin, who became procureur fiscal in 1678, was one of them15. Even better, after a succession of ploughmen had been elected to the post of reeve (procureur syndic) over the previous 11 years, a former ploughman turned gardener, Jean Cauconnier, was named to this post in 1692, followed by his son, François (1654-1720) in 169916. These men were very close to the elites, if not in their social status at least because of their new trade that was much appreciated at the end of the seventeenth century. They seem to have brought a Parisian lifestyle to the village, as did another gardener, Roland Le Preux17. Le Preux was in his fifties around 1660. The son of a ploughman from Charonne and living at Montreuil, he had turned to gardening and owned several orchards. He was a minor notable in the village, and he was given the task of meeting with the officials in Paris who were employed to defend the interests of the Montreuil people in a suit brought against them by the chapter of Notre-Dame18. At a time when the combination of ploughland and vines was losing its dominance, the introduction of peach walls set off extremely complex quarrels with landowners. Moreover the financial stakes were high, as the winegrowers had planted their peaches in the middle of the vines without

15 ADSSD, E cxxxi/170, Étude Bidault, parish assembly of 18 décembre 1678: minutes found for the elections to the office of procureur fiscal are for 1670, 1678-1682, 1687, 1689 and 1700. 16 ADSSD, E cxxxi/189, Étude Huré: Jean Cauconnier is mentioned in the discussion of 3 January 1692; E cxxxi/202, Étude Michelarne, François Cauconnier, mentioned 8 February 1699; minutes found on elections to the office of procureur syndic are for the years 1670-1671, 1676, 1680-1686, 1691-1695, 1699-1700, 1703. 17 ADSSD, 1 Mi EC, 48/4 N, Marriage of François Cauconnier and Nicolle Lardin, 10 September 1680. Among the witnesses were an officer of the Duc d’Orléans and a bailiff (huissier) of the Châtelet, the Paris Central Court. 18 ADSSD, 2 E 6/68, ‘Mémoire des frais et despans que jé faict et desboursé, moy Gaston Fremy, contenant les afaire de la Communauté des habitans de Monstreuil dans l’année que jé esté en charge suivant les procurations qu’ils en onte passée, comansant le dimanche deux(iesme) may (1666) et finisant le dimanche dix huit avrile MVI c soixante-sept’.

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permission, and took advantage of the occasion to stop paying tithes, which angered the Paris canons now deprived of their dues19. When sued by the archdiocese, the inhabitants of Montreuil were able to take full advantage of their knowledge of the capital, where they supplied the markets, and also to profit from the various networks established by marriage bonds between countryfolk and Parisians, by the astute choice of Parisian godparents for new babies in the parish, and by the widespread practice whereby Parisians put out their own babies to nurses in the countryside (Bennezon, 2009). The gardener Roland Le Preux was sent as a representative to Paris with Gaston Fremy, farmer of the abbey of SaintAntoine, and two ploughmen20. The trial took so much of their time that sometimes they had to stay the night in Paris to meet their barrister at dawn. Some of the prosecuting attornies (procureurs du roi) were offered baskets of pears, which must have been magnificent as they were worth three livres, about what a day labourer would be paid for four days’ work. Similarly, on 4 January 1667, Roland Le Preux and his companions took attractive baskets of pears to three gentlemen of the Château of Vincennes. On 8 May 1666, the tenant farmer Gaston Fremy offered a bundle of asparagus to Monsieur de Colbert, who happened to be living in the same château at that time. The next month he presented him with a basket of strawberries worth 30 sols. On 4 October a basket of peaches, worth 3 livres 10 sols was given as a token of gratitude to the Marquis de Louvois, who had promised to intervene in favour of the village community. Finally, between December 1666 and March 1667, the gardener Roland Le Preux made eighteen trips to Paris and must have encountered many important people. We do not know exactly how the case turned out, but between 1666 and his death in 1681 the notaries’ documents and entries in the parish register concerning him, mostly as a witness to marriages, repeatedly show how well-connected he was (Bennezon, 2009)21. IV.2 An orchardman enters the nobility: Edme Girardot (1622-1682)

According to Legrand d’Aussy, it was Edme Girardot who introduced peach-growing to Montreuil, where he had land. Though his standing as a pioneer owes more to myth than historical fact it is still interesting to see what became of his sons (Quellier, 2003), Denis (1655-1730) and RenéClaude (1665-1732), who were both extremely successful (Bennezon, 2010). The elder son was an army officer and entered the nobility, proudly taking the title ‘esquire’ (écuyer). As for the younger, René-Claude, he married

19 AN, S 343A. 20 The ploughmen were François Mainguet and Nicolas Darenne; the barrister was sieur Pondreau. 21 See table, Annex 1.

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Marie-Jeanne Boudin, daughter of the Philippe Boudin mentioned above, who, as far as we can tell from existing sources, was the first gardener to become procureur fiscal. René-Claude Girardot accumulated a substantial fortune, which enabled him to manage effectively the estate for La Salle that he had inherited from his father in Bagnolet; he also entered the nobility as the ‘sieur de La Salle’. In the next generation, the sons of the sieur de La Salle and Marie-Jeanne Boudin were nobles. Denis-Claude (1700 – 1754), the eldest, served in the company of ‘black’ musketeers (mousquetaires noirs), while the others, who held small seigneuries, took the name of their demesne. Edme-Philippe Girardot, named after his gardener grandfathers, was sieur de Malassis and Naudy in 1754. In 1735, Jean-Baptiste Girardot, sieur de Launay, married Marie-Françoise la Miche, a bourgeoise from the parish of Saint Louis en l’Isle in Paris. Their sisters made excellent marriages: the eldest of them espoused François Toulet, a King’s Surgeon under Louis XV, and a specialist in operations for the stone. Anne-Madeleine married a noble musketeer, Jacques Fauconnier de Bernaville, in 1732 and Marie-Geneviève, a nobleman from the diocese of Coutances in 1746. The social ascent of the grandchildren of Philippe Boudin, sometime gardener at Montreuil, is quite remarkable, for only two generations separated them from the land. After the Fronde they transformed the land they had patiently acquired and carefully enclosed into profitable orchards, thanks to the popularity of peaches, fruits that were both fashionable and expensive luxury items. The Girardot family then consolidated its social position at a time when a society of nobles and bourgeois, eager for distinctions, was flourishing. Advantageous marriages set the seal on an active matrimonial policy, directed towards the aristocratic elites of the time, confirming an impressive success at a period when the price of fruits had reached extraordinary levels. Legrand d’Aussy reports that the younger Girardot, in his old age, remembered seeing his father, Edme sell a basket of 80 cherries for 80 livres tournois, at the Hotel de Ville of Paris, during celebrations organised under the reign of Louis XIV and a lot of 3,000 peaches for 9,000 livres (Abad, 2002). In Le Grand marché, his major work on the provisioning of Paris under the old regime, Reynald Abad quotes Louis Sébastien Mercier (1740 – 1814), a bourgeois of Paris in the following century, who, in his Tableau de Paris, speaks of peaches at 6 livres each and princely feasts where more than 7,000 livres worth of them were consumed (Mercier, 1994). Were these exceptional transactions or great exaggerations built on the testimony of contemporaries? Though these stories seem too good to be true – the value of the baskets of fruits that the emissaries from Montreuil offered to the great folk in Vincennes certainly did not attain these sums – the fashion for peaches nevertheless enriched the ploughmen and the upper strata of vine-growers now turned gardeners. Though it did not make all of them rich, they had nonetheless acquired an aura that allowed them to take control of the village government.

4 . adap t i n g to t he pari s mark e t

V. Conclusion At Montreuil the alternative to the traditional system of cereals and vineyards seems to have grown out of the aftermath of a major crisis, the Fronde, and the destruction it caused in the Ile de France. In the village, the consequences of the civil war were so great that the richer peasants, the only ones capable of working large parcels of land or of investing in the purchase of fruit trees and the construction of espalier walls, were faced with unprecedented choices. Should they restore the old agricultural system and make good the damage caused by the disaster? They could still have gone on producing wine and cereals, mostly for the Paris market, as in the past; but had the time not come in the Île de France to choose crops more rationally? The close relations between the rural community and the social elites, at Montreuil and Paris, certainly seem to have played an important role in reconstructing the landscape (Bennezon, Michel, Muchembled, 2009). The existence since at least the fifteenth century of a strong network of merchants trading with the capital encouraged innovation. Thus it seems reasonable to conclude that, as in other places, particularly the Montmorency valley, the violence and destruction linked to the civil war impelled producers to adopt alternative crops, intensively remodelling the rural landscape by building peach walls (Quellier, 2003; Mérot, 2013). The appearance of the village, hidden like a citadel behind its long walls, was more and more shaped by the espaliers which gave it a strong identity. It also demonstrated the villagers’ ability to adapt to the renewed influence of the city (Pesier, 1994; Bennezon, 2014). Along with others, the gardeners of Montreuil had become important agents of change. Growing fruit trees was one of the ways that the countryside of the Île de France was reorganised and became specialised, with each parish more and more focused on certain products, designed to provide for the insatiable needs of the capital. The produce of the peach growers, with its large added value, made them richer much more surely than that of the small vine-growers, whose tiny parcels, endlessly divided and subdivided by the local egalitarian inheritance system over the space of countless generations, made little profit. Certain gardeners found their place in the sun and even joined the closed circle of the nobility (Bennezon, 2009). Under Louis XVI, the cadaster of the Paris Intendant Bertier de Sauvigny mentioned nearly 615 arpents of gardens and buildings, or 242 hectares, at Montreuil amounting to 26 %, or more than a quarter, of the agricultural land. The production of these juicy peaches came at the expense of the space devoted to vineyards and arable land, which still took up respectively 28 % and 46 % of the land (Abad, 2002). In the end the cultivation of fruit trees was generally competitive with the existing cycle of vines and cereals. The success of this alternative crop, born out of a set of disastrous military events, would probably not have been so striking if it had not been for the very advantageous geographic situation of Montreuil, a village living in the shadow of Paris.

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Annexes Table 4.1. The connections of Roland Le Preux (c. 1610 – 1681)

Claude Boudin

Wife of a King’s Counsel and Royal Secretary

Charles-Nicolas Esmery

Counsellor at the Excise Court (cour des aides) at Paris

Nicolas Esmery

King’s Counsel

Marie Esmery

Wife of a King’s Counsel and Royal Secretary

Nicolas Lambert

Royal Attorney in Paris

Monsieur Pondreau

Paris barrister

Anne Lambert

Wife of a Paris bourgeois

Jean Le Marinet

Parish Priest of Montreuil

François de Paris

sieur of Coutei

Gaston Fremy

Tenant farmer of the Saint Antoine Abbey, churchwarden

François Mainguet

Tenant farmer of the Saint Victor Abbey

Nicolas Bertault

Gardener of the abbé Le Nain de Tillemont

Jean de La Coudre

Gardener of the château of Bagnolet

Florent Maulavé

Gardener of the château of La Boissière

Edme Girardot 1622-1682 Gardener Denis Girardot, Esquire 1655-1730 Marie-Jeanne Boudin

Denis-Claude 1700-1754 Musketeer

Philippe Boudin Ploughman and Gardener

René-Claude Girardot 1665-1732 Lord of La Salle, à Bagnolet

Edme-Philippe Lord of Malassis and Naudy

Jean-Baptiste Esquire

Figure 4.1. The social rise of the Girardot family in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

4 . adap t i n g to t he pari s mark e t

Bibliography Abad, Reynald (2002), Le Grand marché, L’approvisionnement alimentaire de Paris sous l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Fayard. Barlier, Jean-Pierre (2005), La période de la Fronde vue du Nord et du Nord-Ouest de la Région parisienne, Mémoires de la Société Historique et Archéologique de Pontoise, du Val d’Oise et du Vexin. Bennezon, Hervé (2005), Un Village à l’ombre de Paris, Montreuil sous Louis XIV, Ph.D., Paris xiii University. Bennezon, Hervé (2009), Montreuil sous le règne de Louis XIV, Preface by Robert Muchembled, Paris, Les Indes savantes. Bennezon, Hervé (2010) ‘Entre terres et honneurs, une famille paysanne des environs de Paris, L’univers de Nicolas Hervy, officier du duc d’Orléans à Montreuil sur le Boys de Vincennes’, in Caroline Le Mao et Corinne Marache (eds), Les élites et la terre du xvie siècle à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Actes du colloque de Bordeaux (2009), Paris, Colin, p. 233-240. Bennezon, Hervé (2012), La Vie en Picardie au xviiie siècle, du café dans les campagnes, Preface by Benoît Garnot, Paris, Les Indes savantes. Bennezon, Hervé (2014), ‘Les stratégies d’émancipation des paysans picards au xviiie siècle’, in Fabrice Boudjaaba (ed.), Le Travail et la famille en milieu rural (xvie-xxie siècle), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, p. 213-233. Bennezon, Hervé, Michel, Marie-José, Muchembled, Robert (2009), Histoire du Grand Paris, de la Renaissance à la Révolution, Paris, Perrin. Bennezon, Hervé, Lagain, Martine, Marvaud, Sophie (2013), Histoire d’Argenteuil. Paris, Valhermeil. Carrière, Elie-Abel (1890), Montreuil-aux-Pêches, Paris, Librairie Agricole de la Maison Rustique. De Luynes (1864), Mémoires du duc de Luynes sur la cour de Louis XV (1735-1758), tome quatorzième (1755-1756), published by Louis Dussieux, Eudoxe Soulié, Paris, Firmin-Didot frères, fils et compagnie. Dessert, Daniel (1984), Argent, pouvoir et société au Grand-Siècle, Paris, Fayard. Dupâquier, Jacques (1977), Statistiques démographiques du bassin parisien, 16361720, Paris, CNRS. Dupâquier, Jacques (1983), Histoire d’Argenteuil, des origines à 1800, Société Historique et Archéologique ‘Le Vieil Argenteuil’, Argenteuil, SHAAP. Dufour, Jean-Yves (2005), Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis) Ilot Branly-Allende, Rapport de diagnostic archéologique (21/12/2004-6/01/2005), Pantin, SaintDenis, INRAP. Garrigues, Dominique (2001), Jardins et jardiniers de Versailles au Grand siècle, Preface by Joël Cornette, Paris, Champ Vallon. Goubert, Pierre (1968), 100 000 provinciaux au xviie siècle, Paris, Flammarion. Jacquart, Jean (1975), La Crise rurale en Ile-de-France (1550-1670), Paris, Armand Colin.

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Kaplan, Steven (1988) Les Ventres de Paris, pouvoir et approvisionnement dans la France d’Ancien Régime, Paris, Fayard. Lafarge, Ivan (2012), ‘Les murs à palisser “à la Montreuil”’, e-Phaïstos, Revue d’histoire des techniques, Volume I, n°1, p. 79-87. Legrand d’Aussy, Pierre (1782), Histoire de la vie privée des Français, depuis l’origine de la Nation jusqu’à nos jours, Paris, Imprimerie Ph.-D. Pierre. Mac Elhone, Brian (1997), La Vie quotidienne à Pantin de 1676 à 1730, Master’s dissertation, Paris XIII University. Mercier, Louis-Sébastien (1994), Tableau de Paris, edited by Jean-Claude Bonnet, Paris. Mérot, Florent (2010), L’Homme et son milieu en vallée de Montmorency sous l’Ancien Régime, Un paysage original aux portes de Paris (vers 1640-vers 1800), Ph.D., Paris XIII University. Mérot, Florent (2012) ‘La vigne et les associations de cultures en vallée de Montmorency (xviie-xviiie siècles)’, in Bernard Bodinier, Stéphanie Lachaud, Corinne Marache (eds), L’Univers du vin, Hommes paysages et territoires, Actes du colloque de Bordeaux (2-5 octobre 2012), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes (Bibliothèque d’Histoire Rurale), 13, p. 355-371. Mérot, Florent (2013), ‘La Fronde et ses lendemains autour de Paris : conséquences environnementales, économiques et sociales en vallée de Montmorency au xviie siècle’, French Historical Studies, Disaster in French History, Volume 36, Number 2, p. 175-204. Mérot, Florent (2015), La Vallée de Montmorency aux xviie et xviiie siècles, Paris, Les Indes savantes. Moriceau, Jean-Marc (1994), Les Fermiers de l’Ile-de-France, l’ascension d’un patronat agricole, xve-xviiie siècle, Paris, Fayard. Neveux Hugues (1996), ‘Vergers et vignobles en région de Montmorency au xviie siècle : Montmagny vers 1680’, Annales de Normandie, 46, 3, p. 331-346. Pesier, Sabine (1994), Montreuil à la fin du Moyen-Age, Master’s dissertation, Paris I University. Quellier, Florent (2003), Des Fruits et des hommes, L’arboriculture fruitière en Ilede-France (vers 1600-vers 1800), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Schabol, Roger, Dezallier d’Argenville, Antoine-Nicolas (1770), La Pratique du jardinage, par M. l’Abbé Roger Schabol, ouvrage rédigé après sa mort sur ses mémoires, par M. D., Paris, Debure père. Schabol, Roger, Dezallier d’Argenville, Antoine-Nicolas (1771), Théorie du jardinage, par M. l’Abbé Roger Schabol, ouvrage rédigé après sa mort sur ses mémoires, par M. D., Paris, Debure père. Simoni-Aurembou, Marie-Rose (1982), Parcs et jardins de la banlieue de Paris au xviiie siècle (Montreuil, Bagnolet, Vincennes, Charonne), Bibliothèque française et romane, Paris, Klincksieck.

N adin e VIVI ER  

5. Was Horticulture an Alternative Crop? A Case Study of Parisian Horticultural Suburbs in the Nineteenth Century I. Introduction Flowers, vegetable and fruit crops can be found in suburban areas all through historical times. They increased dramatically during the second half of the nineteenth century around cities as in other promising areas in France. They developed on a new scale and became a flourishing economic sector. Was this change an alternative to cereals or was it a response to new demand? Was the 1880s cereals crisis an incentive to horticulture expansion? Despite its importance, horticulture in nineteenth-century France has attracted very few historical studies. Scholars published nearly nothing from 1940 to the 1980s, except for theses in geography including a historical summary (Tricart, 1948; Phlipponneau, 1956; Pédelaborde, 1961); interest rose from the 1990s, at the same time as it did in the history of gardens. Horticulture during the early modern period is much better known through research on aristocratic gardens (for example Lalliard, 2003; Rouet, 2011), and mostly because of the studies of Reynald Abad (2002) and Florent Quellier (2003 and 2012) who both focused on Parisian production while giving an overview of other French supply areas. Most of the studies on the nineteenth century focus on a village including living museums presentations (Trochet, 2003 & Brunet, 2005). Recently, the centenary of the École nationale supérieure d’horticulture (1974) and the Société d’horticulture d’Angers resulted in large multidisciplinary publications and some academic research. On the European level, recent works have examined workers’ gardens (Segers & Van Molle, 2014 gives a bibliography). ‘Was horticulture an alternative crop?’ is a question discussed by Florent Quellier for early modern period. He found a chronology similar to Joan Thirsk’s: a rise of orchards from the 1640s in the Paris suburbs that coincided with the beginning of Thirsk’s second period of development in the history of alternative agriculture. According to Thirsk, this period ended around the middle of the eighteenth century, a time when the spread of fruit crops was also slowing down in the Paris suburbs. But unlike Thirsk, Quellier saw no relation with cereal prices, especially as the soils and terroirs required were

Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 95-113.

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completely different. Quellier also noted that wine prices were unrelated to the dynamics of fruit crops (2003: 119-122). He nevertheless assumed that fruit crops replaced vineyards in the nineteenth century. Does our study confirm this? The scarcity of documents makes it difficult to take an economic approach. Agricultural statistics were precise about cereals, meat and dairy products. Production and market prices were published; records of city tolls gave data on consumption. But vineyard products were the only horticultural produce to be documented. Two official statistical studies, the enquêtes décennales of 1862 and 1892 gave figures for surface area and production by locality, but this data looks less reliable than what they provide on cereals. The reason is clear; as a specialist journal explained, ‘At the central market of Paris, Les Halles, the price of apples, pears and other fruits varies considerably, according to the size and variety of the fruits. The difference between high and low prices can run from one to ten. This is why we do not include fruits in our market tables’ (Journal d’Agriculture pratique [hereafter JAP], 1881-2: 386). Moreover, half of the production came from private gardens; how could such production be quantified? So the main sources are literary: books by gardeners, agronomists, and the journals of horticultural or agricultural societies, which were very active in this period. They offer precise descriptions, even if they contain no figures. In spite of those difficulties, the present study aims to explain how horticulture developed: was it self-induced development or an alternative crop? The general context will first be described: in the mid-nineteenth century, an increasing demand encouraged the expansion of this activity. (I) To satisfy this demand in the Paris suburbs, the expansion of the area given over to market gardening mainly came from reclamation rather than substitution. (II) How did this prosperous sector get through the cereal crisis of the 1880s? (III) While remaining within the context of the Paris area, this study takes specific examples from the western part of the suburbs along the river downstream from Paris and especially around Saint Germain-en-Laye. This area was chosen because of the dynamic growth of horticulture there during the nineteenth century. Studies for the previous century focused on eastern and northern suburbs. Abad’s maps show the vegetable-growing area extending west up to Gennevilliers and Argenteuil and orchards up to Montesson and Louveciennes (Abad, 2002: 660, 666). On the 1786 plan d’intendance of Bertier de Sauvigny, the Seine valley downstream from Paris was the main vineyard (Touzery, 1995: 121). The gradual expansion of the city threatened the gardens closest to it and horticulture had to conquer new areas. Suburbs farther to the west had good potential for development, both on the plateau, which was grain country, and on the sunny hills, especially around Saint Germain (see map below). For this reason, it is a good area for examination.

5. was h o rt i cu lt u r e an alt e rnat i ve cro p?

II. A  global context: Horticulture in the mid-nineteenth century II.1 An increasing demand

Everywhere urban population grew tremendously and, from the 1850s onwards, its standard of living improved. Its wealth, now shared out among an increasing number of people, was invested in clothes and more diversified food. Milk, vegetables and fruits took up a rising share of their budgets. Consumption of all vegetables increased, including potatoes, carrots, turnips and cabbages. And more expensive vegetables were also bought by workers’ families: asparagus, melons, peaches, strawberries and so on. This general trend could also be observed in many other countries. Baltet, a renowned arborist, produced a survey of the production of all countries and noted the progress of horticulture, as took place in the Netherlands, or its recent revival in Italy (Baltet, 1895). The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair gave Maurice de Vilmorin, an eminent French seed and plant supplier, an opportunity to describe horticulture in the United States. He noted the quick tempo of its growth during the previous quarter-century: the value of vegetable and fruit production, destined to meet urban demand, now came second only to that of grain crops. Flowers came into particular favour at that time. Of course, this had happened before. Enthusiasm for flowers and for nature in general, reached high points in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The King’s Garden, created for Louis XIV at Versailles (1678), enjoyed continuing support from his successor Louis XV who encouraged research in agronomy and horticulture, especially the search for new species. During the following century, the passion for flowers spread to all levels of society. It is sometimes said, wrongly, that flowers have become fashionable. Their popularity in recent years and the rapidity with which they became part of our habits, are not sufficient to justify this term. A fashion is essentially arbitrary and variable; it is a craze coming from who knows where and why… The love of flowers is not a recent thing… The current phenomenal growth is due to multiple and complex causes (Vilmorin, 1892: 1). Among those causes was ‘the spontaneous return to nature that appears in all the nations when they reach a high degree of civilization. In great cities we feel the need to plunge back into beauty of a less artificial sort’. This was a time of urban renewal, with the creation of large parks, adorned with beautiful species of trees and flowers. Inside the house, potted and cut flowers were needed for decoration. Until the mid-nineteenth century, this was a sign of social distinction. The rich bourgeois families proved their standing by the

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magnificence of their greenhouses containing rare species, especially ferns, very popular at the time. Zola described a luxurious garden of this sort in Paris, near the Parc Monceau, in his novel La Curée (1871). That fashion quickly spread to Parisian workers, mostly migrants, who wanted to remember their countryside and felt the need for flowers inside their apartments or at the windows. As John Assbee, superintendent of the Covent Garden flower market, wrote in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society: Nothing so much marks the advance of our working and middle classes in material progress, in improved taste and refinement, as their increased outlay upon flowers. At all seasons and under all conditions of life, from the sick-room in a London lodging or the ward of a public hospital, up to all times of joy and sorrow, to the highest function of society (the Drawing-room), we find them shedding their joyous light and delicious perfume, Nature’s most charming productions (Holderness, 2000: 483). Gradually, flowers in the house became a symbol: ‘It can be said that love of flowers among working families is almost always a sign of orderly behaviour and attachment to family life’ (Vilmorin, 1892: 3). The same symbolic path was also to be found in Germany, where the bunch of cut flowers on the table denoted a well-kept house, private happiness and harmony (Bischoff, 2009; Lang, 2007). This was very important for the development of horticulture. The two Vilmorins saw in this passion a sustainable trend; for them it was ‘a rich mine of wealth and the economic situation of the country encourages us to develop it’ (Vilmorin, 1894: 225). Marketplaces multiplied: the towns of Saint Germain and Versailles decided to create a flower market in 1858. Paris already had four flower markets at this date: Cité, Madeleine, Place de la République and Saint Sulpice. Seven others were created after 1870. II.2 A new scientific interest

Quellier insisted on the mediating role played by the gardeners at country estates of the gentry and bourgeoisie, particularly after 1750 when the taste for horticulture became a sign of prestige. Moreover as fruit producers regularly went to the Parisian markets, they tried to meet the demand (Quellier, 2003: 337). Increasing respect for gardening led to the creation of horticultural societies. They flourished everywhere in Europe from the 1800s onward and constituted a very active network for the exchange of information. The great Universal Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867 in Paris both had splendid garden shows. The same was true of London and every other universal exhibition. In France, many departmental horticultural societies were created around the middle of the nineteenth century, taking their lead from the foundation of the Sociéte Nationale d’Horticulture in 1827. Up to this time, horticultural questions had been discussed in agricultural societies, but they were considered

5. was h o rt i cu lt u r e an alt e rnat i ve cro p?

a secondary matter. When interest in horticulture grew, more societies were founded. In 1857, there were thirty of them in France. In the western Paris area, they were active. In 1840 the Sociéte d’Horticulture de Seine-et-Oise, was established in Versailles; then in 1851 came a similar society for the Department of the Seine and another for Saint Germain-en-Laye (Monographie, 1900). These organisations exchanged information. In their monthly meetings, their members discussed techniques: soil improvement, qualities of different fertilizers, tools, methods of preserving fruits, and so forth. They swapped seeds; seed producers (whose business was booming) sent their catalogues and sometimes samples to be tested (Bulletin de la société d’horticulture de Saint Germain, 1851-1870). New varieties were introduced and acclimatized: Dahlias arrived from Mexico, chrysanthemums from China and Japan, pelargoniums were brought from the Cape of Good Hope, petunias from Brazil, fuchsias collected in Mexican forests. New varieties of vegetables were also acclimatized (Gibault, 1912). Experimental trials were also very important. Members tried out early and late products that would arrive outside normal seasons. Fruits, particularly pears of different varieties, were preserved in order to make them available nearly all year round. Vegetables and flowers were induced so as to arrive at maturity very early. Many greenhouses were built, some for exotic products like pineapples. Once or twice a year the societies organized an exhibition of fruits, vegetables and flowers and gave awards to the finest specimens. They aimed to stimulate widespread emulation, to disseminate technical progress and to spread interest in horticulture to the entire population. Thus, confident of its success, the Société Nationale d’Horticulture (SNH) could write: ‘So abundant did production of good fruits become, and so great was the impetus it [the SNH] imparted to flower and plant cultivation, that the city of Paris had to create several market places to sell vegetables, fruits and flowers’ (Annales d’Horticulture, 1853: 27). By the 1860s, even the local agricultural shows (comices) had begun to award prizes to gardeners, previously given only to cereal and cattle producers. In the regional competition held in Versailles in 1866, a bronze medal was awarded to a vegetable grower. The commentator wrote: ‘Every exhibition of the Seine-et-Oise constitutes a royal triumph for horticulture, this so useful and gracious aspect of social well-being’ (Annuaire, 1866: 420). This reflected common opinion, but the authorities were also increasingly aware of the economic importance of this industry and of the need for good training. A sign of the closer attention paid by authorities was a new step to establish advanced vocational training, with the founding of the École d’horticulture de Versailles in 1874. Some training was also given to pupils in primary schools: it began in the 1860s when schoolmasters were encouraged to cultivate a garden with their pupils. From then on, handbooks flourished, like Barral’s manual, which came out in 1883. In 1882, elementary agriculture, arboriculture and horticulture came to be taught as compulsory subjects in primary school.

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The overall context was extremely promising for horticulture: there was a strong demand based on economic and cultural change and the spread of scientific progress.

III. T  he development of horticulture in the Paris area, 1850-1880 The major period of development for the market in vegetables, fruits and flowers came during the years 1850-1880. How did production keep up with demand? Were new holdings created from scratch, or were they an alternative culture, the result of a short or mid-term conversion from something else? We have looked at demand on the large scale but supply can be studied precisely only at the local level, so the focus now shifts to the area to the west of Paris. III.1 An encouraging commercial environment

The population of Paris grew from half a million in 1800 to one million in 1840; by the end of the century it had reached 3 million if we take into account neighboring towns in the surrounding Department of the Seine-et-Oise. By 1850, fruits and vegetables took up an increasing share in the diet of the working classes. This can be seen in the allocation of the new buildings of the Halles de Paris. In his novel Le ventre de Paris (1873), Émile Zola painted a vivid picture of the new Halles. Of the ten pavillions erected by the architect Baltard between 1854 and 1870, three were devoted to fruits and vegetables (nos 6, 7 and 8); pavillion no. 7 included flowers, which were also to be found in the open area outside known as le carreau des Halles. In order to give the purveyors of fruits and vegetables more scope to choose their agents, a wholesale market was created in 1874 designed particularly for greengrocers and early products ( JAP, 1874: 192). Improved transports also played an important role, a double-edged one. On the one hand, transportation improvements made it easier to export produce, especially to the London market and more generally to markets in Northern Europe. On the other, it brought competition from the South. The PLM (Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée) railway put special wagons on its express trains; but even by 1900, the trip still took 21 hours. So competition remained limited. Trains were slow, so fruits from the South had to be picked up before they were fully ripe, and suffered from transfers and handling. Transport rates for horticultural products were such an important matter that they were the first item for discussion at the horticultural congress of 1886 ( JSNHF, 1886: xxi). Up to the 1880s, vegetables and fruits from the Paris area were fresher and cheaper; melons from the Loire valley, for example, could not face the competition of their Paris equivalents, and disappeared. But wines from the Midi offered much better quality and a higher degree of alcohol than what was on offer, and could still compete despite the cost of transport.

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Because they were transported by men or donkeys, fruits and vegetables were mainly produced within a radius of 10 km around Paris. The river Seine was seldom used to ship food upstream to Paris. As the state of roads and paths improved significantly under the July Monarchy (1830-1848) and the Second Empire (1851-1871), the horse-cart, which could cover longer distances, became common, At the start of the century, the farmers of Mesnil and Carrières, situated in the bend of the Seine near Saint-Germain, complained about the state of the roads; by the end of the century they had no trouble moving their produce to the wholesale market in Saint-Germain or directly to the central Paris market. More remote areas gradually felt the benefits of railway links. In 1846 the opening of the Paris-Pontoise line through the Montmorency valley triggered an expansion of orchards and created a market gardening area between Montmorency and Pierrelaye (see map). Improved transport stimulated the expansion of the area devoted to horticulture, not only because of the potential for delivering fresh products, but also because of the arrival of fertilizers. Gardeners could now use excellent guano from South America; however, the most widely-used fertilizers were urban night soil, mud and horse manure. For example, the farmers of Montesson were assigned a district in Paris to clean, and they carried out the night soil in their carts. Large cavalry establishments in big towns were also an advantage, and garrisons even more so, especially in Saint Germain and Versailles. This was a useful input; nonetheless statements in the Enquête agricole de 1866 drew attention to some difficulties, including high taxes: The gardening industry was very successful because they had a monopoly on cheap fertilizer from Paris. So when the land survey was done in the Seine-et-Oise, high rental values and incomes were recorded, and naturally this made the land tax much higher than elsewhere. But the considerable improvement of roads and differential freight rates granted by the railways have completely changed the situation. The Seine-et-Oise is losing its monopoly, which previously enriched them and raised rent values, and it will lose even more of it in the future (Enquête, 1866: 159). III.2 Creation of new market gardens by clearing

The area devoted to horticulture rose. At first this was brought about by clearing land. Some examples have already been mentioned: extensions of cultivated area and newly-created holdings in the Montmorency valley and in Pierrelaye, to the north of Paris. Saint Germain had an excellent environment for horticulture. First of all, there was a long-standing interest in parks and gardens dating from the time when the royal Court was there. Secondly the Paris-Saint Germain railway was constructed in 1837. This line, planned and funded by the Pereire brothers, encouraged urban growth. The population of Saint Germain rose from 10,971 in 1836 to 13,488 in 1846 and 17,478 in 1866. Pereire built houses, the banker Lafitte

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parcelled out his park in Maisons for development and the forest of Vésinet was sold off in 1857. With the railway came wealthy bourgeois from Paris who enjoyed the fresh air and extensive views from the terrace of the Château. They created beautiful and prestigious parks on their estates, like the one established by Achille Fould, one of Napoleon III’s best-known Finance Ministers, at the Château du Val (Tablettes, 1858: 175-180). They employed experienced gardeners on these estates who raised exotic species such as pineapples in their greenhouses. All those factors increased the demand on the Saint Germain wholesale market for horticultural products, for food as well as seeds and trees for gardens and flowers for the house. Precise documentation from the land-survey (cadastre) and from descriptions of visits by the Société d’Horticulture to the local parks and gardens provides an overview of the rapidly-changing geography of Saint-Germain’s agriculture. The new pleasure gardens were established on the fringe of the old town centre. They included parks with rare species of trees and flowers, kitchen gardens, orchards and greenhouses. Almost all were on land cleared from the forest or uncultivated fields. Some of these land owners were highly interested in horticulture and played an important role in the Société d’Horticulture de Saint Germain-en-Laye, fostering research and experiments in acclimatizing new plants. Gardeners took up more and more space on the southward-facing hillslopes, mostly wasteland or former convent gardens. They settled and produced plants, ornamental shrubs, fruits and vegetables, conquering the slopes and building many greenhouses in the process. Farther down, on the alluvial fields of Saint Léger, along a little river, gardeners had larger estates – some of them settled as far back as the end of the eighteenth century. In the surrounding villages, they carved out large holdings from the alluvial land to create the nurseries of Bougival and Rocquencourt. On the hillsides, new orchards thrived, as in Chambourcy, which produced the celebrated local species of plums. A little farther west, in the Mantes district, 1,000 ha of woods were uprooted over the course of the twenty years from 1845 to 1865. The figures of the statistical enquiry of 1862 show the transformation of the landscape in the canton of Saint Germain, that is, in the town and the surrounding municipalities (Table 5.1). The area occupied by gardens and Table 5.1. Area under horticulture in the canton of Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Surface area in hectares

Surface area in % of arable land

1820

1862

1892

1820

1862

1892

592

310

215

6.10

3.20

2.20

Gardens

170

387

460

1.75

4.00

4.74

Orchards

100

238

240

1.03

2.45

2.47

Vineyards

Source: A.N. F/11/2710; A.D.78 13M 29

5. was h o rt i cu lt u r e an alt e rnat i ve cro p?

orchards doubled, mainly by land reclamation. In some cases they took the place of vineyards. The main reason for the decline of the vineyards was competition from the wines of the Midi. They also suffered from higher taxation when the boundaries of Paris changed in 1860, taking in the surrounding winegrowing villages like Passy and Montmartre. The winegrowers inside the city thereby gained a huge advantage, selling now their wine in Paris without any taxation. This worsened the competition for suburban producers. Then in the 1870s the phylloxera epidemic hastened their decline. III.3 Alternative agriculture

Villages along the river, in the bend north of Saint-Germain, changed their production. At first, they had been very poorly served by secondary roads, so mixed farming had been the only activity possible for them. Subsequently, improved roads and urban demand gave them an incentive to expand into gardening. At Mesnil sheep farming disappeared in the 1850s. The fields facing southeast produced good crops of peas and potatoes. The vineyards disappeared entirely during the phylloxera epidemic and were replaced by fruit trees: now cherries and plums were exported as far away as the London market. In Montesson, on the alluvial plain, vegetables took the place of wheat and beet crops, which were in decline. Local growers now specialized in ‘stewing vegetables’: carrots, leeks and cabbages. With the help of irrigation from the numerous wells drilled on each plot, they managed to produce two to three crops a year. Gardens in Montesson had occupied only 78 ha in 1820; by 1868, they covered 250 ha. The final type of vegetable production to be introduced came as a shortterm substitution. According to the official enquiry of 1866, ‘a year of high prices for vegetables or when the oilseed rape crop fails completely can cause more potatoes to be produced. Contrariwise, when the potato harvest is too generally abundant and the price falls, this precious tuber can rapidly lose the area it had gained’ (Enquête, 1866: 210). Similar substitutions can be found in places like Argenteuil. There, vineyards suffered very bad harvests in the years from 1763 to 1797. Vine growers looked for an alternative crop and tried asparagus. It worked, but only for a period of 15 years. They lacked know-how, and the Paris market was a bit too far away, so they went back to vineyards. Some years after they tried mixing their crops, putting asparagus between the vine rows. In the second half of the nineteenth century asparagus finally proved a successful cash-crop (Lhérault-Brouchot, 1930: 182). Data on farmers’ earnings, though approximate, explain the producers’ quick response to market demand. The 1862 enquiry gave a breakdown by canton of vegetable production per hectare, with prices, which varied greatly according to the variety and quality of the product. The 1866 enquiry gave some examples. Potato prices ranged from 3 to 8fr./hl, the late-maturing varieties being more productive and better-tasting. This affords some idea of producers’ income. In an average year, gross sales revenue amounted to 500-600

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n a d i n e v i vi e r  Pontoise Pierrelaye Gonesse

Montmorency Achères

Argenteuil

Le Mesnil

Gennevilliers Chambourcy

Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Montesson Chatou

La Courneuve Nanterre

Paris

Montreuil

Saint-Maur

Versailles L’Haÿ-les-Roses 10 km

Towns

Orchards

Vegetables

Woods, Parks

Flowers and nurseries

Sewage farm

SA-CERHIO, 2015

1 04

Vineyards

Map 5.1. Horticulture in the Paris suburbs at the end of the nineteenth century

francs/ha for wheat and for potatoes. It was approximately the same for the green beans and peas, while somewhat higher for salads (640fr.), for carrots (675fr.) and for cabbages (up to 1200fr.). The famous Argenteuil asparagus fetched more money (up to 1500fr.), but only a small part of the production could be sold at this price, the rest went for less. Since a field could give at least two crops a year and sometimes three, vegetables earned well, at least twice as much as potatoes or wheat. Additional figures were given in the 1866 enquiry about kitchen gardens in the district of Versailles: •  Value of production per ha: 1,000 francs • Total cost of cultivation per ha: 652 francs (the price of labour was increasing) • Net revenue: 348 francs/ha (a good overall return, much better than for cereals). Horticulture required plenty of labour. In spite of the increasing costs, this was not a problem here. The area benefited from the arrival of migrants, ‘strong, dynamic and progressive farmers’, who began as labourers and managed to get a foothold. With hard work, they could quickly turn a profit by growing two or three crops a year, and with a small initial capital they settled down. They specialized in vegetables, soft fruits (currants, raspberries) and sometimes added some flowers (Pédelaborde, 1954).

5. was h o rt i cu lt u r e an alt e rnat i ve cro p?

Testimony by Lentier, a notary in Deuil (canton of Montmorency) reflects the situation in 1866: ‘small farming’ he asserted, ‘is by far the most prevalent in the country; it is almost exclusively devoted to vegetables; it cannot be said there is poverty… You will find nothing but prosperity here’ (Enquête, 1866: 892).

IV. The crisis of the 1880s: good times for horticulture The arrival on the European market of American cereals triggered a difficult time for agriculture. French farmers were especially hard hit because other sectors than grain crops suffered at the same time: phylloxera destroyed vineyards; hemp and flax were dropping because of competition from cotton and from the disappearance of sailing ships. None the less, the choice in 1892 to grant subsidies to textile growers held back the gradual reduction of surfaces devoted to hemp and flax until 1896. During his visit to the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, Vilmorin produced some insights on the geographical changes in supply in the United States. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, grain production had prospered in the north-eastern states. Then the Mississippi plains came on the market: they enjoyed fertile soils, high production and cheap land. As a result, cereals in the eastern states went through a crisis, and farmers turned to dairy farming and fruit (Vilmorin, 1994: 45-50 & 222). Did the cereal crisis in France trigger the same shift towards horticulture? IV.1 Market demand remained strong

The literature suggests that horticulture did not suffer during the ‘great depression’, except from the bad weather of the winter 1879-1880. A few examples may be mentioned; Charles Baltet, for instance, who stated in his report on the World’s Fair of 1889: ‘The period from 1789 to 1889 was for horticulture a time of hard work and constant progress’ (Baltet, 1890: 5). The enquiry, undertaken in 1879 at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture, asked a series of questions about cereals, stockbreeding and forestry, indeed nearly all sectors of agriculture except horticulture. In one of the few mentions made, it stated that wages were steady or even rising in gardens in the Vaucluse (in south-eastern France), while they had dropped in the other sectors (Enquête, 1879, t. 1: 558). Authorities were not worried about horticulture in 1879, a sign that it was in fairly good shape. Around 1880, and particularly in 1884, the agricultural depression was a major issue for agricultural reviews. Yet, nobody complained about the state of horticulture. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu even proposed a remedy for the crisis: ‘Produce more meat, dairy and fruits. Demand for these foods is so elastic that more production would not drive down prices’ (JAP, 1884, t. 1: 726).

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In fact, during this period, average wages rose faster than the cost of living (which fell), which explains why demand stayed high. Strong demand for flowers also continued. Vilmorin’s 1892 book did not mention any earlier crisis. He cited a significant figure for the number of florists with a shop, in addition to small kiosks and to costermongers, who sold vegetables and fruits on the streets, carrying them about in handcarts. He delved into the annual business directory (Bottin) for data, which he considered an underestimation, and claimed that there would have been 45 florists in Paris in 1870, 104 in 1880 and 200 in 1891. Despite the crisis, the demand for flowers increased. Rich people could afford them, and the demand from workers was growing because they wanted to follow the current standards of etiquette which dictated that family ceremonies, baptisms, weddings and funerals all required floral decorations. Flowers had to be put on graves and, in this period of renewed religious fervour, churches were adorned with fresh flowers for every ceremony and some feast-days; in May, for the month of Mary, baskets of white flowers decorated church chancels. IV.2 New interest from the minister of Agriculture

Under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture, regional agricultural contests were organized every year, resulting in reports ‘highlighting the merits of award-winning farms, full of useful advice on how to get the best performances and telling farmers about the most profitable practices’ (Primes d’honneur, 1896). We can chart the course of reawakening interest in horticulture. In the 1866 reports on the winning farms in each department, around 50 pages each, horticulture took up only 3 to 5 lines. Interest was focused on cereals, fodder crops for stockbreeding and on the principal beverages, wine and cider. In 1876 the general report on the Department of the Deux-Sèvres mentioned a new subject: it spoke briefly about the production of melons and artichokes around Niort and the high returns they obtained. In the 1880s, cereal crops were still the primary concern. Horticulture, it should be noted, was never advocated as a substitute for wheat. In 1886, the general report encouraged farmers to turn to fodder crops (Primes d’honneur, 1886: 10). The other main concern was the destruction of vineyards by phylloxera. The notion of ‘transition crops’ appeared; they were to take the place of vineyards while they were being replanted. It was for this reason that the competition jury began to reward holdings for horticultural production: in Gigondas (Vaucluse) a landowner quickly replaced vineyards by fruit trees, mulberries and madder (1866: 569); in Lot-et-Garonne producers of plums (for prunes) and of asparagus (for the Paris market) were honoured (1886: 108-112). In the Var, horticulture was praised for ‘transition crops which had produced good returns’; three producers of asparagus, strawberries, jasmine, violets, roses and orange blossom won medals (1892: 218-220). In the 1890s, the competition jury not only saw horticulture as a substitution crop; they also recognized its economic value. To highlight the importance of

5. was h o rt i cu lt u r e an alt e rnat i ve cro p?

seeds, two producers from near Angers in the Maine-et-Loire were awarded medals (1895: 81-85). This growing attention to horticulture showed up again in the 1892 statistical enquiry, which boasted that ‘for the first time detailed data are provided’ (Enquête, 1892: 197). It clearly appears that the Ministry of Agriculture was not encouraging horticulture as an alternative to cereals; it viewed its worth only as a temporary crop during the period of vineyard reconstruction. The absence of support from the Ministry is striking: horticulture was simply not a vital sector for human diet. This situation contrasts with that in Belgium where legislation discouraged grain growing, aiming instead for a new orientation towards animal production and vegetable and fruit crops (Van Molle, 2000: 165). IV.3 Greater supply: substitution or a response to demand?

In this context, the total area devoted to gardens was still growing. On a national level, the area devoted to potatoes and vegetables went from 1.46 million hectares in 1882 to 1.61 million in 1892 (only market gardens were counted, not domestic gardens). The growth in production is easy to understand when we compare the gross value of production per hectare (Table 5.2). Let us turn again to the western suburbs of Paris. The figures used in Table 5.3 can be trusted because wine production was a major focus. They show that the substitution of orchards for vineyards did not stem from the crisis (the disease in 1860-1880 and the fall of prices around 1900) but rather, as we have seen, from competition with better wines from southern France. The surprise is that the decline was so slow and gradual. Table 5.2. Average crop value per hectare in 1892

Wheat (grains and straw): 380 francs Hemp: 622 fr; flax: 592 fr Beans, peas and lentils: 300-330 fr in 1892, a year of abnormally bad weather; this was one-third less than in 1882 (460-480 fr) Potatoes and vegetable field crops: 474 fr Vegetables in market gardens: carrots 664 fr; cabbages: 946 fr; asparagus, artichokes: 1200 fr. This gave an average gross value/ha of 764 fr. for horticulture. Nurseries earned as much as 1,143 fr. Source: Enquête, 1892 Table 5.3. Area occupied by vineyards in Saint-Germain and Marly (hectares)

1837

1852

1882

Marly-le-Roi

730

342

129

Saint-Germain-en-Laye

381

379

215

Source: AD 78 13M5, 13M12, 13M19 and 13M59

1908 154

107

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n a d i n e v i vi e r  Table 5.4. Development of market gardening in three villages in the bend of the Seine: Achères, Mesnil, Montesson (hectares)

 

1820

1868

1902

1914

Achères

 

 

95

281

Mesnil

 

 

32

48

Montesson

78

250

300

375

total

78

250

427

704

Source: Pédelaborde, 1954: 348.

As late as 1892, 20 ha of vineyards were newly replanted in Saint-Germain. If we widen our view to encompass the Seine valley from Paris down to Mantes, we see that vineyards lost ground dramatically between 1825 and 1892, and survived only on the hills along the river from Argenteuil to Chambourcy (Touzery, 1995: 124). Why did they last so long? Probably because of sales in local restaurants and guinguettes (cafes with music and dancing). The river banks from Argenteuil to Chatou were much favoured as places of leisure. The Maison Fournaise in Chatou was a favourite haunt of oarsmen and artists, as we know from the Impressionists’ paintings. But the Maison Fournaise closed in 1906, rowing fell out of fashion after the Great War and the vineyards disappeared in the 1920s. By then, most of the area had been covered by orchards whose fruit could still compete with produce from the Midi. Mixed gardening is impossible to measure. Often, rows of vegetables would be planted between fruit trees. There is no precise and reliable data about market gardens. The 1892 statistical enquiry counted market gardens, kitchen gardens and parks, but the definition of gardens has changed after 1882. However, it is possible to focus on vegetable production in three villages where it was the one and only crop (Table 5.4): the area around Montesson, where it began in the second half of the eighteenth century, boomed in the first half of the nineteenth century and continued to increase, though more slowly, in the period 1868-1914 (Ossard, 1980). The growth of production resulted from farmers’ initiatives, with one exception: Achères, in the bend of the river Seine, just north of Saint-Germain. Farther from the market than Carrières, Achères had carried on with mixed farming and wheat. During this time, the city of Paris was forced to clean up its waste water. After a test in 1864, the process of soil purification by agricultural use was adopted for this purpose. Gennevilliers was the first to feel the effect, with fields along the river being covered by ‘greengrocers’ marshes’. The process quickly spread to Achères and downstream, because the surfaces needed for the process were very large. From 1880 onwards grain crops declined and were supplanted by vegetables (potatoes, cabbages, artichokes and leeks – none of the vegetables that were eaten raw). Grasslands were also needed to absorb sewage water (Vincey, 1896). On these once poor soils, many farmers now could live decently with 5 ha of land.

5. was h o rt i cu lt u r e an alt e rnat i ve cro p?

Obviously, horticulture was not affected by the great depression. Yet the clouds were gathering. Parisian horticulture had to face competition from southern France and also from abroad. The United States began to conquer the London market, shipping dried apples that could be used for pastries. The American Pomological Society worked to develop preserved fruits such as pears and peaches. They began to ‘invade the London market’, where competition grew stiff. From the 1880s Spain dramatically developed irrigated areas for horticulture (Martinez-Carrión, 1989); Sicily also tried to sell its products. The struggle for market share increased. Labour was the second growing difficulty. While in the 1860s good and hard workers were attracted by the chance to make quick profits and set up on their own, this goal became harder and harder to attain. This had consequences for the labour market. Two cases come to mind. In Croissy there was a very intensive form of gardening: carrots and turnips were grown on a sandy soil, and watered. This was called ‘healthy cultivation’ (as opposed to crops grown on sewage) and the vegetables sold at a good price. As well, many landscape gardeners grew flowers and maintained the gardens of mansions. Considerable numbers of peasants came here from Brittany and managed to settle on leased parcels. Unfortunately for them, land, whether for lease or sale, was becoming rare, so they were soon obliged to go elsewhere. Thus the hope of settling down that had motivated the men, vanished; and it grew harder to recruit labour. The second case shows the difficulties in employing poor, unspecialized laborers. In Achères, beside 250 ha cultivated by 43 farmers, there was a total of 1,170 ha in two municipal estates that hired large numbers of labourers. Poorly paid, poorly housed and attracted by left-wing unions, they went on a strike in the summer of 1909, at harvest time. Their demands for weekly rest and higher wages were met; the cost of labour rose from 711 to 825 francs/ha (Philipponneau, 1956: 496). As a result methods of cultivation changed: many different species were now grown in order to produce crops on a year-round basis, and a permanent skilled workforce was now required to grow them. In such a context, horticulture became a very elaborate system, aiming at high profitability; it often combined gardening, orchards, flowers and vineyards, and sometimes even field crops as well as crops in closed gardens (Auduc, 2003: 47). After the Great War, in the 1920s, horticulture still managed to meet growing demand. In the greater Paris area, average consumption per capita in 1901 was 75 kg of fruit and vegetables per year; by 1950, it had more than doubled, reaching 166 kg. Pleasure gardens and small family gardens declined rapidly and as a result, the area covered by market gardens grew. But competition from the produce of the Midi also increased and big problems were caused by the spread of built-up property: pollution, which spoiled some crops, the loss of cheap manure from horse dung and urban night-soil, and the shortage of labour. Wages increased dramatically; so did land prices and so, as a result, did land taxes. All this limited young gardeners’ prospects of future reward.

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Selling their products directly to the Paris market did make up for high production costs and this help explain why gardeners in the Paris area gave up producing for markets farther abroad, a choice which bore heavy consequences for the future (Demangeon, 1928; Phlipponneau, 1956: 115 and 543). This rapid comparison of the crisis of the 1930s with the earlier one in the 1880s highlights the important role played by strong local demand from the huge Paris market.

V. Conclusion Horticulture is an important and relevant subject for the purpose of this book. Horticulture, known for its flexibility, can be considered as an alternative to other crops in crisis. This case study of the western sector of the Paris supply area shows that horticultural growth was not, in this case, an alternative agriculture in Joan Thirsk’s sense. The cereal crisis did not trigger conversion: wheat continued to be grown on the plateaux to the north and east of Paris. The decline of vineyards did not follow the chronology of the crisis in the last quarter of the century. It disappeared at its own rhythm. The market-gardening belt around Paris went back a long way. Its continuous development from 1830 to 1914 came from strong demand due to rising standards of living, so it could take advantage of a period of prosperity as well as a period of crisis. Gardening did not even suffer from the general agricultural crisis of the 1880s because demand continued to go up. Horticulture was obviously a permanent, basic kind of cultivation to meet the demands of the better-off, in the first instance, and subsequently the needs of more and more people in the expanding Paris population. Horticulture was a long-term substitute for traditional mixed farming in a context of strong market demand and new opportunities offered by improving transport and trading networks. Vegetable production needed a great deal of manure to be profitable; hence only fields that had been well prepared over a long time could give a good yield. Moreover, horticulture required a system of cultivation and labour use quite different from that of mixed farming. In fact, growth in horticulture was driven by markets – Parisian, national and global markets – and not by cereal prices, nor even by government encouragement, which had an impact only on major products such as cereals, animals and wine.

Statistical sources A.N. Archives nationales série F/11 A.D. 78 Archives départementales des Yvelines, série 13 M

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Bibliography Abad, Reynald (2002), Le grand marché : l’approvisionnement alimentaire de Paris sous l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Fayard. Annales de la Société d’horticulture de Paris (1853), Paris. Annuaire (1866), Annuaire administratif et statistique de Seine-et-Oise, Versailles, s. n. Auduc, Arlette (2003), ‘La géographie et l’évolution des murs à pêche de Montreuil, du xviie siècle à nos jours’, in Jean-René Trochet, Jardinages…; p. 39-47. Baltet, Charles (1890), L’horticulture française, ses progrès et ses conquêtes depuis 1789, Paris, Imprimerie nationale. Baltet, Charles (1895), L’Horticulture dans les cinq parties du monde, Paris, au siège de la Société nationale d’horticulture. Barral, Jean-Augustin et Sagnier, Henri (1883), Notions d’agriculture et d’horticulture. Cours élémentaire. Premières leçons dans le jardin de l’école, Paris, Hachette et Cie. Bischoff, Harald (2009), ‘Faktoren des Nachfrage nach Zierpflanzen’, Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie, 57, 1, April, p. 43-57. Brunet, Jacques and Savard, Nicole (2005), Montreuil-sous-bois. Les Savart : chronique d’une famille d’arboriculteurs-horticulteurs au début du xviie siècle, Montreuil, Musée de l’histoire vivante. Bulletin de la Société d’horticulture de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1854-1920. Demangeon, Suzanne (1928) ‘Le Ravitaillement de Paris en fruits et légumes’, Annales de Géographie, t. 37, n°206, p. 97-121. Ecole nationale supérieure d’horticulture (1974), Versailles. Enquête agricole de 1866. Ministère de l’Agriculture, du Commerce et des Travaux publics. 2e série, 6e circonscription : Eure-et-Loir, Seine-et-Marne, Seine-et-Oise et Seine. Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1867. Enquête agricole décennale de 1852. Statistique de la France, 2 vol., Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1858-1860. Enquête agricole décennale de 1862. Statistique de la France, Strasbourg, BergerLevrault, 1870. Enquête agricole décennale de 1892. Résultats généraux de l’enquête décennale. Statistique de la France, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1897. Enquête agricole décennale de 1929. Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1936. Enquête sur la situation de l’Agriculture en France en 1879, faite à la demande de M. le Ministre de l’Agriculture et du Commerce par la Société Nationale d’Agriculture, Paris, J. Tremblay, 1879-1880, 2 tomes. Gibault, Georges (1912), Histoire des légumes, Paris, Librairie horticole. JAP Journal d’Agriculture pratique, Paris, Librairie de la Maison rustique du xixe siècle, 1837 à 1900. JSNHF Journal de la Société Nationale d’Horticulture de France, Paris, 1884-1927. Holderness, B. A. (2000), ‘Specialised cropping systems’, in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. vii, 1850-1914, Edward J. T. Collins (ed.), part I, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 479-484.

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Lalliard, François (2003), ‘Le jardinage aristocratique entre amateurisme et professionnalisme, de la Restauration à la Belle Epoque’, in Jean-René Trochet, Jardinages, p. 172-184. Lang, Gundula (2007), Bürgerliche Privatgärten in deutschen Landen um 1800 : Fallstudien zu Gestalt, Nutzung und Bedeuten in der Kontext des gesellschaftlichen Umbruchs, Worms, Wernersche Verlaggesellschaft. Lhérault-Brouchot, Charles (1930), ‘Historique de l’asperge d’Argenteuil’, Conférence des sociétés savantes, littéraires et artistiques du département de Seineet-Oise, 9e session (1/3 juin 1928, Argenteuil), Gap, Impr. Louis Jean, p. 180-185. Martinez-Carrión, Jose Miguel (1989), ‘Formación y desarrolló de la industria de conservas vegetales in España, 1850-1930’, Revista de Historia Economica, 7, p. 619-649. Monographie de la Société d’horticulture de Saint Germain, Doizelet, 1900. Ossard, Hervé and Soliman, Marie-Hélène (1980), La Culture maraîchère à Montesson, 1820-1980, Paris, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique. Pédelaborde, Pierre (1961), L’Agriculture dans les plaines alluviales de la presqu’ile de Saint Germain, thèse 1954, Paris, A. Colin. Phlipponneau, Michel (1956), La Vie rurale de la banlieue parisienne. Thèse 1955, Imprimerie nationale. Primes d’honneur (1866 to 1895), Les médailles de spécialités et les prix d’honneur des fermes-écoles décernés dans les concours régionaux en..., Ministère de l’agriculture, Paris, Imprimerie nationale. Quellier, Florent (2003), Des Fruits et des hommes : L’arboriculture fruitière en Ilede-France (vers 1600-vers 1800), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Quellier, Florent (2012), Histoire du jardin potager, Paris, A. Colin. Segers, Yves & Van Molle, Leen (2014), ‘Workers’ Gardens and Urban Agriculture. The Belgian Allotment Movement within a Global Perspective (from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century)’, Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie, 2 (62), 80-94. Société d’horticulture d’Angers et du département du Maine et Loire (2000), L’horticulture angevine des origines à l’an 2000, Angers. Rouet, Marion (2011), Les potagers aristocratiques et royaux en Ile-de-France, fin xviie-fin xviiie siècle, thèse Paris-Nord. Tablettes de l’horticulture versaillaise (1858), Journal mensuel de la société d’horticulture de Seine-et-Oise. Tricart, Jean (1948), La Culture fruitière en région parisienne, Thèse université de Paris. Touzery, Mireille (1995), Atlas de la Généralité de Paris au xviiie siècle : un paysage retrouvé, Paris, Comité pour l’Histoire économique et financière de la France. Trochet, Jean-René (dir.) (2003), Jardinages en région parisienne du xviie au xxe siècle, Grâne, Créaphis. Van Molle, Leen (2008), ‘A State for the Peasants or the Peasants for the State ? The Two Faces of Belgian Agricultural Policy, 1830-1914’, in Nadine Vivier (ed.), State and Rural Societies. Policy and Education in Europe 1750-2000, Turnhout, Brepols, Rural History in Europe, 4, p. 159-176.

5. was h o rt i cu lt u r e an alt e rnat i ve cro p?

Vilmorin, Philippe (1892), Les Fleurs à Paris. Culture et commerce, Paris. Vilmorin, Maurice Lévèque de (1894), Exposition internationale de Chicago en 1893. Comité 8. L’Horticulture française à Chicago. L’Horticulture aux États-Unis, Paris, Impr. Nationale. Vincey, Paul (1896), ‘Épuration terrienne des eaux vannes selon les cultures et les sols’, Mémoires de la Société nationale d’agriculture de France, p. 503-518. Vivier, Nadine (2013), ‘La Société d’horticulture de Saint-Germain-en-Laye sous le Second Empire’, Les Amis du vieux Saint Germain, n°50, p. 89-113. Zola, Emile (1871), La Curée, Paris, A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et Cie. Zola, Emile (1873), Le Ventre de Paris, Paris, Charpentier.

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Crises and Alternative Agriculture

C arolin e Le Mao  

6. War, Crisis and Alternative Crops The Case of Hemp and Wine in France from 1688 to 1697 I. Introduction For Joan Thirsk (Thirsk, 1997), economic recession and problems with traditional cultivation were the decisive factors in the expansion of alternative crops; however Jean-Pierre Poussou (Poussou, 2000; Poussou, 2005) pointed out that it occurred much more in periods of economic prosperity and price rises1. We propose to take up the question from a different angle, that of the orders for hemp and wine placed by the French navy during the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697). This seems pertinent as it makes it possible to compare the notion of crisis with that of ‘alternative crops’ in the full range of its meanings: war, and crisis in climate and grain production, and using alternative crops (in this case hemp and wine) with very different rationales. The period chosen here was undeniably a time of crisis, and of overlapping crises. It was a time of war, a hard war in which France was set against a large part of Europe, and a long war, which drained the human and financial strength of the country – and what is more, at a time when weather conditions were highly unfavourable. These factors combined in one of the worst demographic crises France has ever known: the terrible year 1693-1694 (Lachiver, 1991). So we are dealing with two different kinds of crisis, intersecting and influencing each other, with each still retaining its own distinct character: one associated with the war and the other with climate and grain production. Although crises of the first sort will command most of the attention in this study, the second kind must also be considered, not only because it manifested itself on such a massive scale, but also because it hit all at once, combining with the effects of the other crisis on the cultivation of alternative crops, and exacerbating them. One of the features of this war was the predominant role of the Navy (La Roncière, 1932: 43-306; Bromley, 1970: 223-253). France had to face the combined forces of England and Holland, and Louis XIV needed a strong navy to oppose them, to envisage an invasion of England and to protect French commerce and attack enemy trade. The King accordingly decided to dedicate extensive financial resources to the Navy, to raise crews and to build and maintain ships (Le Mao, 2011: 285-320). Unprecedentedly large commissions came out of Paris and the arsenals of Brest, Rochefort, Toulon, Le Havre and

1 See also Jean-Pierre Poussou’s introduction and article in the present collection. Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 117-137.

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DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119527

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Dunkirk – and indeed all parts of the country were put under contribution – to supply whatever France would no longer be able to purchase from abroad. Two products from this range of goods are of particular interest here: hemp, used for sails and particularly for rope, a raw material vital in naval construction (Boudriot, 1973); wine, particularly wine from Bordeaux, part of the victuals needed for large crews and thousands of men (Mémain, 1936). Taking up Joan Thirsk’s definition, hemp and wine are indeed alternative crops, as they constitute produce different from cereals and meat and are grown on a large scale in at least some regions. To be sure, it is difficult to conceive of hemp and wine in the same frame: their end-use is different: in one case, food, in the other, an intermediate product for finishing; they are cultivated in different ways: one, a vine root planted for several years; the other, a plant sown and cropped annually; and so on. Comparing the two crops, produced by different systems, but subject to a common set of circumstances, allows us to ask several important questions. Can alternative crops be thought of as a group, responding similarly to the same stimuli? What was the role of the state, and more specifically of the Secretary of State for the Navy, in ‘creating’, maintaining or expanding the cultivation of an alternative crop? And how was it done? Did crisis bring about a single set of conditions in which various factors reinforced, or counteracted each other, or combined in unexpected ways? To shed some light on these complexities, we shall first estimate how the war affected the cultivation of the alternative crops of hemp and wine. This will allow us to see how the market adapted to the situation and how the state intervened in the market. Finally, we shall try to focus more closely on the mechanisms of crisis in order to understand how they interacted and what were their effects on the cultivation of alternative crops.

II. Effects of the war on alternative crops II.1 Increased orders

The war brought about an increase in naval orders for hemp and wine but, as there was no institution that centralized information on the amounts requested, it is hard to know exactly how much was ordered (Buchet, 1999)2. Everything suggests that the Navy consumed a great deal of hemp. According to the payment authorisation, which was the spending order issued by the Navy Secretary, the Navy laid out between 1.7m and 1.9m livres tournois (hereafter #) on hemp over the course of the war. Expenditure increased greatly during the first three years of the conflict and reached very high levels from 1690 to 1692, the latter being a record year; it collapsed in 1694, a year after the great demographic and production crisis of 1693-1694. By contrast, in the last three

2 This is one of the major differences between France and England.

6. war , c r i s i s a nd alt e rnat i ve cro ps Table 6.1. Naval expenditure on raw hemp 1688-1697 according to payment orders. In livres tournois

 

1688

Year gross

87,000 183,523 358,190 155,094 246,164 106,033 250,409 191,000 196,393 70,185

1689

1690

1691

1692

1693

1694

1695

1696

1697

Year – adjusted

97,164 184,523 318,190 195,094 477,409 106,033

9,000 175,450 161,943 177,000

Sources: AN, MAR E4, E8 and E12, records of funding orders given to Navy treasurers and purveyors, 1688-17003. Table 6.2. Quantities of hemp transiting France on the King’s passes 1688-1697.

 

1688

1689

1690

Quantity

8,040 37,480 40,805

1691

1692

1693

***

51,484 3,000

1694

1695

53,114 36,406

1696

1697

9,500 2,200

Sources: Doursther, 1840: 4595, quantities expressed in quintaux poids de marc.

years of the war hemp purchases stayed relatively stable at between 160,000# and 180,000# annually.3 To the principal order, we have to add the amount commanded in a secondary order, representing the amount that each arsenal spent on hemp on its own account. Unfortunately, not all the accounts have come down to us, but the expenditure statements of five arsenals, for 1688, 1689 and 16904, record that 138,000#, 571,000# and 829,000# was spent on hemp in each of those years. Taken together with what was spent on the orders of the Navy Secretary, this means that in 1690 alone the Navy bought upwards of 1.1 million# of hemp, and that in turn implies large quantities, as is witnessed by the 88 transit passes mentioning hemp that have been discovered.5 These figures are still understated, first of all because not all hemp required a transit order (hemp for Brest from its surrounding province of Brittany scarcely appears at all) secondly because the King from time to







3 A database of some 9000 funding orders has been constructed from these sources. The ‘Year – Gross’ is when the order was made and the ‘Year – Adjusted’ when it was actually paid out. This explains the contrasts in data for 1692 and 1694: the Navy ordered huge amounts of hemp in 1692 but the monies necessary for the purchases were not transferred to the Navy treasurer until 1694. 4 AN, MAR B 5/2, 1660-1690, and B 5/3, 1691-1759, sub-series Armements. The records preserved under this heading are aggregates, and full of gaps; as far as possible, the ‘Statements of the expense the King wishes and understands are to be spent by the Treasurer-General for the Navy …’ have been employed; they are available for the three years mentioned. 5 The quantities of hemp sold are expressed in quintaux or milliers (that is, 10 quintaux) poids de marc. A quintal poids de marc was the equivalent of 48.9506 kg.

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time failed to issue transit passes. The data can be amended at some points by examining purchase orders: for 1688 for instance these report orders for 24,000 quintaux of hemp. It is more complicated to gauge the war’s effect on the wine trade. On the one hand the war damaged this trade, especially at Bordeaux, as is revealed in the correspondence of the Intendant of Guyenne6. By the order of the King, from 5 October 1688 Dutch vessels at Bordeaux were impounded: according to the Intendant, if the trade was interrupted there would be widespread suffering, as the province only subsisted by selling wine and brandy abroad. On 19 October he confirmed that little wine would be sold7. However, the Navy could be a substitute customer, wine being a major component in sailors’ rations (Hémardinquer, 1963: 1141-1150; Boudriot, 1973), and the transit orders granted to Navy victuallers report very large quantities. In 1690, eleven passports were issued for a total of 46,380 muids (Doursther, 1840: 359)8, that is, 124,400 hectolitres. This demand for wine did not however benefit all French winemakers, only certain Bordeaux vineyards, as the younger Phélyppeaux observed in a report: As for wine, everyone agrees that the wines of Bordeaux are the best, and of those the heavy red wine from the marshy soils (palud) is the best for our crews. We were completely deprived of this wine for the last two years, so as a substitute we used Languedoc wine, which proved adequate enough. But this wine is expensive for victualler because of transport cost, and, it should be noted, tends to go sour; hence it has always been forbidden in our contracts. Last year we used Gaillac, a heavy red made upstream from Bordeaux, powerful and of good quality; we mixed it with a more delicate graves wine to good effect… Still less should we make use of white wine, and when we make it we have to add sulphur as we do for the Dutch. We have sometimes used Saintonge wine, but we are totally disenchanted with it. It goes sour in two months at sea and should only be used for ships in anchorage9. So the requirements were selective but substantial. In September 1692 the Intendant estimated that the Navy would need 10,000 to 11,000 barrels, the same as the year before, while the total wine production of the bailiwick

6 A. Smedley-Weill, Correspondance des intendants avec le contrôleur général des finances, 16771689, vol. II, Paris, Archives Nationales, 1990, p. 264-290, for all of Guyenne in the period 1688 to 1690. 7 Ibid., p. 272-273. 8 The Paris muid of wine contained 280 pints, as prescribed by one of Louis XIII’s regulations. The muid is a measure of volume equal to 268.22 litres. Certains quantities are expressed in milleroles or milherolle, a unit of volume for the sale of wine or olive oil, equivalent to 66 Paris pints. The pint itself is about 952.146 millilitres. There are 4.2424 millerolles in a muid. 9 MAR B 3 85, f °148, 07/08/1694.

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(sénéchaussée) of Bordeaux and the country upriver might be as much as 21,000 barrels10. Thus in that year the Navy would have consumed half the wine production of the Bordeaux region. In a few weeks however the situation deteriorated and the 1692 Bordeaux harvest proved catastrophically bad. It is interesting to note that because of its vast size and requirements the Navy occasionally turned to new areas for wine supplies. As Bordeaux could no longer supply the whole, in November 1692 the authorities planned to buy 3,000-4,000 barrels, soon raised to 5,000, in Languedoc11, plus 2,000 in Provence, while still looking to Guyenne for 1,500 barrels of red wine and 2,000 of white, plus 700 to 800 barrels of brandy, from Guyenne or Saintonge12. II.2 Effects on prices

French naval policy during the War of the League of Augsburg was manifested in large orders for wine and hemp, in fact even more of these than usual. But the war did not just affect volumes: it had a bearing on prices. This is quite complicated in the case of wine. The absence of foreign customers forced prices down, but only selectively. Quality wine suffered worst, especially Graves. As the Intendant explained it, ‘I told you at the outset that I feared Graves wines were not selling well; I was right; very little is sold, and cheaply; and as long as the war with England lasts that’s how things are going to be, because it was the English who were paying good prices for Graves wine’13. So great was the fall in prices that the purveyor could sell Graves wine for the crews. ‘I know they bought wines that sold at 70 or 80 écus a barrel before the war, for 28 or 30 écus at most, and there weren’t many for which they paid 30. So you can see, Sir, how much wine producers lose when business is interrupted’14. By contrast, the Navy’s massive demand for wine made some vineyards rich. ‘There is a bit of country in the Entre-deux-Mers called Montferrand and Querries, from which we will be able to draw 700 barrels of red wine. We had already settled on a price for some of them; as they seemed good, we had to pay 60 écus a barrel. This price is too dear’15. The mechanism seems simpler for hemp prices, which rose when demand was strong and urgent. At the end of October 1688 Rouen merchants who had previously offered hemp at 17#10s would not let it go for less than 19#16. In 1694 merchants got 15# for what they would ordinarily sell at 9# to 11#17. An attempt was made to hold prices down – ‘Be careful to act with all circumspection so

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

MAR B 2 85, f °558, 10/09/1692. MAR B 2 86, f °290v, 04/11/1692. MAR B 2 86, f °400v, 19/11/1692. MAR B 3 73, f °153, 04/03/1692. MAR B 3 73, f °163, 19/04/1692. MAR B 3 73, f °259, 18/11/1692. MAR B 2 66, f °315, 31/10/1688. MAR B 2 102, f °271v, 22/09/1694.

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as not to push the price up’18. – but wartime demand forced the King to order unusually large amounts and, as various letters pointed out: ‘in a situation like this you cannot let high prices stop you’19. Prices rose generally, but not all went up at the same rate. In fact prices varied with the quality of the product, the conditions stipulated by the merchant and the harvest, which varied yearly and from one region to another and according to the slightest change in the geographical configuration and fluidity of the market. In January 1694 Breton peasants were selling their hemp for only 10# a quintal, while in the Loire region it was going at 20 or 22#20. Besides, the Navy was a very special customer that influenced the market by the scale of its requirements, not only because its orders were large but also because it was looking for certain specific products. Although the distinctions were not as marked as in the selection of wines, the Navy preferred to use male hemp plants for making heavy ropes21. Auvergne hemp was deemed of lower quality and value than the hemp of Forez22; Burgundy hemp was thought inferior to that of Dauphiné23. II.3 Changes in relations with foreign markets

The War of the League of Augsburg substantially changed relations with foreign markets. From the very first months onward, trade between France and its adversaries, England and Holland, was suspended. This stoppage could have very different effects on different crops. It was an opportunity for French hemp producers as it suppressed competition from foreign hemp (Pourchasse, 2006). The crisis allowed the monarchy to push national preference to the full extent of its mercantilist logic; but the Navy had to recognise the fact that if national production fell short there were not many alternative sources. Hence from the beginning of the war they tried to build up stocks of hemp, particularly of hemp from Riga. The Intendants in charge of the naval dockyards were advised to buy up any cargoes to hand24 and French connections in Amsterdam and Hamburg were alerted25. References to hemp from Riga gradually become fewer and it seems that France managed to satisfy its requirements from national production,

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

MAR B 2 66, f °270, 20/10/1688. MAR B 2 66, f °408, 28/11/1688. MAR B 2 97, f °163, 30/01/1694. MAR B 2 84, f °754, 07/06/1692. MAR B 2 87, f °63v, 30/01/1692. MAR B 3 84, f °527, 26/08/1694. MAR B 2 66, f °149v, 17/09/1688 ; MAR B 2 66, f °240, 11/10/1688 ; MAR B 2 66, f °246v, 11/10/1688. 25 MAR B 2 66, f °249v, 11/10/1688 ; MAR B 2 66, f °283v, 20/10/1688.

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as Savary des Bruslons made clear a few years later (Savary, 1723)26. It was only towards the end of the war that references to hemp from abroad are found once again. We come across hemp from the Baltic in 1696, when there was question of buying more than 11,000 quintaux from the North for Brest and Dunkirk, probably at 21# the quintal27. Besides this, Italian hemp, from Piedmont and the Romagna, became available and was preferred because it was better, longer and produced less waste, but it came at an exorbitant price: 24 to 25# a quintal28, at a time when Auvergne hemp cost only 15#. So not only did the war hinder the entry of foreign hemp into France, but it very much added to the cost of such merchandise, making the French product much more competitive. All this entailed a general rise in prices, which made hemp much more lucrative for producers. It has to be borne in mind on the other hand that in the last quarter of the seventeenth century foreign sources of supply were closing down, particularly for hemp used in sailcloth (notably the noyales’, vitré, and olonnes, named after the places in France where these varieties were manufactured). The raging customs war meant that Holland was closed to French hemp cloth and launched into production itself, competing with French products, especially in Spain. Further, on the French side, Article 6, Title 8 of the Ordinance of 1687 subjected hemp exports to licence, as it was deemed a strategic commodity. In England, hemp cloth from Upper Brittany kept going fairly well but the embargo decreed from 1678 to 1685, and then the law of 24 August 1689 prohibiting all trade with France, dealt it heavy blows, though they did not bring commerce to a total halt; it is estimated that during the 1680s England bought 2 million# worth of hemp cloth from Upper Brittany. In the case of Spain, the stakes were lower: in 1686 only 60,000# worth of the same cloth was sent to Cadiz (Tanguy, 1994), small stuff in comparison with what was earned from linen shipments. With wine production, the closure of outlets was much more complete. The war with England and Holland deprived winemakers, particularly those in the Bordeaux area, of two very large customers. In 1684 Holland took 38,144 barrels, and then again in 1699-1700 33,217 barrels, almost 40 % of wine shipped and 63.5 % of wine exports (Boutruche, 1966). Moreover these countries had stimulated very different sectors of the market: the Dutch imported sweet, sugary whites and vins de chauffe, low grade dry whites often used in distilling, while the English preferred Graves. Thus the war had different effects on the two products under consideration. It increased the demand for French hemp: the Navy issued large orders 26 Under the item ‘hemp’ he says, speaking of hemp production in the Auvergne, ‘that on its own it could supply enough to equip the biggest of the French fleets, and indeed in 1690 and 1691 the Naval dockyards of Brest, Rochefort and Le Havre took all their supplies from there, and there was still no lack of ropes for river shipping in the province or its neighbours…, even after supplying the merchant vessels fitted out in Nantes during those years’. 27 MAR B 2 97, f °163, 30/01/1694. 28 MAR B 3 84, f °443, 03/06/1694; MAR B 2 102, f °11, 07/07/1694.

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and when the supply from the Baltic was cut off, France was forced into self-sufficiency. This military demand came on top of ‘civilian’ requirements, which are unfortunately very hard to quantify, but which also bore on national production. By contrast, France was an exporter of wine to northern Europe and the war closed its main markets; Navy orders were large, but in terms of both quantity and quality they could only partly make up for lost markets abroad. Not only did the Navy consume hardly any Graves, Medoc or Sauternes, its increased demand (10-11,000 barrels of Bordeaux ordered by the Navy in 1692) compared poorly with the more than 30,000 barrels taken off by Dutch importers in the peacetime years of 1684 and 1699 alone. In any event, it is abundantly clear that the Navy emerged as a major customer for wine, and probably as the main customer for hemp. This was something relatively new, partly because the French Navy – and French ship-building – were comparatively new, and partly because the Navy now enjoyed an unprecedented level of funding, which it devoted largely to purchasing supplies. Between 1672 and 1688 from 7 to 12 million # was allocated annually to the Navy; from 1689 to 1697 it received a total of 235,160,000#, an annual average of 26 million #, of which a large part was devoted to the purchase of supplies (45 % of acquisitions in 1689). The emergence of this new actor, and the new situation created by the circumstances of war, brought about changes in the patterns of trade, with consequences for hemp and wine production.

III. Market reactions and adaptations to the crisis III.1 A Surge in ‘bad practices’

The first change in the market was a rise in ‘bad practices’ running from speculation to open fraud. The Navy was a customer with high demands and needed large amounts of wine in a hurry. It was therefore in a weak position, but the magnitude of its orders brought about genuine confusion. When we examine these poor commercial practices we can see how they influenced the growing of vines and hemp. The situation was ripe for speculation. By hindering shipments and colluding among themselves, merchants could push up prices. In 1688 they had got one step ahead of the King and made a forestalling agreement with peasants ‘in the hope of reselling the goods later and profiting from the King’s need’29; as a result, the hemp failed to appear on the market. The merchants repeated the same tactic again in 169030. Many suppliers and producers profited from the situation in different ways. They took advantage of the emergency and the shortages to shift goods

29 MAR B 2 64, f °220, 08/11/1688. 30 MAR B 2 75, f °299, 04/10/1690.

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of the poorest quality, which the Navy was forced to purchase for lack of any others. As the Intendant at Brest explained, ‘Merchants seized the opportunity and cheerfully unloaded whatever poor stuff they had to hand. When they arrived our need was so great that we could not reject them. Necessity ruled supreme’31. The crisis made it easy for suppliers to abuse their position and employ the King’s credit for their own business operations. Hemp merchants used royal transit orders to obtain free passage for goods intended for their own dealings along with the bales of hemp for the King. In the wine trade, one of the biggest scandals erupted in 1692 among lower-level wine brokers in Bordeaux. These people made purchases in the name of the King’s Purveyor, which put them in a strong position. They bought up cheap wines for themselves, putting them into their own accounts, while they loaded up the Purveyor’s invoice with expensive wines32. The crisis also fostered fraud in respect of products purchased: because of the urgent need for supplies and the vast quantities received, quality control procedures were poorly organised, inefficient, and were even relaxed on occasion in order to save time. This was clearly the case with hemp, with rotten produce concealed in the middle of bales, foreign matter put in to add weight, and so on. In 1688 came denunciations of sharp practice in hemp preparation in the dioceses of Tréguier and St Brieuc: the peasants ‘do not scutch (beat) the hemp properly, leaving the wood and the shives (woody fibres), whose two ends which are not scutched at all are hidden in the middle; this causes much damage when the hemp is used…’33. There were similar problems with wine: Commissioner Lombard insisted that wine which had been bought should not be left too long in the hands of private individuals, because they would not take proper care of it and might try blending it34. Another practice denounced was the habit of swapping one wine for another under cover of the confusion reigning in port during large shipments. How far did all this influence the cultivation of vines and hemp? Two things are worth noting here. The merchants were essential intermediaries, but they were also obstacles between the  farmers  who  produced and the Navy. They purchased on the market or directly from producers, circulated true or false information to influence them, and grouped their purchases of products, putting them in a position to force their price on the Navy. They were the ones who got the most added value, even though they occasionally risked alienating the producer. These practices also undermined confidence in the product; perhaps this is the basic reason for the durably bad reputation of French hemp, while thorough quality control at Riga ensured the popularity of Baltic hemp. How did the state respond to such practices?

31 32 33 34

MAR B 3 60, f °361, mémoire, 07/02/1690. MAR B 3 73, f °206, 29/07/1692. MAR B 2 64, ordinance, 17/09/1688. MAR B 2 83, f °64, 12/01/1692.

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III.2 A positive policy: Encouragement and incentive measures

Initially the authorities tried not to offend producers, so as not to discourage them. The authorities clearly wanted to encourage production even though they appeared rather ill-suited to do so. Referring to the difficulties of proprietors in the Graves region the Secretary of State declared how sorry he was that these provinces should be forced to sell their wine at such a low price, ‘and if there were some means for building up the trade again and raising the price of the wines, the King would willingly enter into it’35, but this was scarcely more than wishful thinking. It was the producers themselves who had to be made aware that the state wanted to encourage production. The Navy however, dealt with purveyors, who dealt with the merchants, who themselves bought their produce on the market or from the growers. If production was to be encouraged these intermediaries had to be got around. This was done by sending envoys to the actual production sites, preferably people of standing to give some weight to the business. Thus in February 1688 the Intendant of the Navy at Brest was urged to go to Tréguier and Lannion at the first opportunity to make clear His Majesty’s intentions to people in a position to encourage hemp cultivation36 Then the injunction was reiterated: ‘The King wishes you to use all means to induce growers to cultivate this crop’, ‘His Majesty authorises you to go to these places as soon as possible, to get growers and those who have suitable land for growing hemp to commit to sowing as much of it as they can’37. This inducement was reinforced by commitments on prices. His Majesty, ‘wishing in every way to help increase the cultivation and trade of hemp in Brittany’, expects that the hemp ‘to be purchased for the Naval dockyards will in the future be paid for on the spot by dockyard contractors at 12#10s and that on no pretext shall they be allowed to reduce the price…’38. The policy was followed through: a good price was guaranteed, ‘so that the growers will be induced to sow [hemp] by the expectation of a reasonable profit’39. The price of Breton hemp went from 12#10s in July 1688 to 13#5s at the end of November, because ‘His Majesty [had been] informed that orders given to restore hemp growing in his province of Brittany would have the hoped-for effect, provided that the owners and farmers of suitable land were told of the price they could expect to fetch’40. Desclouzeaux, the intendant of the Navy at Brest, was told to use this measure to encourage the farmers to sow as much hemp as possible41. 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

MAR B 2 84, f °273v, 26/04/1692. MAR B 2 65, f °88v, 04/02/1688. MAR B 2 65, f °142, 25/02/1688. MAR B 2 64, f °148, order, 06/07/1688. MAR B 2 66, f °384v, 19/11/1688. MAR B 2 64, f °231v, 29/11/1688. MAR B 2 66, f °414v, 29/11/1688.

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The monarchy did what it could to protect the growers from the merchants. ‘Ascertain that the price at which they made the growers sell to them isn’t the same as the one that put the growers off… If it is, it can be readily bettered by making the purveyor buy directly from them and pay cash’42. When incentives and encouragement showed their limits the state took the path of control and coercion. III.3 A coercive policy: measures of control and repression

The policy of supervision and repression was a response to two things: the desire to put an end to bad practices and bring back fair trade rules and the need to modify fair trade rules when the King could not acquire enough goods. An outline of this policy will give us a better idea of how it influenced the growing of wine and hemp. It was natural for the King to keep an eye on the conduct of trade in his kingdom. Punishment and quality control measures were the response to fraud. An Ordinance of September 1688 penalised anyone who had adulterated his hemp with a 10# fine and confiscation of the product. The rules were laid out in detail: each bundle was to be folded along the middle and tied only four inches thick, so that the buyers could tell whether it was well scutched by looking at the two ends43. Fraud, as usual, brought further regulation in its train; these phases of the war featured intense legislative and regulatory activity, which laid the foundations for an enduring structure in this economic sector (Le Mao, 2013). Similarly, shipments of poor quality hemp or wine triggered investigations, and the search for the guilty party made it desirable to trace the origins of produce. Besides, fraudsters had to be put on trial. In the last years of the war, when activity was slowing down and the storehouses and paperwork of the arsenals returned to normal, prosecutions for embezzlement and abuses multiplied. In November 1697 a decree authorised the Intendant of Brittany to prosecute contractors who supplied hemp to the arsenal at Brest44. Punishing suppliers was an awkward business however, because the King sometimes found it hard to get by without these people. For instance, the enquiry launched into wine brokers in 1692 created problems because it implicated the merchants Drouillard and Roux, of whom the Intendant said: There is not a single cellar or wine of the district that they do not know; they are trusted by all, they are reliable and if they were cut out of the naval supply trade, they would go into direct competition with the navy purchaser and force him to buy wines more dearly than when they looked after his business for him. It may be confidently asserted that they and a

42 MAR B 2 102, f °271v, 22/09/1694. 43 MAR B 2 64, 17/09/1688. 44 MAR B 2 123, f °186, decree of 06/11/1697.

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few other major Bordeaux merchants fix the price of wine by holding a vested interest in the vintages.45 However, when the King’s requirements were not met by the free play of trade, he sometimes felt obliged to adjust the rules, even though long-term disruption of good business rules went against the grain. His Majesty does not approve your proposal to give the merchant you last dealt with, an order to requisition tens of thousands of quintals of hemp in the market or from merchants who hold it. I am pleased to inform you that in the last resort the King would prefer to pay more for his hemp than use a device so very contrary to the rules of honest trade. Those to whom such orders are issued never fail to make ill use of them; so you must always stipulate in your contracts that in the supply of hemp you will deal only with people who promise to buy it in competition with other merchants, and not exercise any preference.46 This was the position of the monarchy in 1688 and that was what it remained, but rules were needed and more directive measures were taken. ‘Preferential’ purchases begin a few months later: ‘As His Majesty requires a large amount of hemp for the fitting-out he has ordered at the port of Brest’, it was agreed to take it in the Breton markets, ‘in preference to all others, who are forbidden to buy hemp until the Intendant has secured 4,000 quintals’47. Similar orders were sent for hemp from Tonneins, Bayeax and the Auvergne48, always with the same recommendations: ‘Note that this order is not intended to do anyone ill or to get hemp at less than its true value but simply to acquire it as a merchant would, His Majesty seeking no other privilege than preferential access’49. This practice continued until the end of the conflict50. However, orders like this did not work if the hemp did not come to market. Then it had to be requisitioned from merchants and growers, though always at the market price. This measure, used first as a threat51, could be applied as needed. In January 1689, ‘The King has learned that several merchants in the province of Dauphiné, in an attempt to make money when a large amount of hemp was needed for the ships to be fitted out in the port of Toulon… tried to bid up its price and stop it from being taken to the markets’; accordingly Intendant Vauvré was given an order enabling him to get first bid at the going price, on the amount of hemp required, from the storehouses of producers 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

MAR B 3 72, f °466, Map by Grandval, 1692. MAR B 2 65, f °121, 21/02/1688. MAR B 2 64, 07/10/1688. MAR B 2 64, 25/10/1688; MAR B 2 64, 25/10/1688; MAR B 2 66, f °256, 14/10/1688. MAR B 2 66, f °256, 14/10/1688. MAR B 2 123, f °138v, ordre, 03/08/1697. MAR B 2 66, f °337, 08/11/1688.

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and merchants, and on the markets of Dauphiné, Bresse, the Lyon region, Forez, the area about Mâcon, and in Burgundy; the order was accompanied by a prohibition on concealing hemp or moving it about52. A heavier hand was required when harvests were very poor. Then the monarchy organised the gathering of produce and used virtually inflexible measures meant actively to assist the purveyor and applying to both hemp and wine. Each purchaser, whether a supply contractor or a dockyard, was assigned a provisioning zone. In August 1695 when the Naval commissioner at Bordeaux set about contracting for the supply of hemp (Claverie, 1996: 116ff.), he found that no one would offer to supply the entire amount, ‘as hemp is in short supply this year’ and so was forced ‘to divide up the parishes, where it is being retted, into sectors’53. The aim was double: to garner the greatest amount possible by covering the largest possible area, and to eliminate competition between the King’s different purveyors54, even though this would inevitably cause produce to be bidden up and delays in the supply chain. Furthermore, provincial intendants were made to give the dockyard intendants and their purveyors whatever help they needed. They were sent the necessary orders, and they applied them: hemp exports from the province where it had been grown were banned55 as was exporting wine as long as the King’s needs had not been satisfied56; the King’s supplies were given priority, and private purchases were to be held up until his needs were met; rural communities were assigned quotas of hemp to supply, if their land was used for growing it57; producers’ prices were raised, and so on. Yet, even with this degree of control, officials still expressed the desire to maintain as far as possible normal trading practices! A letter from Intendant Le Bret on 21 November 1690 sums up perfectly all that was at stake. The purveyor-general had stated that as the Bordeaux wines were not up to the mark because of an indifferent harvest, he had decided to get the wine from Provence; but, he went on, export demand had pushed its price up considerably, and in addition those who did have it refused to sell, hoping to raise prices still further. To enable the King to make up his shipment then, wine exports from Provence would have to be banned for one month, which he judged sufficient. But ‘as this sort of ban hampers public freedom and hinders moving the Kingdom’s raw produce around the country, and is always burdensome to the people’ he deemed a prior enquiry to be necessary58.

52 53 54 55 56 57

MAR B 2 70, f °013v, 15/01/1689. AD33, 3 E 15296, f ° 721, 25/08/1695. The same solution had already been adopted for 1693. MAR B 2 100, f °19, 01/10/1694. MAR B 2 105, f °192, 30/09/1695. MAR B 3 84, f ° 209, 31/10/1694. MAR B 2 101, f °158, 10/03/1694; MAR B 2 102, f °323v, 06/10/1694; MAR B 2 102, f °532V, 08/12/1694. 58 MAR B 2 75, f °337, 21/11/1690.

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It may be supposed that coercive measures like this did not promote the expansion of hemp or wine crops. Price fixing and the obligation to sell to the Naval purveyor cut into the producer’s profits, and fear of more such measures must have caused resentment among producers who were, moreover, subject to additional imperatives and could have been tempted to grow other alternative crops.

IV. C  risis conflicting with crisis, crisis within crisis: complicating factors IV.1 Alternative crops and Climate crises

Although the war had favourable effects on hemp growing, and somewhat more nuanced effects on wine production, it should be remembered that in these last years of the seventeenth-century, war was not the only crisis afflicting France. In the course of these ‘years of distress’ the country suffered several years of bad weather, the most serious being 1693-1694. In brief, from 1685 to 1690 France enjoyed abundant, good-quality harvests and stable cereal prices. Things started to go wrong in 1691, a poor year for Bordeaux wines, and the situation became critical in the following year, 1692, which was catastrophic everywhere. In July the Secretary of State indicated, ‘I am informed that the hemp harvest in Tonneins and the Auvergne is very bad’59, and letters repeatedly referred to ‘the shortage of hemp everywhere this year’60. As for wine, in February the Intendant predicted a bad harvest61. Certain parishes were ravaged by hail, and the rain that fell on the Blaye district and along the Dordogne implied that the wines would be poor. By November the state of affairs was overwhelming: ‘I reckon that proprietors producing the red wine, all of them, have not got a quarter of the wine they had last year, and that was already a year when there was much complaining about dearth and a small harvest… I think there has never been a year when there has been so much loss; moreover there is no old wine left. At the beginning of January ‘not thirty households where they were not drinking new wine’62. The disasters of the year 1693-1694 are only too well known. But 1694 also saw only a moderate harvest. ‘It is worrying that the wine harvest is not abundant in Guyenne’ writes Pontchartrain63, and it was said to be just as poor in Languedoc and Provence64. As for hemp, in September 1694 the suppliers in Toulon and

59 60 61 62 63 64

MAR B 2 85, f °225, 30/07/1692. MAR B 3 71, f °257, 21/12/1692. MAR B 3 73, f °143, 06/02/1692. MAR B 3 73, f °247, 11/11/1692. MAR B 2 100, f °281v, 26/10/1694. MAR B 3 84, f °209, 31/10/1694.

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Marseille indicated that the harvest had been bad65 and that there would be ‘this year almost as little hemp in Burgundy as in Dauphiné’66. By contrast, 1696 appears to have been a good year and optimistic signs proliferated during the summer for both hemp67 and wine68: Several wines have been sold in the Entre-deux-Mers, everyone agrees that all the wines are of a very good quality this year, and that the price at which they are selling is very reasonable. They are not very dear, but the winegrower will make a profit; true, there is very little of it; we have bought nothing yet but red wines, as hardly any whites are being sold.69 However, this was only a lull. In 1698-1699 only 45,000 barrels of wine were produced around Bordeaux at a time when the average annual production in the Bordeaux region, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, was put at 80,000 barrels, The reckoning was hardly more encouraging for hemp. In this period, climate crises did not affect quantity alone; at Bordeaux, it was the wine’s ability to last that worried the purveyor. The year 1690 was basically good as far as quantities harvested were concerned; ‘it would be very troubling if the quality were much diminished’70. But both quality and quantity fell off badly in 1692, and it was feared that the few red wines available would be too feeble to last at sea71. These poor harvest years damaged the economic health of the country, already suffering because of the war. And when we remember that France had lost several hundred thousand inhabitants we can readily understand how the financial situation of the state was seriously worrying. IV.2 Alternative crops and the financial crisis of the State

The financial crisis affected the alternative crops under consideration here, because it forced the government to limit its orders from 1693 on. Letters addressed to intendants reveal how to read the orders for payment: ‘As it seems the King will not be building many vessels in the future, and it will only be a question of maintaining the ships which he has’72 it was necessary to economise as much as possible. Orders accordingly fell off, particularly those for hemp, with the attendant risk of losing the producers loyalty, tempted as

65 MAR B 2 102, f °237, 08/09/1694. 66 MAR B 3 84, f °527, 26/08/1694. 67 MAR B 2 117, f °149 v, 21/07/1696; MAR B 2 117, f °420, 18/08/1696; MAR B 2 117, f °490, 29/08/1696. 68 MAR B 2 117, f °476, 25/08/1696. 69 MAR B 3 96, f °416, 17/09/1696. 70 MAR B 2 74, f °66v, 18/11/1690. 71 MAR B 2 87, f °690, 19/11/1692. 72 MAR B 2 97, f °324V, 13/02/1694.

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they were to shift their land back to other crops, a potential threat to future naval supplies. ‘As we shall probably need more hemp next year than this, it would be worrisome if those who have grown used to sowing it were to turn their land to other uses. You must make them hope that the King will still pay the same price of 13# a quintal for it’73. This is another instance of the problem posed to growers by the lack of economic and commercial information. Although they could discover the going price by asking about sales made in their own area, they had to depend for knowledge of anticipated Navy purchases on the information put about by the naval intendant during his visits, through his clerks, or by way of posters. But when we read the ministerial correspondence we can see that normal practice was to promise huge orders – without necessarily sticking to them. Besides, merchants and suppliers intervened, often telling producers contradictory stories. All this fed growing mistrust. The financial crisis also forced the state to change the way it made its payments, which affected both hemp and wine growers. At the start of the war the King paid well and whatever problems arose came chiefly from organisational confusion (Le Mao, 2011). By contrast, after 1692 the shortage of funds began to be felt. On several occasions the treasurer and his clerks ignored invoices74. Chauvel Destroches, a merchant of Lannion, had several invoices awaiting payment, to a total of 36,000#75. Some of the principal purveyors ran the risk of bankruptcy, which would be catastrophic for the Navy as it was virtually impossible to find other middlemen. But there was also the danger that some sectors of the economy already jeopardised by the war, such as winegrowing in the Bordeaux area, might collapse. Thus, for example, the intendant of Bordeaux explained in January 1694: Please note that next month is when there is most work in the vineyards; it is the custom in the region to pay the workers every Sunday, but the proprietors can only find the money to do this if they draw on part of their wine sales. If they are not paid properly many vines might be abandoned; many are already not being cultivated, and that creates losses in the villages… We have already adopted the expedient of issuing payment notes in three or four monthly instalments; the proprietors benefit from this if they are paid regularly because the notes are exchanged like cash, but for this to work, everything has to be paid before the beginning of April.76 Furthermore the financial crisis led to higher taxes for the producers. Alternative crops destined for market earned the cash essential to pay taxes.

73 74 75 76

MAR B 2 97, f °161, 30/01/1694. MAR B 2 98, f °64, 09/04/1694; MAR B 3 84, f °336, 28/01/1694. MAR B 2 97, f °78V, 13/01/1694. MAR B 3 87, f °23, 19/01/1694.

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Often the hemp producers found themselves in the awkward situation of confronting a state that paid them late, but demanded they pay their taxes immediately. In October 1694 the Intendant of Guyenne stated that ‘the hemp growers write to me by every post to find out whether the King wants to buy their hemp or not’ because if he did not need it, they intended to sell it on the open market to raise money for taxes and to buy necessities77. Several crises came together in these years of hardship; let us now examine how they were interwoven, with sometimes unexpected consequences. IV.3 Cumulative crises: a reason to grow fewer alternative crops?

The starting point is a phenomenon that took place during the conflict, particularly in 1694. Although strong demand and price rises due to the war were attractive, poor harvests and less access to the foreign market increased the pressure on French production, State agents were concerned that growers were planting less hemp,. It is hard to quantify this problem but repeated references to it indicate that it was real78. How can we account for this planting cutback? It was caused by interaction between the different crises. One cause lay in the organisation of the market. In dramatically increasing the need for hemp the war forced the state to rely on purveyors and merchants. The financial crisis made it even more dependent on them because only the merchants had enough capital to take on such large-scale provisioning and wait to be paid. The purveyor was thus the vital link in the provisioning chain, and the man who could encourage or discourage the producer. ‘The purveyor of hemp for our ships tells me that, to judge by the mood he has found among people in the trade, fear may put growers off from sowing in your Department as much as they have done up to now…’79. We may conclude that, as it emerged in sundry trials, it was the middlemen’s disloyalty in turning farmers against growing hemp that caused the state to take greater care of producers’ interests80. On the other hand, the regulatory measures brought on by hardship had, as the state had anticipated, discouraged growers. Harvest inspections were delayed ‘to forestall growers’ fears that the price would be set at that early point’81. Similarly, ‘the King intends you to ascertain from your sub-delegates or village officials whether growers are changing their land use in this respect,

77 MAR B 3 87, f °233, 16/10/1694. 78 MAR B 2 97, f °6V, letter, Bezons, 02/01/1694 ; MAR B 2 97, f °163, letter, Desclouzeaux, 30/01/1694 ; MAR B 2 97, f °324V, letter, Desclouzeaux, 13/02/1694 ; MAR B 2 101, f °272V, letter, Ferrant, 21/04/1694 ; MAR B 2 102, f °11, letter, Ferrant, 07/07/1694 ; MAR B 2 102, f °88, letter, Ferrant, 28/07/1694 ; MAR B 2 102, f °237, letter, Bouchu, 08/09/1694 ; MAR B 2 102, f °271V, letter, Ferrand, 22/09/1694. 79 MAR B 2 101, f °272v, 21/04/1694. 80 MAR B 2 115, f °567 v, 07/03/1696. 81 MAR B 2 102, f °88, 28/07/1694.

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and if so, why; because if it is nothing other than the small degree of freedom granted them this year to sell their hemp, the King desires you force them to carry on sowing as they are used’82. The price set by the government was in fact lower than the market price, as the Intendant of Guyenne testified: ‘I know that it sells at from 16# to 20# per quintal… I set the price at 15# a quintal, believing that I could not set it lower’83. Smaller orders, price caps, delayed payment and lack of trust meant that it became less attractive to cultivate hemp than other alternative crops. In January 1694 the Navy commissioner at Bordeaux told the intendant that landowners hitherto producing hemp had decided to sow grain and tobacco, for which the price had risen considerably, and that they would have to be promised 13# a quintal to make them change their minds84. The Navy Secretary made the commitment. In fact, in certain areas, particularly Tonneins, a number of alternative crops were in competition (Deffontaines, 1932: 232-234, 239)85. Among the towns supplying hemp were some of the sixteen communes which, according to the decree of 1674, were still authorised to plant tobacco: Tonneins, Aiguillon, Damazan, Le Mas-d’Agenais, Laparade, Caumont and so on. As each of these plantings was annual it was easy to shift from one to another, and thus quite simple to return to growing wheat. This is one of the most interesting phenomena in the last years of the seventeenth century. In the middle of nine years of war came the very severe crisis of 1693-1694, when fear of shortages resulting from the famine caused hemp production to fall: ‘The hemp purveyor at Toulon tells me that the imminence of the harvest, far from lowering the price [of hemp], has raised it, because people know that not much hemp has been planted and that high grain prices induced the region to sow land previously given over to hemp, with oats, barley and rye… I did tell you at the beginning of the year to be on the lookout to prevent this’86. The crisis of 1693-1694 had another unexpected effect: it raised the cost of cultivation. Alternative crops often required much labour and agricultural work. This was especially true of viticulture. The huge human losses of 1693-1694 had decimated the available workforce, sending the cost of day-labour soaring. In April 1695 the aldermen (jurats) of Bordeaux set the maximum wage for a day’s work at 10 sous in the Graves area and 8 sous in the Entre-deux-Mers, forbidding employers to pay more, or workers to ask more (Lachiver, 1991: 213).

82 83 84 85

MAR B 2 101, f °272V, 21/04/1694. MAR B 3 96, f ° 363, 01/07/1696. MAR B 3 97, f ° 6V, 02/01/1694. Tobacco-growing spread in mid-Garonne at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Nicot, a private individual from Clairac, brought it from Louisiana in 1620. From 1635 there was a renowned tobacco manufactory at Clairac. In 1715 four million livres tournois of it were ordered in Languedoc and at Marseilles, and tobacco cultivation employed 15,000 people for two months each year. 86 MAR B 2 102, f °11, 07/07/1694.

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V. Conclusion A final important question remains to be answered: did the Navy’s ­requirements have a long-term effect on the growing of alternative crops? Did it give them a decisive push forward? It is too early to give a final answer, but the evidence suggests that it did not. First of all, these crops had already been grown before the Navy needed them. This is certainly true of Bordeaux wine: the Navy simply provided another outlet at a particular point in time, partly replacing the Dutch market. In the case of hemp the answer is a little more complex. For political reasons, hemp production had been encouraged for decades because of the desire to create a ‘national’ fleet, whose vessels would be built in France, of French materials. The War of the League of Augsburg was supposed to represent the ultimate phase of this mercantilist mode of thinking; in this regard we can compare the encouragement of hemp with measures taken to obtain French timber, masts and tar. If we remember what happened after the war then we have to say that the Navy did not impart a lasting thrust to hemp production, as there was a rapid reversion to foreign hemp. To understand why, we have to look at it from the viewpoint of military history. War was recurrent at the end of Louis XIV’s reign, but less so under Louis XV, and in these later wars the Navy’s role was intermittent. In fact, the War of the League of Augsburg was exceptional, and it was not until the Seven Years War (1755-1763) that we find comparable levels of investment in the Navy. What did play a role in the cultivation of both crops was the rise in large-scale trade during the eighteenth century. That in turn brought on a great increase in shipbuilding, while long voyages required sourcing wines ‘that would keep at sea’. Yet this large scale commerce brought back competition for supplies and in the eighteenth century, shipbuilders always preferred Riga hemp. Lastly, we have to realise that the notion of ‘alternative crops’ is only partially applicable here in that it appears difficult to lump hemp and wine together. Indeed it seems rather awkward to view wine, especially the wine grown in the Bordeaux area, as ‘alternative’ when it had formed part of a system of cultivation since the Middle Ages, and was a major part of everyday diet. One important difference is whether the plant was an annual or not, an important factor in wartime. It takes several years to turn land to vine cultivation. By contrast a grower can speculate on hemp and give over some parcels of land to it temporarily, in order to profit from the windfall, as the Navy would almost certainly need it the following year. Moreover, such conversion took the form of expansion: additional parcels of land were given over to hemp production in areas that already produced it, and it was very unusual to see new centres of hemp production. It is also worth mentioning that the Navy Secretary’s correspondence and the archives of the Navy Department afford an excellent window onto the links between crises and the cultivation of alternative crops. There is a great deal for the historian to do here, as these archives have been little used

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and have much more to tell; wine and hemp are only two instances among others and would warrant comparison with the economic consequences of purveyors’ orders for various kinds of beans, peas, and lentils, or with the growing of other strategically important crops such as pine for tar manufacture.

Bibliography Boudriot Jean (1973), Le Vaisseau de 74 canons, t. 1, Grenoble, Éditions des Quatre Seigneurs. Boutruche Robert (1966), Bordeaux de 1453 à 1715, Bordeaux, FHSO. Bromley J. S. (ed.) (1966), The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 6, The rise of Great Britain and Russia, 1688-1715/25, Cambridge, Cambride University Press. Buchet Christian (1999), Marine, économie et société : un exemple d’interaction. L’avitaillement de la Royal Navy durant la guerre de Sept Ans, Paris, Honoré Champion. Claverie Jean-François (1996), Les Marchés de fournitures et de travaux dans la marine royale au xviiie siècle (au port de Rochefort), Unpublished Ph D. Deffontaines Pierre (1932), Les hommes et leurs travaux dans les pays de la moyenne Garonne (Agenais, Bas-Quercy), Lille, SILIC. Doursther Horace (1840), Dictionnaire universel des poids et mesures anciens et modernes : contenant des tables de monnaies de tous les pays, Paris, M. Hayez. Hemardinquer Jean-Jacques (1963), ‘À propos de l’alimentation des marins’, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, xviii, 1, p. 1141-1150. Lachiver Marcel (1991), Les Années de misère, La famine au temps du grand Roi, Paris, Fayard. La Ronciere Charles (1932), Histoire de la marine française. vi, Le crépuscule du grand règne, l’apogée de la guerre de course, Paris, Plon. Le Mao Caroline (2011), ‘Financer la Marine en période de conflit. L’exemple de la guerre de la Ligue d’Augsbourg (1688-1697)’, Revue française d’histoire maritime, p. 285-320. Le Mao Caroline (2013), ‘War, Navy, and French Forests during the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697)’, in Managing and exploiting forest resources in the ancien régime, 59th Annual Meeting of The Society for French Historical Studies. Memain René (1936), Les Équipages de la marine de guerre au xviie siècle, Paris, Hachette. Pourchasse Pierrick (2006), Le Commerce du Nord. La France et le commerce de l’Europe septentrionale au xviiie siècle, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Poussou Jean-Pierre (2000), review of Joan Thirsk, Alternative Agriculture: A History from the Black Death to the Present Day, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, Histoire, économie, sociétés, xix, 2, p. 298.

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Poussou Jean-Pierre (2005), ‘L’histoire agraire de l’Angleterre à l’époque moderne, vue de France’, in Nadine Vivier (ed.), Ruralité française et britannique xiiie-xxe siècles, approches comparées, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, p. 43-67. Savary des Bruslons Jacques (1723), Dictionnaire universel de commerce, Paris, Veuve Estienne. Tanguy Jean (1994), Quand la toile va. L’industrie toilière bretonne du 16e au 18e siècle, Rennes, Apogée. Thirsk Joan (1997), Alternative Agriculture: A History from the Black Death to the Present Day, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

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7. Was there an Agrarian Crisis in the Mediterranean World during the Last Third of the Seventeenth Century? 

The Case of the Island of Majorca*

I. Introduction. Agrarian specialization and crisis in Mediterranean regions during the last third of the seventeenth century The failure of agrarian capitalism in the last third of the nineteenth century has been the subject of a long, intense debate that has laid bare the complex interaction between the socio-economic agents and agro-ecological factors that caused the crisis leading to new alternatives to traditional organic farming (Koning, 1994; Davis, 2002; Krausman, Schandl, Sieferle, 2008: 191-195). Less interest and attention has been paid, however, to another fin-de-siècle crisis that took place between 1670 and 1700. This period was also characterized by falling prices, serious conflicts over the sharing-out of agricultural income, intense climatic disturbances caused by the coldest period of the Little Ice Age, the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) and agrarian transformations (Overton, 1989; Thirsk, 1992; Luterbacher et al., 2001; Dewald, 2008; de Vries, 2009, 2014; Hoyle, 2013; Tello et alia 2017). This study aims to explore the nature of this event in the Mediterranean basin. In this region as a whole, recovery from the crisis of the first half of the seventeenth century was hampered by several adverse factors. On the one hand by conflicts over the distribution of agrarian income and falling prices (Le Roy Ladurie, 1966: 271-280; Le Roy Ladurie and Goy, 1972: 364-366; Lachiver, 1991; Moriceau, 1994: 515-556, 572-612), and on the other by the falling temperatures, successive droughts and cold spells of the Late Maunder Minimum (Alcoforado et al., 2000; Xoplaki, Maheras and Luterbacher, 2001; Diodato and Bellocchi, 2011). These extreme conditions had a greater impact on ligneous crops – vines, fruit trees and olives – than on herbaceous ones (Le Roy Ladurie, 1969: 273; Finzi, 1986; Tomozeieu and Nerozzi, 2007). It seems that Spanish regions were just as caught up between the 1680s and



* This article originated from a paper presented to the Treviso conference in December 2013. I would like to thank Gerard Béaur, Franco Cazzola and the other participants for their comments. I am also grateful for the criticisms and comments of the anonymous referees, and also to Sarah E. Davies for the revision of the English version. All their suggestions have contributed to improving this study; any errors are the sole responsibility of the author. The study forms part of the research projects directed by Rosa Congost (PG2018-096350-B-100). Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 139-165.

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DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119528

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1700s in these converging dual social and agro-climatic crises (Kamen, 1981: 147-160; Font Trullot, 1980: 190; Barriendos, 1997; Dantí, 1991; Alberola Pla, 2014: 94-96, 160-178). However, despite this turbulence, new models of agrarian specialization emerged around 1700 (Aymard, 1978 and 1987; Malanima 1998; Yun, 1997; Llopis, 2010). This study focuses on the other ‘fin-de-siècle crisis’ in the Kingdom of Majorca, a region that had seen the onset of rapid, profound specialization in olive groves. By the mid-seventeenth century, the island had become an exporter of oliveoil to Atlantic markets (Bibiloni, 1995; Vaquer Bennasar, 2007; Tello et alia 2018), the expansion of olive oil production having started in the second half of the sixteenth century (Bisson, 1977; Juan Vidal, 1987, 1989a, 1989b). The first half of the seventeenth century was marked by periods of intense growth, followed however by profound and relatively prolonged production crises in the last third of the century. It was not until the first half of the eighteenth century that growth became stronger and more consistent (Manera, 1999; Jover-Avellà and Manera, 2009; Morey and Molina, 2016). The goal of this study is to sketch the socio-economic and agro-climatic factors that caused the decline in production of olive groves in the last third of the seventeenth century. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 describes the sources used and Section 3 analyses the characteristics of the agro-social system that supported oil production. Section 4 discusses the chronology and intensity of the crisis in the olive grove sector. In Section 5, we see how the decline in production affected the island’s export capacity. Section 6 provides evidence linking the oil crisis to harsher weather over the period, and Section 7 shows that the gap between wages and farm income drove improvements on the larger estates. The article ends by drawing some basic conclusions and staking out a path for further study of the crisis on the island and of the role of these factors in consolidating oil specialization there.

II. Sources: prices, tithes and oil harvest estimates This study uses the rich quantitative sources from the various public and private institutions of the island. A number of these statistical sources, such as population censuses, baptism records (Segura and Suau, 1984; Vaquer Bennasar, 1987: 72-195; Juan Vidal, 1990; Jover-Avellà, 2011) and wheat prices in the Palma market (Vaquer Bennasar, 1987: 233-244, 481-488) have already been published. Statistical sources related to the oil sector, such as oil prices in the Palma market have been collected from the account books of the city’s Santo Domingo monastic estates in the Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca (ARM, Archive of Kingdom of Majorca), Convents section (AH, C); a wage-labourers series has been compiled from the account books of a Safortesa olive grove estate in the Chapter of Majorca Cathedral (ACM); and the amounts of oil exports have been obtained from Palma de Majorca’s

7. Wa s the r e an Ag r ar i an C r i s i s i n t h e Me d i t e rrane an Wo rld

harbour customs books (Manera, 1988, 1999; Bibiloni, 1995). Last, from 1683 onwards, annual olive harvest estimates made by royal administrators for taxation purposes have been preserved. These annual estimates were made by experts chosen from the various social groups – peasants, land-owners and tithe-holders – in each village and sent to the tax administration ( Juan Vidal, 1980; Daviu, 1983). An index has been constructed from leases of oil tithes owned by the Chapter of Majorca Cathedral (ACM) from 1640 to 1720 ( Juan Vidal, 1987: 156-158, 1989a: 167; 1989b: 170) to provide indicators of oil production in earlier periods. The reliability of tithe records as indicators of agrarian production and income has long been debated (Goy and Ladurie, 1972, 1980); nevertheless, it still seems to be the soundest source for pre-statistical periods (Llopis and González Mariscal, 201: 15-23; Nogal, Prados, Caballero, 2016). In the case of Majorca, oil tithes were auctioned annually in return for a cash rent. This source, as other studies have noted, causes problems in inflationary periods, when the price of the lease fell below the monetary value of the year’s crop (Feliu, 1985; Jover-Avellà and Manera; 2009: 498). However, monetary tithe leases in times of falling prices, as the case in the second half of the seventeenth century, also display this gap to a lesser degree. Nonetheless, as Figure 7.3 and Table 7.5 show, the use of such tithes, when deflated, as an indicator of production volume over the period studied is consistent with the registers of oil harvests and exports themselves. We proceed as follows to build proxies to historical series for production and income in the olive grove sector. First, to build a unified proxy for farm oil production, we deflated nominal oil tithes by oil prices (see Table 7.2: Oil Tithesd). This series was then linked with an olive harvest index from 1683. We used the base year 1690=100, and the averages for the years 1687-1690 (Figures 7.1 and 7.3). Thus, we used a single series of farm oil productions. Last, as a proxy for farm oil income we used the nominal value of tithe leases (see Table 7.2: Oil Tithesn). We therefore have in hand new proxies which can be used, albeit cautiously, to analyse production and income in the olive grove sector for the period studied. No calibrated series have yet been constructed that enable us to trace temperature and rainfall records back to earlier periods (Barceló, 1998). The main source of information regarding episodes of extreme weather prior to 1860 is Álvaro Campaner y Fuertes’ Cronicón Mayoricense (1888 [1984]). While this source raises some issues about reliability and calibration (as compared with instrumentally-measured data), it is the only set of documents that brings together regularly recorded information on the climatic disturbances affecting the island from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. Historical studies have characterized the seventeenth century as a period of intense climatic disturbances ( Juan Vidal, 1977, 1978, 1999; Vaquer Bennasar, 1987: 60-66; Pastor, 2001), and studies of fiscal registers of the snow and salt extraction trades suggest that average temperatures on the island fell at this time (Cañellas, 2006; Espino López, 2015). This qualitative documentation will be used to establish the characteristics of times of agro-climatic crisis.

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III. F  eatures of the olive grove agrosystem in the mid-seventeenth century Table 7.1 summarizes the main features of the agricultural structure during the second half of the seventeenth century. Column 1 shows the population density in each district (inhabitants/km2) and Column 2 the geographical distribution of oil production as it appears in tithe sources. Columns 3 and 4 contain two indicators of the distribution of agricultural property taken from the 1685 Cadastral Survey. These registers were used for taxation purposes, assessing the value of rural and urban assets according to their size and crop yields. This source has been shown to be a reliable indicator of inequality in land distribution and agricultural wealth in several studies (Ferrer Flores, 1974; Vaquer Bennasar, 1987; Montanez and Morey, 1989). The table shows that oil specialization and the predominance of large estates were the salient features of the Tramuntana ranges, where the olive groves were concentrated in the middle of the century (Bisson, 1977; Grau and Tello, 1985; Suau, 1991). From the Middle Ages onwards, oil production was centred on the villages at the heart of the Tramuntana mountains ( Juan Vidal, 1989b: 170-171). In the mid-seventeenth century, the same district still concentrated 82 % of the total value of tithes. Other olive grove areas were far less important: the municipality of Palma accounted for 9.9 % of tithe value, followed by the Raiguer district at the foot of the mountains with 5.1 %, while the Llevant Mountains to the north-east contained only 2.7 %. A concentration of this magnitude calls for both an agro-climatic and a socio-economic explanation (Pansiot and Rebour, 1961; Grigg, 2002). Regarding agro-climatic factors, the mountainsides provided good drainage; the altitude provided the seasonal temperature differences vital for olive trees to blossom while limiting the development of harmful crop infestations, while the relatively high rainfall (600-1,000 ml) guaranteed plentiful but highly-irregular harvests (Bisson, 1977: 178-181, 213-224; Gil, Manuel and Diaz-Fernández, 2002: 41-49, 78-123). Agro-climatic conditions were not as favourable in the Pla and Migjorn districts. The predominance of clay soil in the former hampered land drainage, while the latter’s poor soils, low rainfall and high average temperatures limited olive grove yields (Pansiot and Rebouer, 1961: 18-36; Barranco et al., 2008: 131-161). On the slopes of the Tramuntana mountain ranges olive groves had been expanded by building terraces at altitudes as high as 700 metres (Bisson, 1977: 179-180; Carbonero, 1992; Pérez, 2012): ‘… the conquest of cultivable land must have followed demographic growth’, as Jean Bisson explained (Bisson, 1977: 180). Such a cropping system required high capital investment in building and upkeeping the terraces and drainage channels, and called for hard work in ploughing and planting trees. (Carbonero, 2002; Villalonga, 2012). Therefore, as column 1 (inhabitants/km2) shows, a relatively high population density was needed to sustain the cultivation system and meet the labour needs of the olive groves such as those in the Tramuntana mountain range.

7. Wa s the r e an Ag r ar i an C r i s i s i n t h e Me d i t e rrane an Wo rld Table 7.1. Regional distribution of oil output and aristocratic property, 1667-1685.

Region Llevant

(1) population density, 1667 (/km2) 16.4

(2) % of total oil tithe 2.7

(3) large aristocratic estates as % of total area

(4) large aristocratic estates as % of area, by region

13.8

40.2

Migjorn

15.3

0.0

8.3

24.9

Pla

31.7

0.0

23.4

28.3

Raiguer

37.1

5.2

6.7

22.7

Tramuntana Palma municipality Rural/total

26.8

82.2

47.8

44.9

109.7

9.9

–

–

25.4

100.0

100

32.2

Sources: Tithe data, 1675-1683: Majorca Cathedral Chapter archives ACM 14,985, 14,989; 1685; land registry data: Ferrer Flórez, 1974: 560-575 and Montaner, 1976: 391-465; population data, 1667: Juan Vidal, 1987.

It was not, however, merely agro-climatic factors that favoured the geographic concentration of olive groves in the Tramuntana and Llevant mountains (Grau and Tello, 1985). Columns 3 and 4 in Table 7.1 highlight the social factors that led to this concentration. Column 3 displays the distribution of large estates by district: 48 % of aristocratic property was in the Tramuntana Mountains, where most of the island’s olive groves were located. Column 4 illustrates the distribution of agricultural wealth, showing the proportion of landed property owned by the aristocracy as a percentage of the total of each district. It indicates that the aristocracy owned most of the agricultural land in olive grove districts: 45 % in the Tramuntana Mountains and 40 % in the Llevant. Thus, the greatest inequality in land distribution in the Tramuntana Mountains was related to olive grove specialization (Montaner and Morey, 1989; Suau, 1991). This process of land accumulation in the mountains resulted from several long-term social and economic trends. There was, first, a historical origin: in the fifteenth century, the rising sheep population and increased wool production encouraged aristocrats to expropriate peasant holdings in the mountains for grazing and woodland (Deyá, 1997; Jover-Avellà et alia, 2019). At the end of the sixteenth century, higher international demand for oil encouraged the planting of olive trees (Vaquer Bennasar, 2007), at first on the gentle slopes, and later spreading gradually towards the peaks (Ferrer Flórez, 1974: 180-181; Bisson, 1977: 214-220). Last, in the seventeenth century, marriage and inheritance strategies – the spread of strict settlement (fideicomiso) – and an increasing drive to purchase olive farms placed still more land into the hands of the landed aristocracy in these areas (Montaner, 1978, 1987; Montaner and Le Senne, 1979/80; Montaner and Morey, 1989; Bibiloni, 1995: 329-332).

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The landowners divided their estates into farms of over 100 hectares. Each farm (called a possessio in Catalan) carried out various activities such as forestry, grazing and cultivating cereal crops, and olive and carob trees, but the bulk of their output and income came from olive oil (Albertí and Morey, 1986; Manera, 1988: 77-85). For cereal growing, forestry and grazing, short leases of 6 years’ duration were used; farms were leased out only when the landowner was in financial difficulties or if a farm had few olive trees (Moll and Suau, 1979; Ferrer Flórez, 1983; Pérez, 2012; Jover-Avellà and Pons, 2012: 273-316). The landowners usually managed their olive grove farms directly. Agricultural contracts and account books detailed out the different activities involved in maintaining olive groves: ploughing, pruning, clearing scrub, grafting, digging out the roots, and the like. The large farms needed many wage labourers and the landowners and leaseholders operated an extensive farming system, as a way of keeping costs down, which was perhaps more extensive than in the eighteenth century (Grau and Tello, 1985; Albertí and Morey, 1986; Jover-Avellà, 2015). There were several reasons for carrying out this land and crop management. One was to strike a balance between the leaseholder’s profits and the landowner’s rent. Another was to keep the price of oil competitive in international markets. The oil produced on the island was destined for urban Atlantic markets, where it was used for machine lubrication, soap manufacturing and lighting (Muendel, 1995). As a mass-demand commodity, cheapness and volume were prized over quality (Bibiloni, 1995). Last, from an agro-ecological perspective, the olive tree was an alternate bearing crop, meaning that a good harvest was followed by a poor one due to the complex inverse relationship between the amount of olives the tree bore one year (the current year’s blooming and fruiting) and the growth of the new branches, which would only come into bud and bloom the following year. The bigger the harvest, the smaller the growth of the branches that would bear fruit the following year; thus, a poor or bad harvest was expected to follow a good one (Barranco, 2008: 135-156). Climatic conditions – temperature and rainfall – could either favour or endanger the expected harvest. Furthermore, a shortage of water and extreme aridity could well hinder the flowering and ripening of the olives in summer and autumn, destroying up to 80 % of the year’s ripening fruit (drupes). Heavy snowfalls might also damage the year’s productive branches, while dry frosts could ruin the harvest and kill the trees (Pansiot and Rebour, 1961: 19-21). All these climatic factors could potentially aggravate the customary alternation of olive crops. Harvest fluctuations could, however, be offset to a degree through more intensive farming – ploughing, pruning and manuring – but to do so more labourers had to be hired, increasing labour costs (Barranco et al., 2008: 158-161; Grau and Tello, 1985; Morey and Molina, 2016). These commercial features of olive oil, the agro-ecological characteristics of the olive tree and the predominance of large estates and the wage labour system, moulded the farming system that was to face the crisis that came out in the last third of the seventeenth century.

7. Wa s the r e an Ag r ar i an C r i s i s i n t h e Me d i t e rrane an Wo rld

IV. C  hronology and intensity of the oil crisis: an analysis of production and prices Olive oil expansion stemmed from the second half of the sixteenth century. Despite the serious oil crises of 1614-1617 and 1643-1647, oil production and exports peaked between 1650 and 1675 ( Juan Vidal, 1980, 1987; Bibiloni, 1995). Figure 7.1 shows the trends in oil sector production and prices over the second half of the seventeenth century. The variables examined are proxy farm oil production – the olive oil tithes deflated by prices matched in 1683 with the olive harvest – and oil prices in Palma. The data are expressed in indices based on 13-year moving averages calculated for each variable. The middle of the seventeenth century was marked by short crises: the plague of 1652, the olive-tree crisis of 1644-1647 and the subsistence crises of 1648-1652. Olive oil production remained high between 1650 and 1672, though subject to intense inter-annual fluctuations as shown in Figure 7.2 ( Juan Vidal, 1990; Jover-Avellà, 2011). From 1670 onwards production began a slow decline, growing steeper after 1674. Between 1678 and 1685, average production fell some 20 % compared with the 1660s. The four years between 1686 and 1690 saw a rapid recovery, which brought the index back to its 1670 level (index=110). The recovery was, however, truncated once again by a new sharp fall in production between 1694 and 1699 when the production index fell by around 15 % with respect to the 1670 level. A slow but steady recovery began in the first decade of the eighteenth century. A new wave of olive grove expansion started in the 1720s and lasted until 1780 ( Juan Vidal, 1980). These statistics thus suggest a decline in olive grove production between 1671 and 1699 and, more generally, stagnant oil production during the second half of the seventeenth century, as other studies have also demonstrated (Bibiloni, 1995; Jover-Avellà y Manera, 2009). The movement of olive oil prices differed slightly, however, from of its production, as Figures 7.1 and 7.2 shows. Between 1654 and 1674, prices initially fell and then remained relatively stable. From 1674 to 1686, oil prices increased slightly, a ‘mild’ response to the sharp fall in production. The good harvests of 1688-1693 once again brought prices down. From 1694 onwards there were waves of long, steep price rises that followed hard upon each other. The first wave began with the production crises of 1694 and 1698; prices went on rising in the succeeding years, fed by the inflation on the island resulting from the War of the Spanish Succession (1705-1715). Only when two or more dreadful harvest years followed one another in succession did olive oil prices rose sharply. Why did the olive oil prices not reflect the intense inverse correlation that might be expected between prices and wheat production? Table 7.2 shows some of the statistical relationships between the olive harvests’ price-deflated tithes (tithesd) as proxies of farm oil production, and the nominal value of tithes (tithesn) as an indicator of farm oil income and oil prices. We have

145

50

60

70

80

90

Sources: See table 7.2

(Tithesd),

Oil Farm Income (Tithes n)

Farm oil income (Tithesn) and oil prices. Date are given in 13-years average, index 100=average 1687-1690

Olive oil prices Palma

Oil Farm Production (Tithes d)

1709 1707 1705 1703 1701 1699 1697 1695 1693 1691 1689 1687 1685 1683 1681 1679 1677 1675 1673 1671 1669 1667 1665 1663 1661 1659 1657 1655 1653 1651 1649 1647 1645

Figure 7.1. Farm Oil production

index

100

110

120

130

140

150

160

170

180

190

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7. Wa s the r e an Ag r ar i an C r i s i s i n t h e Me d i t e rrane an Wo rld Table 7.2. Correlation coefficients: tithes, oil prices and olive harvests

Years

Oil Olive Olive olive tithed -1 lag: harvests: tithed: tithen: tithed: harvests: harvest -1 lag d n d oil tithe oil tithe oil price oil price oil price / tithe tithen

1607–1650

–

0.96

1651–1700*

*0.91

0.96

1701−1750

0.80

0.88

−0.19

−0.20

–

–

−0.37

0.13

−0.11

*−0.07

*−0.62

−0.75

0.19

−0.25

−0.09

−0.28

−0.25

Sources: tithes: Majorca Cathedral Chapter (ACM) archives: registers 14946-14961, 14989, 16407, 16460-16468; olive harvests: Juan Vidal (1980); oil prices of city monasteries: Kingdom of Majorca Archives (ARM), Convents collection (AH, C): AH,C-524, AH,C-541, AH,C-542, AH,C-701, AH,C-1477, AH,C-401, AH, C-189, AH, C-136, AH, C-200, AH, C-132, AH, C-141, AH,C-769, AH,C-1065, and AH,C-1652 (author’s compilation). * The olive oil harvest is calculated for the years 1683-1700; there is no available data between 1651-1682

used 50-year periods to position the second half of the seventeenth century in the long-term picture and thus isolate some of its differentiating features. As previously explained (page 2), the correlation coefficients (r) between the two proxies for farm oil production, namely the oil tithes deflated by olive oil prices (tithesd) and the olive harvests, and the series for nominal olive oil farm income, namely olive oil tithes (tithesn), are very high and r is similar for all three variables at all times (0.88-0.96). These coefficients indicate that tithesd are good indicators of the fluctuation in olive harvests (harvests/tithesd). Furthermore, the positive correlation between olive harvests and tithesd on the one hand, and farm income (tithesn), on the other, suggests that harvest fluctuations were decisive in establishing the farms’ oil incomes (tithesn). To capture the alternate bearing crop in the correlation between olive harvests and farm oil production (in table harvests -1 lag: tithed) and between farm oil production and farm oil income (tithed -1 lag/tithen) the first series is lagged by one year. This exercise provides a significant negative correlation result which brings out the effect of alternating harvests in the olive groves, a good harvest generally being followed by a poor one. The correlation coefficients indicate that in the second half of the seventeenth century alternation was much more intense (-0.75, -0.62) than either before or after this period. The correlation coefficients obtained between olive harvests, tithes and oil prices show that these variables were not closely related. If we analyse the correlation sign, two different relationships become clear. There was a very low positive correlation between prices and farm oil income (tithesn) at all times. This suggests that although prices stimulated income, their impact was far smaller than that of olive harvests. However, the coefficients between prices and farm oil production (tithesd) have a negative sign, thus reflecting

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the predicted inverse relationship between harvest and prices, although this is extremely weak at all times for both farm oil production indicators (olive harvests and tithesd). The explanation for these results must be sought in the characteristics of the product and the relations between its different markets. First, oil was not a staple food, like bread or wheat and it therefore had low demand-price elasticity (Vaquer Bennasar, 1988: 763-765; Pujol Beltrán, 1996: 375-376; Manera, 2001: 78-81; Jover-Avellà and Pons, 2012: 246-252); it could also be stored for long periods and used for other purposes such as lighting, food preservation, lubrication and local soap making. Most importantly, however, oil price levels and fluctuations were closely linked to international markets: over 70 % of production was destined for foreign markets (Bibiloni, 1992: 120-134; 1995: 167-169). These characteristics meant that oil could be sold year-round for different uses and markets. Thus, the setting of its price in this period was neither local nor dependent on harvest fluctuations; rather it was subject to the demands of foreign markets, as will be seen in the following section. Table 7.3 shows the changes in the intensity of price and production fluctuation. For this purpose, coefficients of variation over 50-year periods are used for the relevant variables. The descriptive statistics clearly show that the seventeenth century was a time of great volatility for olive harvests. This was particularly so in the latter half of the seventeenth century, when the coefficients of variation for farm oil production (olive harvests and oil tithesd) and farm oil income (oil tithesn), respectively, were 7 and 10 % higher than in the first half of the seventeenth century ones, and around 22 % higher (for harvests and tithes) than in the first half of the eighteenth century. Olive harvest fluctuations were therefore unusually high in the second half of the seventeenth century, higher in fact than can be attributed to the normal fluctuation in olive grove harvests. As mentioned above, this period saw an increase in the intensity of the alternate bearing of olive crops. Price coefficients of variation remained low throughout the seventeenth century despite high harvest fluctuation. Price oscillation greatly increased in the first half of the eighteenth century, perhaps from the effects of the War of the Spanish Succession and changes in international markets, as will be seen in the following section. Table 7.3. Coefficients of variation for oil harvest, tithe and price

Years

Olive harvests

Oil tithed

Oil tithen

Oil prices

1607-1650

–

70.1

68.4

19.4

1651-1700

*74.6

77.3

77.7

20.9

1701-1750

56.3

53.1

52.6

26.3

Source: from table 7.2 * The olive oil harvest is calculated for the years 1683-1700; no data is available for the period 1651-1682.

7. Wa s the r e an Ag r ar i an C r i s i s i n t h e Me d i t e rrane an Wo rld

Based on the foregoing, of particular note is that the last third of the seventeenth century was marked by a fall in harvest levels compared with the peaks of the 1650s and 1660s. Recovery would not begin until the second decade of the eighteenth century ( Jover-Avellà and Manera, 2009). The production crisis between 1675 and 1686 had less effect on prices than did the critical episode of 1694-1698. From then on, and despite the recovery in production, prices soared, linked as they were to the wartime inflation that began in 1705. Merchants who exported oil and imported wheat found trading conditions favourable. Furthermore, statistical analysis based on the coefficients of variation shows that production during the second half of the seventeenth century was different from that of the first half of both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when fluctuations were more intense and alternation in the harvests of olive groves was more marked. What, then, were the causes of the production crisis and the increase in olive harvest fluctuations?

V. A trade crisis? Oil exports and demand The first hypothesis put forward in the introduction to this paper is that the olive oil production crisis was caused by a commercial crisis. The customs registers from the port of Palma for the middle of the seventeenth century (Table 7.4) show that oil played a key role in exports. Between 1683 and 1704 olive oil exports accounted for around 65 % of the island’s production and comprised 66-70 % of total export values. Exported oil was a low-quality product that competed with other oils (vegetable and animal fats) for mass consumption by soap makers, and was used in lubrication, illumination and wool processing (Muendel, 1995; Juan Vidal, 1980: 520-521, 551-552; Bibiloni, 1992: 36-37, 40, 142-145; Manera, 1988). Oil exports were transported to Atlantic markets almost exclusively by English and Dutch ships (Bibiloni, 1995: 81, 190, 187-312).

Table 7.4. Composition of oil exports from Mallorca.

1656/1691

1698/1718

Cloth and blankets

14.1

11.5

Olive oil

70.6

66.1

Wines and spirits

1.0

1.0

Leather, wool and cheese

6.5

7.2

Soap

2.3

5.2

Other

5.5

9.0

100.0

100.0

Total

Source: Our own from Bibiloni, 1995: 169, 190.

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ga br i e l j ove r ave l l à  Table 7.5. Oil exports and production on the island of Majorca.

Number of known years of exports

export index 1656-1672=100

oil production index 1656-1672 =100

Number of known years of production

1656-1672

6

100.0

100.0

16

1676-1690

10

74.4

69.7

14

1697-1704

8

44.9

62.0

8

Periods

Sources: Customs registers: from Bibiloni, 1995: 62; harvest estimate registers: Juan Vidal, 1980.

Table 7.5 compares the volume of exported oil, as recorded in the customs port registers of Palma, and farm oil production, estimates derived from tithesd and olive harvest r the same periods. The available data from customs registers for each period shows a clearly similar trend to that of the production indices. Oil exports were at their highest between 1656 and 1672, coinciding with the seventeenth-century production peak (Figure 7.1). Later periods saw a marked fall in the volume of registered exports: between 1656-1672 and 1676-1690 they declined by 25.6 %, and between 1676-1690 and 1697-1704 by another 29.5 %. In the period covered in Table 7.5, total oil exports fell by 55 %. Meanwhile, production fell in the first period by about 11 %, and another 8 % in the second period. In total, there was a 28 % fall throughout the period. Therefore, the slump in exports was sharper than for production over the same period. The comparison of the two indices for exports and oil production would suggest that about half the fall in exports was due to the production crisis, especially in the first period (between 1656-1676 and 1676-1690), but that the other half could have been caused by other factors, such as military conflicts and changes in the international olive oil market. The second half of the seventeenth century was a time of increasing political and military conflict, with wars between England and France, Holland and England, and most importantly between France and Spain. These wars not only made trade more difficult by interrupting trade routes and raising transport costs, but they also altered commercial policies. France, the principal olive oil importer during the early days of Majorcan specialization, became an enemy of the Spanish Empire from 1635 onwards. And England, the main importer of Majorcan olive oil, adopted a more protectionist policy in the last third of the seventeenth century (Alloza, 2006, Espino, 2011; Andreu Bibiloni; 1995: 59-63). Could such conflicts have influenced the export capacity of the Kingdom of Majorca? Wartime insurance premiums reflected the risks of maritime shipments resulting from the political, military and commercial conflicts between the French and Spanish monarchies (Pons, 1996). Still, merchants and ship captains managed to continue trading, whether by changing flags, using third parties or even engaging in smuggling. In this way, they continued to find a market for their products, and especially for

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oil (López Nadal, 1986; Montaner 1978; Montaner and Le Senne, 1979/80; Bibiloni, 1995: 58-63, 66-76). There may be a second explanation for falling oil exports which is related to changes in foreign demand. Davis’s classic study (1954: 163-164) records a slight fall in the monetary value of English oil imports from Mediterranean countries between 1663-1669 and 1699-1701. Likewise, in their general study of the Dutch economy, de Vries and van der Woude (1997: 379-382, 485-488) showed a small decrease in the value of imports from the Mediterranean. This fall in urban Atlantic demand could be related to several factors. The first may be the price deflation, protectionist policies and slow economic growth of Atlantic economies in the last third of the seventeenth century (Broadberry et al., 2015; van Zanden and van Leeuwen, 2012). Olive oil imports may also have been reduced by the spread of substitute oils made from animal fats (whale blubber) or vegetable fats such as flax seed, hemp and rapeseed (de Vries and van der Woude, 1997: 256-257; Allen and Keay, 2004: 403-407). However, other factors could also have played a significant role. Expansion of the new Mediterranean commodity frontiers (Moore, 2012) by French, English and Flemish merchants in southern Italy and the Hellenic islands of the Ottoman Empire – Cyprus, Crete, and the like – boosted international oil supply (Bulut, 2002; Stallsmith, 2007; Fusaro, 2010). Conversely, this change may have weakened the position of Majorcan oil in Atlantic markets. We lack sufficient information to establish the relative importance of political and military conflicts, the decline of Atlantic demand and the appearance of new competitors in the decline of Majorcan exports. Nor can we attribute this greater fall in exports to an increase in domestic oil consumption, whether for home use or for manufacturing cloth and soap. However, we do know that the island’s export capacity and the presence of its oils in foreign markets remained stable in the first decades of the eighteenth century (Bibiloni, 1992: 120-134; García Fernández, 2006: 348-359). The similarities between the trend in the fall of exports and the fall in production noted in Figure 7.2 suggest that the decline in exports was mainly due to a matter of supply, or insufficient oil production during the last third of the seventeenth century. In the following sections we attempt to ascertain whether this was the case.

VI. An agro-climatic crisis? The second hypothesis put forward in the introduction is that the oil crisis was partly caused by a worsening climate. As stated in Section 2, we have no proxy sources for the change in the island’s climate. However, the island is in the centre of the western Mediterranean, and studies of the region suggest that the average temperature fell and that different kinds of disturbances including storms and severe droughts were more intense in the period 1645-1715 (Barriendos, 1997; Alcoforado, 2000; Luterbacher et al., 2001; Diodato, 2007; Diodato and Bellocchi, 2011; Camuffo et al., 2010; Brázdil et al., 2010). Furthermore, the

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few clues we have about the island suggest that episodes of extreme weather became more frequent during the seventeenth century (Pastor, 2001). Figure 7.2 uses index numbers presented on a semi-logarithmic scale to show the fluctuations in oil-tithes deflated by price, the olive harvest records and the amount of oil exported through the port of Palma. The Figure suggests that there were three waves of intense fluctuations in oil production during the second half of the seventeenth century. The first cycle took place between 1653 and 1663. The bad harvests of 1653, 1655, 1658 and 1661 were related to severe droughts in spring and autumn (Campaner, 1888[1984]: 416-420-421; Pastor Oliver, 2001: 130), while heavy snowfall at the end of the winters of 1658 and 1663 may also have harmed the harvests (Gual de Torrella, 2010: 68-69; Campaner, 1888[1984]: 473; Pastor Oliver, 2001: 130). These intense fluctuations seem not to have affected average production as has been argued, since a very poor harvest was succeeded by an extraordinary one (Figure 7.1). From 1670 onwards, the island also suffered the extreme disturbances that affected the western Mediterranean (Diodato and Bellochi, 2011: 592-594). In Majorca, this second cycle began in 1671 with a violent storm; severe droughts were recorded in 1673, 1674-1675, 1679-1682 and 1684-1685, followed by heavy rainfall and flooding in 1683 and 1687 (Campaner, 1888 [1984]: 429-430, 433-437, 439, 474; Gual de Torrella, 2012: 46-47, 53). These years correspond to very poor olive harvests: 1671, 1673, 1675, 1680, 1682, 1684 and 1686. The poor harvests between 1671 and 1686 seem to have been related to prolonged drought. The fall in water reserves and the hot summer months could have been the cause of the successive very poor olive harvests, although the drought between 1689 and 1692 does not seem to have affected the harvests of this crop (Campaner, 1888[1984]: 443-449, 481-483; Gual de Torrella, 2010: 61 and 66). The final cycle of climatic anomalies was shorter than the previous ones and was related to the intense cold spells between 1694 and 1698. Account books and official documents record widespread, heavy snowfall in 1694, 1697 and 1698 (Campaner, 1888[1984]: 449-450, 481-483; Gual de Torrella, 2010: 68-69, 71). The impact was short-lived but the data in the Figure, suggest that it was profound. Olive harvests plummeted between 1694 and 1699, dragging exports down with it to their lowest point. The droughts of 1702 and 1705 (Campaner, 1888 [1984]: 443-449) did not bring about a fall in oil production and neither did the intense cold of 1709 which affected a large part of the Mediterranean basin appear to have hit the island’s olive tree stocks. However, the cold and snowy spell of 1713 did have an impact on the following year’s harvest (Campaner, 1888 [1984]: 443-449, 481-483). Figure 7.2 shows that from 1699 onwards production crises were less intense and the harvest alternations of olive trees became weaker, as the coefficient of variation for the period also reflects. Did the severe droughts and intense waves of cold and snow affect the olive trees, harming their production capacity for some years? There is some direct testimony to support this. In 1661 and again in 1671 the steward

Sources: See table 7.2

Index 100 , Oil Farm Production & Oil Exports

0.1

1.0

10.0

100.0

1000.0

Olive oil prices Palma Oil exports

1709 1707 1705 1703 1701 1699 1697 1695 1693 1691 1689 1687 1685 1683 1681 1679 1677 1675 1673 1671 1669 1667 1665 1663 1661 1659 1657 1655 1653 1651 1649 1647 1645

Oil Farm Production (Tithes d)

10.0

100.0

1000.0

Index 100, Oil Prices

Figure 7.2. Farm Oil production (tithesd), Oil Exports and oil prices. Data in annual values, index 100 = average 1687-1690

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of Alfàbia farm wrote in the accounts book that ‘no olives were gathered’ owing to bad weather. In the years after the severe droughts of 1671-1682 the leaseholders of Socorrada and Morneta farms complained about the ‘infertile times’, recording that in recent years ‘very little has been harvested and the oil is bad’1. Leaseholders of tithes on the manor of the Convent of La Jonquera (Barcelona) in Binissalem (Majorca) wrote to the prior of the convent saying that ‘the years have been bad’2. In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, these changes were reflected in the provisions of lease contracts for olive grove farms, where we find specific clauses ordering the leasehold tenants to collect the increasing amounts of broken branches (‘if there are any, they break’) due to the heavy ‘snow, bitter cold or rain’3. Thus, statistical information and written sources suggest that the increased intensity of the olive grove production crises could be linked to a range of extreme climatic conditions. In the first cycle, from 1671-1686, it may have been the lengthy spring and summer droughts that reduced underground water reserves and hindered the ripening of olives. The final cycle, between 1694 and 1698, was dominated by spells of intense cold and perhaps even frosts which could have damaged the buds, affecting blossoming, and may even have destroyed part of the plantations. The weight of the snow could also have destroyed fruiting branches. While sources and indicators suggest a close relationship between climatic disturbances and intense fluctuations in harvests, it is impossible to determine whether these affected just the harvests or also the trees themselves.

VII. A socio-economic crisis? Income and wages in the last third of the seventeenth century This final section aims to establish the role played by income distribution in the oil crises during the last third of the seventeenth century. Previous sections have partly attributed this crisis – the fall in production and increasingly volatile harvests – to trading difficulties but above all to the adverse climatic conditions of the time. For traditional agriculture, it was less sure that raising production by increasing investment in property would so easily guarantee future profits ( Jones, 1964). There were several ways in which landowners could minimize the risks of cultivating olive trees in such contexts. They could change farm



1 ARM, Ar 13, Fa 12. 2 Casanova (1987: 443) and ACA, ORM, Monacals-Universitats, 35-7, letters from the administrators of the convent’s estates on the island, 1703-1704. 3 Quotes come from contracts of Socorrada and Morneta from 1652 to 1688 (ARM, Torrella, Ar 13, Fa 12). See also the diary of Joan Torrella, owner of Morneta, his account books (ARM, Torrella, nº 195) and other marginal notes in his administrative papers. Joan’s son, Agustí de Torrella, collected these notes and others in a volume called ‘Hodge-podge’ (Olla podrida) published in Gual de Torrella (2012).

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management systems to improve economic efficiency by passing costs on to leaseholders or they could reduce the wages spent on maintenance and investment tasks (Bhaduri, 1999: 86-105; Garrido, 2011). Landowners could also introduce technical changes into the land cultivation system to smooth out fluctuations (Overton, 1989; Hoyle, 2013). Such practices implied spending more on the labour employed to maintain soil fertility and land capital, such as trees and terraces, in this organic agricultural economy (Boserup, 1966). We have used two simple indicators to explore the margins and incentives that might have led landowers to introduce improvements in such a context. First, nominal tithes are employed as a proxy for farm income. And second, we use a wage series as an indicator of the exploitation cost. Wages accounted for over 70 % of the total expenses generated on the olive grove farms on the island (Albertí and Morey, 1986: 37-38; Manera, 1988: 77-85). The expenditure on wages to cultivate olive groves was broken down in the following way: 26 % for female day-labourers, whose task was collecting olives; 32 % for male day-labourers who did maintenance tasks such as clearing scrub, digging around the roots of trees, grafting and pruning; and 42 % for farmworkers who performed different tasks, such as ploughing the land and making oil. The accounts books of the olive grove estates studied provide scarce information about day wages. The most homogeneous and continuous wage series is the salary of farmworkers hired for ploughing (ploughman). These farmworkers accounted for about a quarter of the total expenditure on farmworkers (42 % of the total spending on wages). They were paid monthly and only in cash ( Jover-Avellà, Pujades-Mora and Suau, 2017). The task of ploughing can be classified as intermediate labour; it was hard but, unlike pruning or grafting, it did not demand great experience or knowledge (Grau and Tello, 1985: 68-70). Hence, wages paid to farmworkers are used as an indicator of labour costs (Garrabou and Tello, 2002; Garrabou, Tello, Roca, 2004). Last, to capture the profit margin – or rent distribution – we divided farm income by farmworker wages (Badia-Miró and Tello, 2014). Figure 7.3 shows this information in the form of indices (base 100 = 1690), presented as 13-year moving averages. The index of average wage labour fell continuously between 1650 and 1680 from 135 to 95, a fall of 40 % in nominal terms. The wage index then rose a little to reach 106 in 1700; by 1710 it had fallen once again by 5 points to a level of 100 when compared with 1650 (index 135). In short, nominal wages fell by 35 % in the second half of the century. Although the purpose of this exercise is not to discuss changes in nominal wages, and even less the purchasing power of wage labour, a number of general explanations for their fall during this period are worth noting. As far as labour supply was concerned, there are three main considerations. First, the population grew slowly during the second half of the seventeenth century (Segura and Suau, 1984; Juan Vidal, 1990). Second, from 1620 onwards rural and urban manufacturing declined drastically (Bibiloni, 1995; Deyá, 1998). And third, huge, persistent inequalities remained in the distribution of land and access to it (Montaner and Morey, 1989; Jover-Avellà 2002). In this social

15 5

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60

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80

90

100

Farm Income/ Wage farmworkers

Oil Farm Income (Tithes n)

Wage Farmworkers

1709 1707 1705 1703 1701 1699 1697 1695 1693 1691 1689 1687 1685 1683 1681 1679 1677 1675 1673 1671 1669 1667 1665 1663 1661 1659 1657 1655 1653 1651 1649 1647 1645

Sources: Oil Farm Income (Tithesn) comes from table 7.2.; Wage farmworkers comes from books accounts of Safortesa Estate (ACM, 14193 and 14204)

Figure 7.3. Olive oil crisis and income distribution: Wage-labour and Farm Income (Tithesn). Date are given in 13-years average, index 100=average 1687-1690

index

110

120

130

140

150

160

170

180

190

200

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context labour supply had increased and peasant families had become more dependent on wages. Regarding demand, it appears that the concentration of production and greater uncertainty caused by climatic disruptions (Figures 7.1 and 7.2) may have reduced the number of labourers hired carry out tasks related to maintaining the soil. These factors must have acted on both supply and demand to push wages down. Nevertheless, falling wages did not necessarily mean that the purchasing power of the farmworkers – measured by the cost of wheat, oil, meat and wine – decreased, nor that the landowner’s purchasing power, in wage-work terms, increased, or that they were hiring more workers in the labour market ( Jover-Avellà and Pons, 2012: 210-224, 244-255). This last factor should be stressed, as it is the indicator that enables us to determine whether or not landowners could afford to invest in olive grove farms to compensate for the fall in production. The farm income curve (expressed by tithes at nominal values) shows a clear fall between 1675 and 1697 compared with the 1650s and 1660s. Nominal income fell in these years, dropping by between 15 % and 20 % below the index of 120 after the 1660s. Income went up again after the 1697-1698 crises, because prices and production rose (Figure 7.1). During the 1710s, farm income soared back to the same high levels attained at the start of the 1650s (index = 130) driven by wartime inflation and rising production,. The farm income/farmworker wages is not only an indicator of the purchasing power of the olive producers compared to agricultural salaries (see Figure 7.3 for wage labour in relation to farm income), but it gives us an idea of how income was split between landowners and wage earners in the sector (Badia-Miró and Tello, 2014). Between 1650 and 1670, landowners’ ability to hire wage-workers went up by 15 %. This capacity, however, did decline slightly between 1675 and 1695, in the midst of considerable volatility in harvest volumes and prices; hence values generally stayed stable at around an index value of 100. The income curve did not clearly distance itself from salaries and the profit margin did not increase until 1700. From then on, conditions were much more favourable for landowners. In light of the foregoing, we can distinguish three distinct phases in the process by which the surplus was shared out between wages and landowner income in the olive groves. In the 1650s and 1660s, despite intense variations in production and the fall in prices, landowners saw a slight increase in their profit margins, measured as the difference between their income and workers’ falling wages. Between 1670 and 1694, this trend was reversed. Wages remained steady, but a series of poor harvests sent average production plummeting and this fall was not compensated for by higher prices (Figure 7.1). This was the steepest fall in farm income registered in all these years (Figure 7.3). During this period landowners had very little margin to use on improving farming through hiring more labour. The intense volatility of the harvests, the enormous uncertainty caused by violent weather and labourers’ resistance to a fall in their nominal wages did not favour improvements in the olive groves. Records from the olive grove estates show that these decades saw the first evictions of

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leaseholders and the beginning of landowner indebtedness ( Jover-Avellà and Pons, 2012: 115-120, 325-331). However, from 1700 onwards, an inflation-fed rise in income, falling outlays for wages (as measured by deflating tithes levied on olive oil by the prices of the produce) and better weather combined to make this period more propitious for investment in the olive groves.

VIII. Conclusions and paths for further research The model of oil specialization on the island of Majorca had become established on the large aristocratic estates in the Tramuntana Mountains. Olive grove expansion was favoured by the increase in demand for oil fats in Atlantic manufacturing. Nonetheless, this study shows that this expansion came to a halt in the last third of the seventeenth century. Production between 1675 and 1700 was some 25 to 30 % lower than in the 1650s and 1660s. Section 4 showed that commercial conflicts were not the main cause of the production crisis. Section 5 established a close link between climatic disturbances in the last third of the seventeenth century, increasingly volatile harvests and the fall in average oil production. The links between climatic variables and production do, however, call for more detailed analysis. More information about temperatures and rainfall is needed to firmly establish to what extent cold spells and droughts caused the critical episodes of 1671-1686 and 16941698. In Section 6, we posit that the distribution of surplus between income and wages suggests that landowners’ profit margins were falling and those of leaseholders perhaps even more so. Such a context cannot have been favourable for improvements in olive grove properties, particularly between 1673 and 1698, when meteorological factors increased the frequency of poor harvests. Nonetheless, this study raises the question as to whether the ‘fin-de-siècle crisis’ of the seventeenth century encouraged changes in farm management or farming improvements in the olive grove estates that might explain the evident increase in production and incomes from 1700 onwards.

Sources ACA: Archivo de la Corona de Aragón ARM: Archivo del Reino de Mallorca ACM: Archivo del Capítulo de la Catedral de Mallorca

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Espino Lopez, Antonio (2011), En la perifèria dels regnes perifèrics. Guerra i defensa en la Mallorca de Carles II (1665-1700), Palma de Mallorca, Lleonard Muntaner Editor. Espino Lopez, Antonio (2015), ‘La climatología y el negocio de la sal en la Ibiza del siglo xvii’, Revista de Historia Moderna, 33, p. 243-262. Ferrer Florez, Miguel (1974), Población y propiedad en la cordillera septentrional de Mallorca (Evolución histórica), i-ii, Palma de Mallorca, Diputación de Mallorca. Ferrer Florez, Miguel (1983), El trabajo agrario en los siglos xvi y xvii. Forma de explotación agraria en la cordillera septentrional de Mallorca, Palma de Mallorca, Servicio de publicaciones de la Escuela de Estudios Empresariales. Finzi, Roberto (1986), Le Meteore e il frumento: clima, agricoltura, meteorologia a Bologna nel’700, Bolonia, Il Mulino, 1986. Font Tullot, Inocencio (1988), Historia del clima de España. Cambios climáticos y sus causas, Madrid, Instituto Nacional de Meteorología. Fusaro, Maria (2010), ‘After Braudel: A Reassessment of Mediterranean History between the Northern Invasion and the Caravane Maritime’ in Maria Fusaro, Mohamed-Salah Omri & Colin Heywood (eds.) (2010). Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Braudel’s Maritime Legacy, Vol. 67, IB Tauris Academic Studies, p. 1-23. García Fernández, María N. (2006), Comerciando con el enemigo: el tráfico mercantil anglo-español en el siglo xviii (1700-1765), Madrid, Editorial CSIC. Garrabou, Ramón, Tello, Enric & Roca, Albert (2004), ‘Preu del blat i salaris agrícolas a Catalunya (1720-1936)’, in Jordi Nadal. La industrialització i el desenvolupament econòmic d’Espanya, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, p. 422-460. Garrabou, Ramón & Tello, Enric (2002), ‘Salario como coste, salario como ingreso: el precio de los jornales agrícolas en la Cataluña contemporánea (1727-1930)’ in José-Miguel Martinez Carrion (ed.), El nivel de vida en la España rural, siglos xviii-xx, San Vicente del Raspeig, Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante, p. 173-176. Garrido, Samuel (2011), ‘Fixed-rent contracts and investment incentives. A comparative analysis of English tenant right’, Explorations in Economic History, 48, 1, p. 66-82. Gil, Luis, ManuelValdes Carlos & Diaz-Fernandez, Pedro (2002), La transformación histórica del paisaje forestal en las islas Baleares, Tercer Inventario Forestal Nacional, 1997-2007. Madrid, MAPA. Goy, Joseph & Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel (eds) (1982). Prestations paysannes, dîmes, rente foncière et mouvement de la production agricole à l’époque préindustrielle, Paris, Éditions de l’École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Goy, Joseph & Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel (eds) (1972), Les Fluctuations du produit de la dîme. Conjoncture décimale et domaniale de la fin du Moyen Âge au xviiie siècle, Paris, Mouton, 1972. Grau, Elena & Tello, Enric (1985), ‘Anàlisi de la producció agrària mallorquina en els seus dos aspectes fonamentals: l’oli i els cereals’, Randa, nº 18.

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Segura, Antoni & Suau, Jaume (1984), ‘Estudi de demografia mallorquina: l’evolució de la població’, Randa, 16, p. 19-62. Stallsmith, Allaire B. (2007), ‘One Colony, Two Mother Cities: Cretan Agriculture under Venetian and Ottoman Rule’, Hesperia. Supplement, voil. 40, p. 151-171. Suau Puig, Jaume (1991), El món rural mallorquí, Barcelona, Curial. Tello, Enric, Martinez, José L., Jover-Avellà, Gabriel, Olarieta, Juan R., Garcia-Ruiz, Roberto, Gonzalez de Molina, Manuel, Badia-Miro, Marc, Winiwarter, Marina & Koepke, Nicola (2017), ‘The Onset of the English Agricultural Revolution: Climate Factors and Soil Nutrients’. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xlvii, 4, p. 445-474. Tello, Enric, Jover-Avellà, Gabriel, Murray, Ivan, Fullana, Onofre & Soto, Ricard (2018), ‘From feudal colonization to agrarian capitalism in Mallorca: Peasant endurance under the rise and fall of large estates (1229-1900)’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 18, 3, p. 483-516. DOI: 0.1111/joac.12253. Thirsk, Joan (1992), Alternative Agriculture. A history from the Black Death to present day, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Tomozeieu, Rodica & Fabrizio Nerozzi (2007), ‘Esiste un’evidenza climatica per l’abbandono della coltivazione dell’olivo nella collina Bolognese?’, Italian Journal of Agrometeorology, 1, p. 57-65. van Zanden, Jan Luiten & Van Leeuwen, Bas (2012), ‘Persistent but not consistent: The growth of national income in Holland 1347–1807’, Explorations in economic history, 49(2), 119-130. Vaquer Bennasar, Onofre (1987), Una sociedad de Antiguo Régimen. Felanitx i Mallorca en el siglo xvi (i), Felanitx. Vaquer Bennasar, Onofre (1988), Una sociedad de Antiguo Régimen. Felanitx i Mallorca en el siglo xvi (ii), Felanitx. Vaquer Bennasar, Onofre (2007), El comerç a Mallorca a la segona meitat del segle xvi, Palma de Mallorca, El Tall Editorial. Villalonga Morell, José (2012), ‘Les reformes del patrimoni del marquès de Solleric a les possessions d’Alaró’, in Antònia Morey & Gabriel Jover-Avellà (eds), Les possessions mallorquines. Passat i present, Palma de Mallorca, Edicions Documenta-Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics, p. 283-298. Xoplaki, Elena, Maheras, Panagiotis & Luterbacher, Jürg (2001), ‘Variability of climate in meridional Balkans during the periods 1675-1715 and 1780-1830 and its impact on human life’, Climatic Change, 48, 4, p. 581-615. Yun Casalilla, Bartolomé (1999), ‘Del Centro a la periferia: la economía española bajo Carlos II’, Studia Storica, Historia Moderna, 20, p. 45-75.

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8. The Battle of Wheat and Other Fascist Battles in Italian Agriculture (1920s-1930s) I. Introduction The dilemma of choosing between ‘stagnation or development’ proposed by Valerio Castronovo in his 1975 treatment of the economic history of Italy since unification, then by Gianni Toniolo in his work (1980) on the fascist economy, shows the difficulty of making an unequivocal judgment on Italian economic performance over the two decades of fascist dictatorship. Though recent studies prefer examining the varied local contexts to making global interpretations (Bernardi, 2014; Corner & Galimi, 2014; Chiapparino & Morettini, 2018), several researchers during the 1970s questioned fascist influence on development dynamics, paying special attention to the place of agriculture in national production and its relation to industrial growth (Preti, 1973; Quaderni storici, 1975; Cohen, 1976). Different interpretations have emerged. While some authors stressed the blockages imposed to protect the status quo, others highlighted the efforts made to favour capitalist development, organisational rationalisation and modernisation of the primary sector (Villari, 1972; Cohen, 1988; Nützenadel, 2001; Fausto, 2007). Within the land reclamation campaigns (bonifiche), the projects of local planning and social engineering (Isenburg, 1981 and 1982; Stampacchia, 2000; Lupo, 2000: 335-351) are a perfect example of the permanent tension between modernising and conservative projects that constantly characterised fascist agricultural policies in Italy, as observed by some recent and often comparative studies (Corni, 1987; Saraiva, 2011 and 2016; Grando & Volpi, 2014). The two hypotheses, stagnation and development, both have the advantages and limitations of focusing attention on certain aspects of the economy, but they do not provide a global view of the reality when the coexistence of opposite forces and the superposition of different time-scales – those of politics, society, economics, labour management and so on – made matters more ambiguous. Complex transformations occurred in interwar Italy and they need to be analysed within the more general dynamics operating at the international level (Ciocca & Toniolo, 1976: 19). Thus, Fascism was neither an unexpected deviation nor an exceptional parenthesis; the fascist period was a stage in the long-term path of Italian development. During this period, conservative forces combined with modernising ones. The final issue was a constantly unstable equilibrium, influenced by the

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dynamics of the primary sector and more general economic trends. As John M. Keynes argues in 1923 in A Tract on Monetary Reform: Signor Mussolini has threatened to raise the lira to its former value […] though it may be doubted if so good a politician would have propounded such a policy, even in bravado and exuberance, if he had understood that, expressed in other but equivalent words, it was as follows: ‘My policy is to halve wages, double the burden of the National Debt, and to reduce by 50 per cent the prices which Sicily can get for her exports of oranges and lemons’ (Keynes, 1923: 145-146). Here, the relationship to international markets emerged as a key-element because Italy depended on foreign trade both to ensure staple provisions (grain, raw materials etc.) and to sell its export-oriented production. Since the mid-1920s, Fascism had adopted the leitmotif of autarky and emphasised its intention to liberate the country from foreign dependence. However, as the history of the capitalist world-system attests, the simplistic opposition between free trade and protectionism is ineffective: commercial openings and trade barriers are two parts of the same cycle and they should be explored by looking at their succession and mutual influence. Four different periods emerge from a thorough analysis of fascist agricultural policies: free trade in the first period was followed, in 1925, by the protectionist turn, and then the effects of the international crisis dominated until 1935 when nationalistic concerns oriented State interventions in the economy (Marselli, 2007). During the interwar years, the campaign in favour of grain production, better known as the Battle of Wheat, is certainly one of the most important initiatives celebrated by government propaganda and ‘the first mass mobilization of fascist Italy’ (Saraiva, 2016: 7; Hazan, 1933). Thus, it could be interesting to consider how some choices favoured certain crops and economic options to the detriment of other existing alternatives. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were several links between wheat and export-oriented agricultural products, even though few works have looked at the dynamics of staple food and commercial crops from the point of view of their mutual influence (Aymard, 1987; Lupo, 1984, 1987 and 1990). Starting from the analysis of Joan Thirsk (1997 and 1999) on alternative agriculture and its reception in France (Poussou, 1999; Béaur, 2009), I will focus on alternative crops – and especially on citrus fruits – to compare their interwar dynamics with that of wheat. Looking at the differences and similarities between food and cash crops, I will examine the agricultural policies of the fascist regime from a global perspective. While recent research has highlighted the role of domestic market access in understanding regional disparities during the protectionist period of the 1920s and 1930s (A’Hearn & Venables, 2011; Martinelli, 2014), this article explores the relationship between international trade and national economic performance. Rather than dealing with the changes in the Italian protection

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture

level studied by Federico and Tena (1998) from the 1870s to the 1920s, it uses the perspective of international markets to test the hypothesis that fascist agricultural policies gave preference to wheat, even to the detriment of other crops. Firstly, I will compare the dynamics of wheat and citrus fruit production, using agricultural and commercial statistics1. Then, I will look at legislative and administrative measures adopted to reorganise the primary sector, during the 1920s and 1930s. In the concluding remarks, I will discuss how Fascism influenced Italian agricultural development, assessing the effects for different crops.

II. W  heat and other crops between Italian unification and the Second World War The 150th anniversary of Italian unification was the occasion for renewed studies and debates on the national path of economic development since 1861. Several books and special issues of scientific journals were published on the subject, with a special focus on how the place of Italy in world markets affected dynamics of growth and industrialisation (Malanima & Zamagni, 2010; Toniolo, 2013). As Federico (2009) has shown in the case of the agricultural sector in modern Italy, the analysis of trade dynamics is a key factor in exploring the paths of economic growth in a long-term perspective. At the end of the nineteenth century, Italy was a highly populated country, poor in raw materials and dependent on foreign markets for both imports and export-oriented national production. Though it could be defined as a latecomer, it did not have the profile of a traditional backward country (Vasta, 2010; Federico & Wolf, 2011). Agriculture was still the most important economic sector, feeding urban centres and supplying industries with staples. Wheat had a dominant position, especially in the South and even in relation to other cereals or alternative crops, and a decisive influence on the evolution of the agrarian system as a whole (Aymard, 1989). However, as confirmed by the data on grain imports between 1862 and 1940, domestic production was still in deficit despite protectionist measures, and Italian wheat stocks depended on foreign imports; this had negative consequences for the balance of trade and capital accounts. The trend was dramatic: since the 1860s, the value of



1 The agricultural and trade data used in this paper come from statistical surveys (ICS, 1968) and periodical issues (Notizie periodiche di statistica agraria from 1910 to 1925 and Bollettino mensile di statistica agraria e forestale from 1928 to 1939) published by the Ministry of Agriculture or the national institute of statistics that was created in Italy in 1926. For data on international and trade markets the database Bankit-FTV has been used; it organises Italian import-export statistics between 1862 and 1950 according to the Standard International Trade Classification of the United Nations (Federico et al. 2011). The focus is particularly on ‘Cereals and cereal preparations’ and ‘Vegetables and fruits’, within the general group ‘Food and live animals’ and excludes temporary imports and exports.

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imported wheat and its derived industrial products (flour, pasta etc.) had come to roughly one-third of total agricultural and food imports; it reached 40 to 50 % at the end of the nineteenth century and then surged during the First Wold War. At the same time that Italy tried to profit from its comparative advantage, it was also dependent on foreign markets for its exports. Commercial and export-oriented farming was encouraged with a central role assigned to fruit crops (Guzzini, 1952; Rosi, 1965). Three factors, already identified by Gérard Béaur for nineteenth-century France, favoured the development of agricultural specialisation: the spread of ideas and innovation, the importance of markets and the role of peasant farmers (Béaur, 2009: 131-135). Thus, during the second half of the nineteenth century, specialised production expanded in the north-east of the country, for example, in the areas of Ferrara and Ravenna or in Romagna that were to become the heart of industrial fruit farming in Italy (Rosi, 1965: 15-19). In Southern regions, citrus farming emerged as the biggest alternative to the backward forms of extensive cereal farming on latifundia. Thus, the antagonism between wheat and citrus fruits became a metaphor for two different oppositions. Firstly, the opposition between modern and traditional agriculture. Secondly, the opposition between the food crop essential for self-sufficiency and the cash crop that had become a luxury good with the highest rate of return despite the risks associated with negative cycles (Lupo, 1987: 82; Federico, 2009: 242). During the nineteenth century, citrus specialisation was encouraged by the steady growth of demand on international markets. The first boom took place around 1830, but its growth, encouraged by the new economic environment after national unification in 1861, became particularly great in Italy from the 1860s to the 1890s. Market conditions were relatively more difficult for oranges: the percentage of wasted products was higher, fruit was harder to conserve and there were already big competitors on international markets such as Spain and Florida. On the other hand, Italy was the largest world producer and had a quasi-monopoly of lemons. The citrus groves developed as a monoculture on the coasts of Sicily and their production could be sold both on consumer fruit markets and as raw materials for agro-industry. Analysing development of the area devoted to citrus crops is not easy because of the lack of reliable data before 1909. Moreover, these data do not indicate productivity, they leave the process of specialisation or rationalisation in darkness, and they assign constant weights to new crops that did not become fully productive before ten to fifteen years. Some changes probably occurred during this period, but an overall evaluation is not easy. Nor are the data exact: while the 1909-1913 statistics estimated the total area of citrus crops at 108,400 hectares, including 46,200 hectares of specialised cultivation, growth rates amounted to 4 %, according to 1927 statistics but 23 %, according to the general agricultural cadastre established in 1929 (Italia Agricola, 1928: 1089; Rodanò, 1938).

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture Table 8.1. Number of citrus trees by administrative region, 1870-1927

Region

1870-1874

1890-1894

1902-1903

1927

Liguria

510,188

543,143

467,500

221,000

Lombardy

15,000

25,040

19,750

8,000

Veneto

-

1,420

1,300

-

Tuscany

-

52,205

17,100

25,000

77,850

20,000

52,500

20,000

570,000

320,000

4,754,500

7,936,000

Marche

-

81,195

Umbria

-

6,705

Lazio

-

31,814

Abruzzo and Molise

-

14,215

Apulia

344,498

466,335

Campania

795,969

1,624,448

16,635

27,737

2,665,505

3,052,935

6,040,049

10,506,905

10,600,000

17,400,000

242,683

233,359

252,000

370,000

10,630,527

16,667,456

16,812,500

26,320,000

Basilicata Calabria Sicily Sardinia Italy (total)

Source: L. Franciosa, ‘Notizie e dati statistici su l’agrumicoltura italiana’, L’Italia agricola, 65, 12, December 1928, p. 1088.

The growth of the total production is easier to establish from data on customs and agro-industrial production. This positive cycle proceeded, almost without interruption, until the First World War. In the 1860s, total production was around 250 million kilos, half lemons, half oranges, but it doubled in twenty years and surpassed 500 million kilos in the first half of the 1880s. At the beginning of the twentieth century the growth rates increased and production reached 900-1,000 million kilos just before the beginning of the War, which marked a sort of parenthesis for production but did not bring about a real decline. During this period, due to their industrial uses, lemons took the dominant place in Italian citrus production. Three main producing areas emerge from the statistics on citrus trees: the Northern, Central and Southern regions2. The specialised citrus farming of the Northern region was in Liguria and on Lake Garda, while in the Central and Southern regions, the rich citrus groves were often near the coast and contrasted in every way with the extensive cereal crops (Italia Agricola, 1928:

2 Sicily and the province of Reggio Calabria compose the Southern region; the Central region consisted of the other provinces of Calabria, the provinces of Naples and Sorrento in Campania, plus Basilicata, Puglia, Lazio and Sardinia. All the rest of Italy is included in the Northern region.

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1086). The high profits of the first phase explain why there was so much enthusiasm for citrus crops but also why a crisis arose, because of excessive numbers of citrus trees and the consequences of the Long Depression of the late nineteenth century. It was only at the end of the century that the production of the newly planted trees stabilised and that effective specialisation and rationalisation took place. The South of Italy and the islands became the core region of Italian citrus production and agricultural specialisation took on more and more importance because of innovations on the production side, plus falling transport costs and better trade routes (Table 8.1). In the Northern region, on the contrary, citrus crops suffered from competition from the developing fruit- and flower- growing sectors. During the second half of the nineteenth century, fruit took on ever-increasing importance in Italian trade flow on international markets. Fruits made up 20 % of the total value of agrifood exports at the beginning of the 1870s but exceeded 30 % three decades later; and, despite the crisis, this growth continued at a moderate but steady pace. The place of citrus fruits was crucial to the total value of food exports, even though, from the 1890s onwards, other fruits, both fresh and dried, were definitely more important. However, although around 30 % of yearly citrus production entered the international markets in the mid-1880s, a further distinction has to be made between the different types of citrus fruits: lemon exports constituted between 50 and 60 % of total production, while only one third of the oranges and tangerines produced in Italy were sold on international markets before the First World War. Despite the higher profits and demand for top quality fruits (Garrido, 2010), the consumer market was not the sole alternative for farmers. As several authors have shown for citrus, lower quality fruits and waste materials (citrus peel, for example) could be used in the food industry for their juice or essential oils or to make pectin or preserves (Rodanò, 1938). However, the main industrial use of lemons was in the production of citric acid. Here, Sicily held an undisputed position, providing a great part of the citric acid for world consumption, before the development of other biochemical processes and substitute products (Perrot, 1932: 34). Thus, the Italian primary sector was deeply embedded in international trade dynamics: on the one hand, imports ensured the availability of certain commodities, including wheat, on the other hand, exports, of which citrus fruits were an essential part, provided substantial profits. The data shows that agrifood imports absorbed a significant amount of what was spent on imports (20 to 25 % between 1890 and the First World War) and that cereals accounted for about half of this (Figure 8.1), while exports contributed large amounts of money to national income, of which fruit farming’s share exceeded 30 % (Figure 8.2). Thus, international trade in food products had important macroeconomic effects, showing the crucial role of the primary sector in orienting the Italian interwar path within the general crisis of the capitalist world-economy. Confronted by widespread protectionist measures, regulation of agricultural

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 1862 1865 1868 1871 1874 1877 1880 1883 1886 1889 1892 1895 1898 1901 1904 1907 1910 1913 1916 1919 1922 1925 1928 1931 1934 1937 1940

0%

% agrofood on the total value of imports

% wheat on the total value of imports

Figure 8.1. Share of wheat and agrofood products in the total value of Italian imports, 1862-1940. Source: database Bankit-FTV.

40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 1862 1865 1868 1871 1874 1877 1880 1883 1886 1889 1892 1895 1898 1901 1904 1907 1910 1913 1916 1919 1922 1925 1928 1931 1934 1937 1940

0%

% agrofood products on the value of exports

% fruits on the value of exports

Figure 8.2. Share of fruits and agrofood products in the total value of Italian exports, 1862-1940. Source: database Bankit-FTV.

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imports and exports became policy instruments to improve the balance of payments and free capital that could be allocated to alternative investments and employed in other economic sectors (Federico, 1991; Petri, 2004; Tullio, 2007). This purpose explains the decision of the fascist regime to implement a policy of import-substitution supported by exports (Federico et al., 2011: 5). In the agricultural sector, these policies inspired the well-known Battle of Wheat but also subsidies in favour of certain cash crops. In the following sections, I will explore the determinants and the effects of this approach by looking at the linked dynamics of wheat and citrus fruits. At the same time, I will analyse interwar agrarian changes through changes on the production side, in markets and in agri-food chains.

III. The citrus alternative In the Southern regions of Italy, citrus farming was one of the most important and profitable alternatives to poor agriculture based on cereals. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the high profits of the citrus sector were guaranteed by the existence of a double market system. On the one hand, fruits were sold as food on the local consumer markets or through middle and long-distance trade. On the other hand, they were processed as raw materials and the industrial sector functioned as a price regulator, absorbing a variable portion of total yearly production (Lupo, 1987: 108). However, since the beginning of the twentieth century, several factors worked together to undermine this mechanism and bring about a permanent crisis in the Italian citrus sector. Italy’s quasi-monopoly of citrus production led to an oversupply of new plantation and higher surpluses, while production costs stagnated and traditional farming systems persisted. Various solutions emerged to protect prices: regulating total supply by limiting the areas given over to citrus growing and organising farmers in specialised unions with responsibility for marketing. Such measures could in fact have a short-term impact but they did not change the technical and economic weaknesses of the Italian citrus sector when faced with intensified international competition. In addition to Spain – the traditional competitor of Italy on the orange market – other countries around the world were developing citrus production. Some trading partners abandoned Italy for other and closer suppliers; thus the United Kingdom preferred to buy fruit from Palestine and South Africa, and the United States met their domestic demand from the orchards of Florida and California. Despite ever-increasing competition in the orange market, Italy remained the world leader for lemons. In the late 1920s, Italy provided only 13 % of the quantity of oranges traded internationally, but 94 % of lemons (Italia Agricola, 1928: 973-974). By country, Italian citrus exports went more and more towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. This geographical specialisation explains why the First World War had such a negative effect: commercial

84.0

2,800

73.5

2,400

63.0

2,000

52.5

1,600

42.0

1,200

31.5

800

21.0

400

10.5

Value (millions 1913 lira)

3,200

-

1897 1899 1901 1903 1905 1907 1909 1911 1913 1915 1917 1919 1921 1923 1925 1927 1929 1931 1933 1935 1937 1939

Quantity (thousands of quintals)

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture

Lemons (quantity) Lemons (value)

Oranges and tangerines (quantity) Oranges and tangerines (value)

Figure 8.3. Quantity and value of citrus exports, 1897-1939 (in 1913 lira). Source: database Bankit-FTV.

relations with Russia were suspended after the Bolshevik Revolution, while fruit imports took a long time to recover in Germany and in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire (Italia Agricola, 1928: 952-955). When the Fascism came to power, there were already many problems and weaknesses in the citrus sector, even though the value of exports grew between 1923 and 1927 as citrus prices trended upward on the world market. This dynamic reversed dramatically at the end of the 1920s, with a sudden collapse in the price of oranges and tangerines; lemons remained protected for a while by the Italian monopoly of that market, so the decline in the value of lemon exports stretched on into the mid-1930s (Figure 8.3). The year 1927 marks a turning point in these data. It is at this point that two possible explanations emerge for the absolute priority given to wheat: the protectionist measures introduced in 1925, and the resulting sacrifice of cash crops, weighed down by restrictionist policies, and the effects, as predicted by Keynes, of the 1926 monetary revaluation. However, the final impact of all these factors is difficult to measure. During the 1930s, for example, the balance of payments was crucially influenced by the final outcome of the trade balance, where exports were essential to provide the national foreign currency reserves that migrant remittances could no longer support. Even though the trend of citrus prices pointed downward, the stability in the quantity of citrus exports can be seen as proof that fruit exports subsidised the improvement in the trade balance. However, the large gap between price and quantity can also be interpreted as a consequence of inelastic response by the production system to rapid changes in demand.

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50 40 30 20 10

22 19 23 19 24 19 25 19 26 19 27 19 28 19 29 19 30 19 31 19 32 19 33 19 34 19 35 19 36 19 37 19 38 19 39

19

19

19

21

0

20

Price per quintal (in 1913 lira)

60

Lemons (export)

Oranges (export)

Lemons (domestic market)

Oranges (domestic market)

Figure 8.4. Citrus prices on the export and domestic wholesale markets (in 1913 lira). Source: database Bankit-FTV (export prices) and ICS, 1968 (prices on domestic market).

The international economic crisis gave an impetus towards bilateralism in trade relations during the 1930s, with quotas and agreements based on the clearing system (Gagliardi, 2006: 43-46). Italy joined in so as to better monitor and manage its reserves of foreign currency, even though it would in principle have favoured a less restrictive system, which would have given it higher profits, with tariff protection for specific products. These measures, aimed at reducing national trade deficits, depressed demand and brought about a general price decline on international markets. Widespread protectionism and the falling prices – particularly large for oranges and tangerines – explain the decline in the total value of Italian citrus exports that continued until 1936, when the lira was devalued by 41% (Tullio, 2007: 371). The government tried to redirect part of production towards the domestic market. Hence the policy of lowering prices was designed to make citrus fruits more popular with the consumers of Northern Italy, where these products were often considered luxury goods (Lupo, 1990: 268). The experiment worked partly for oranges but less so for lemons. Success was limited by the wider price gap between the export and domestic markets (Figure 8.4). It was only after the mid-1930s that it really became possible to sell part of the total production at domestic prices, even though producers preferred to export their produce. Public authorities tried to regulate the market and impose standards, but several conflicts emerged and local offices often disputed the common guidelines laid down by the central authorities (Lupo, 1990: 269-270). The crisis probably took some time to emerge in the lemon sector because of Italy’s privileged position in the world market. Moreover, this crisis was

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture

not a cyclical shock but a general crisis caused by the declining use of lemons in industry, particularly in the production of citric acid, where alternative materials gradually replaced fruit. Since the late 1920s, the process based on biological fermentation wiped out an important part of the global demand for lemons, and its large-scale development in the United States eroded the biggest foreign market for the Italian product. This substitute was not as good as lemons, but it was cheaper, and the ‘turn to chemicals’ had a durable effect on the traditional citric acid industry (Perrot, 1932: 76). The Italian government adopted several measures to counteract its negative effects; in 1932-1935, it concluded commercial agreements aimed at regulating the market and sharing world output of citric acid between countries, according to the type of process used (Italia Agricola, 1933: 231-232; Lupo, 1990: 263). However, the decline of the traditional industry was irreversible, as was the double-market mechanism of keeping up prices by selling lemons as both fruits and raw materials. During the 1920s and 1930s, the state stepped up its intervention in agriculture, and part of it came in the citrus sector. The new measures were mainly directed towards regulating the industrial and commercial side. Particular attention was paid to citric acid, as we have seen, but care was also given to the production of essential oils3, juices and to other forms of food-processing4. On the production side, the government had always tried to monitor the technical aspects and yearly production. Growing exports and expanded consumer markets had prompted state authorities to take specific measures to impose higher quality standards. However, since the late nineteenth century, intensive farming and the growth of trade had also aided the spread of pathogenic agents. Public action thus became crucial to coordinating the response to plant pests and diseases that could rapidly destroy citrus plantations5. The State became directly engaged; it set up new legal frameworks, and launched financial and technical programmes during the interwar period to encourage farm modernisation and to help restore plague-stricken plantations6. What came first, however, for public authorities, was controlling trade and exports, especially in the late 1920s after the economic crisis and the monetary revaluation of 1926 hurt the Italian agrifood sector on international markets (Cohen, 1972; Cavalcanti, 2007). These effects can be clearly seen in the rise of bilateral agreements during the 1930s aimed at reinforcing the regulation



3 See the decree 20 April 1936, n. 1591, and the decree 5 October 1936 focusing on bergamot. 4 See the decree 6 July 1933, n. 2414. 5 Different types of citrus diseases can be cited, for example gummosis and root rot, the mal secco, the brown rot etc., or pests – such as the cochineal insects – that attacked the plants or the fruits. 6 See for example, during the 1930s, government loans to combat cochineal insects or for the restoring the Sicilian citrus plantations destroyed by the mal secco (Italia Agricola, 1933: 341-347).

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of agricultural trade. At the same time, rising standards and quality levels in the world citrus market reduced the economic advantage of producers who neglected high-quality fruits and preferred to satisfy the strong demand for middle-range fruit (Garrido, 2010). Two points were of primary importance in Italy, as for competitors in other countries. Firstly, the farming system had to be modernised. Secondly, it was crucial to rationalise the citrus sector to make Italian fruit more competitive on international markets (Italia Agricola, 1933: 367-375). Special agencies were created to aid and promote national products, such as the Istituto nazionale per l’esportazione (INE), set up by the decree of 18 April 1926, n. 800 (Groja, 1965). The INE worked to impose new quality standards on Italian products and it paid special attention to the fruit sector, particularly to the citrus trade. The decree of 12 August 1927 identified four quality categories of citrus fruit: primissima, prima, seconda and terza. Phytosanitary norms and packaging standards were defined and the INE also took responsibility for the national brand, created by the law of 23 June 1927, n. 1272. To begin with, the use of the national brand was optional and authorised for exporters previously registered and constantly monitored. Following the general trend in international markets, the decree of 4 October 1928, n. 2221, extended the quality control mechanism to all products destined for foreign markets and the decree of 20 December 1937, n. 2213, made the national brand compulsory for all exports. Quality had gradually become the crucial issue and the means to regulate agricultural markets (Stanziani, 2005). Finally, the mechanism of preventive selection was imposed and implemented through inspections and the register of authorised exporters established by the law of 31 December 1931, n. 1806 (Italia Agricola, 1928: 981). Important transformations took place in the citrus sector during the interwar period and this point calls into question the ‘sacrifice of the Italian citrus production’, posited by contemporary observers. Was the sacrifice due to external causes? Or was it a consequence of the reorganisation and rationalisation of the Italian citrus sector, which had lost its dominant position on the world markets? Before discussing these hypotheses in the concluding remarks, we now turn to the dynamics of wheat, the dominant crop in the 1920s and 1930s.

IV. The battle of the two wheats Italy was both a net-importer of wheat and an exporter of cash crops at the time when the fascist regime chose to target wheat, the ‘dominant crop’, with a set of protectionist and intensifying policies traditionally known as the Battle of Wheat. Antifascist publications attacked the official propaganda and, in international journals, preferred to talk of ‘a battle against the consumer of wheat’ (Salvemini, 1931: 40). National statistics confirm, moreover, that the per capita consumption of calories declined until the mid-1930s at the earliest,

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture

and recent studies point out how food policy fitted in to fascist policies of managing population as a strategic resource (Helstosky, 2004). Never the less, during the interwar period, the fascist propaganda machine and also several scientific organisations, such as the International Institute of Agriculture, based in Rome, gave world-wide exposure to the Italian grain intensification and protectionist campaign. The great notoriety of the technocratic side of the Battle of Wheat attracted foreign experts and international observers who were particularly interested in the results for cereal production and its effect on other crops. Carl T. Schmidt, for example, examined the agricultural situation of Fascist Italy in his book The Plough and the Sword, published in 1938 by Columbia University Press. Here, he put the policies he had already studied in the previous years into a wider setting, arguing that: Italy is by nature excellently adapted to the production of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and vines. The mild Mediterranean climate and the soil permit the growing not only of most temperate fruits and vegetables, but also of many subtropical plants […] Methods of cultivation, harvesting, packing, and transport have lagged behind, and costs of production have remained high. If anything like the attention paid to wheat had been given to these crops, no doubt substantial progress could have been made (Schmidt, 1936: 652). The Battle of Wheat, presented as a central element of agricultural policy and the means to modernise agriculture and feed the nation, was also the first large-scale economic programme that the fascist regime launched in the primary sector (Staderini, 1978; Legnani et al., 1982; Saraiva, 2016). Thus, the Battle of Wheat can be viewed as a way of approaching the complex situation of the Italian countryside in the interwar period. Italy suspended grain protectionism during the First World War (Federico, 1984) and the reintroduction of customs duty on wheat in 1925 was presented as a way of increasing national production and achieving self-sufficiency in cereals. But other aims and concerns lay behind the decision, as a response to the hard circumstances of the mid-1920s. At that time, agrarian lobbies were expressing dissatisfaction after several years of bad grain harvests. For its part the fascist regime needed to stress its modernising mission rather than its repressive one, to win over the sector of public opinion that had been disturbed by the totalitarian implications of the murder of socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti in 1924. From this point of view, the idea of increasing national wheat production to feed the people was a cheap but rapidly effective policy and one which produced big returns to investment in terms of political consensus. Moreover, the timing of the campaign was cleverly chosen. Following the exceptionally good year of 1925, the decline in 1926 was explained by the law of alternation of good and bad harvests: ‘if the harvest was not good, the weather was to blame, while if it was not any worse than it had been, the credit was Mussolini’s’ (Salvemini, 1931: 31).

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Wheat national production (in t) Durum wheat (import, in t+1)

1940

1939

1938

1937

1936

1935

1934

1933

1932

1931

1930

1929

1928

1927

1926

1924

1925

1923

1922

1921

85,000 80,000 75,000 70,000 65,000 60,000 55,000 50,000 45,000 40,000 35,000 30,000 25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 0 1920

Wheat (thousands of quintals)

n i cco lò m i g n e m i 

Soft wheat (import, in t+1)

Figure 8.5. National production and imports of soft wheat and durum wheat, 1920-1940. Source: database Bankit-FTV (imports) and ICS, 1968 (national production).

Wheat protectionism can also be seen as indirectly counterbalancing the advantages granted to the industrial sector, and a sort of compensation for the 1926 revaluation of the lira that had hurt Italian agricultural exports on international markets. Together with the economic interest of farmers, macroeconomic equilibriums played an important role too. Italy was traditionally a net importer of wheat, which had always taken up a significant portion of the national budget. Thus, the Battle of Wheat encouraged a policy of import substitution. Wheat imports, which in 1922-1923 had made up more than 50 % of the total value of agrifood brought in to the country, were reduced to 20-30 % in normal years. The effort focused in particular on soft wheat, a sector where the quantity imported rapidly declined, falling in ten years from 21 to 5-6 million quintals (Figure 8.5). Durum wheat, mostly employed in the industrial production of pasta, continued to be imported until 1930 when the volumes fell in parallel with a big increase in world prices. A great deal of public money and an impressive propaganda machine supported the Battle of Wheat, which was presented as a far-reaching policy to favour cereal producers and the first experience of the totalitarian approach to State intervention in the economy (Legnani, 1982: 24). In specific circumstances (IIA, 1928 and 1931, n. 2) and through multilingual publications, Fascist Italy celebrated the Battle of Wheat all over the world as a laboratory for the new way of organising and governing economic and social forces, from the central down to the local level. The Permanent Wheat Committee was created in 1925 to deal with the problem of seed selection, the problem of manure and in general of technical improvement, and the problem of prices (Saraiva, 2016: 23-26). Agriculturalists, farmers’ unions, experts and

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture

local bureaux were to coordinate their efforts to increase production ‘by the more and more extensive application of sound rules of corn technique and rationalization of cultures promoted and assisted by the Corn Battle. A contribution to it will be given also by the gradual accomplishment of the works of hydraulic land reclamation’ (Fileni, 1930: 69), as explained in the English version of an official report. Autarky and widespread protectionism, moreover, was spreading widely in reaction to the world crisis of the 1930s (IIA 1931, after IIA) and different countries encouraged productivity programmes and State regulation in the wheat sector, as was the case in France (Chatriot et al., 2012; Chatriot, 2016). In Italy, cereal policies moved towards full control of the production chain. Seed selection and standardisation were developed to obtain high-yielding varieties (Saraiva, 2011 and 2016), and a minimum percentage of home-grown wheat for milling was fixed and then adjusted according to the yearly harvest (IIA, 1933: 305-306e; Segre 1982: 17). Trade restrictions were decided on and a central storage system, called ammassi, was introduced to monitor wheat production and ensure price stability (Vaquero Piñeiro, 2012: 269). This was introduced in 1935 as a voluntary system and became mandatory the following year7, although its effectiveness was uneven and varied from one province to another. The ammassi were presented as a way to defend farmers against the economic power of merchants; they were used to collect the harvests, ensure storage and manage the wheat supply. Their involvement on the production side was also planned, according to the principles of fascist corporatism. In the end, they were ineffective, but their influence endured (Strangio, 2012). Indisputably, the Battle of Wheat had an effect on total production. Despite grain imports, net exports – leaving out temporary fluctuations – of wheat flour and pasta grew again during the interwar period (Figure 8.6), particularly to Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and confirmed the important changes that had taken place in the wheat production chain since the end of the nineteenth century (Aymard, 1989: 780-781). In the decades before the Second World War, yearly harvests were around 70 million quintals per year and in 1933 the government declared ‘victory in the Battle’. However, let us focus here on the quality of the outcome rather than on total results. In fact, the growth in the yields per hectare in Italy is undeniable but it was similar to the average of other European countries during the same period. Local effects were extremely irregular, varying from one region to another, and accentuating the existing gap between the capitalist agricultural core and the impoverished farming systems of the peripheral regions (Porisini, 1970). Agricultural experts brought in scientific and technological innovations but their efforts were first directed at intensifying farming on better soils and in advanced regions, while machines and fertilisers were little used in the rest of



7 See the decree 24 June 1935, n. 1049, creating the ammassi, the decrees 16 March 1936, n. 392, and 15 June 1936, n. 1273, for the mandatory system and its modes of operation.

181

1 82

n i cco lò m i g n e m i 

Export value (millions 1913 lira)

60 50 40

30 20

10

wheat flour

1939

1937

1933

1935

1931

1929

1927

1925

1923

1921

1919

1917

1915

1913

1911

1909

1907

1905

1903

1901

1899

1897

1895

0

pasta

Figure 8.6. Export values of wheat flour (grey line) and pasta (dotted line), 1895-1940 (in 1913 liras). Source: database Bankit-FTV.

the country (Preti, 1982: 67-69). Thus, and because of the land scarcity due to the high population density of Italy, the total wheat harvest was increased largely by extending the grain cultivating areas. Though some did take advantage of this approach in poor regions, the privilege attributed to wheat could damage the existing integrated polyculture farming system. And even if we interpret the stated objectives of the agricultural policies in a broader perspective than simply the economic one (Béaur, 2003), it is evident that protection of wheat worked, in some parts of Italy, against other crops and above all against livestock farming (Preti 1982: 35). We should also observe that, from 1921, official statistics allow us to distinguish the durum harvest from that of soft wheat. At the beginning, the proportion of the two types of wheat was mostly constant and changes were rare until the end of the 1920s (Table 8.2). It was in 1928-1929 that the constant increase in the area of durum wheat began, while areas of soft wheat declined slightly. Though the effects of the Battle of Wheat in terms of the North-South gap have been already examined (Castronovo, 1976; De Felice, 1979; Preti, 1982: 36), we can propose a different perspective here in terms of dualistic development. Rather than one single Battle of Wheat, it appears that two different battles should be identified and analysed separately: the battle of soft wheat and the battle of durum wheat. Since climate conditions limited production of durum wheat to the Central and Southern regions of Italy, the distinction between the two battles naturally leads back to the initial hypothesis of geographical dualism, which, however, needs to be further explored (Map 8.1; De Cillis, 1927). In fact, comparing the pre-war period

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture Table 8.2. Harvested area (in hectares) of soft wheat and durum wheat in the macroregions of Italy, 1909-1937.

Macroregions

1909-1914

1919-1922

1926-1929

1930-1933

1934-1937

% growth rate**

Northern Italy

1,436,200

1,411,600

1,461,075

1,444,272

1,486,175

3,48%

Central Italy

1,018,600

1,054,200

1,046,625

1,037,065

1,075,351

5,57%

Southern Italy

1,388,050

1,316,300

1,448,075

1,466,567

1,477,053

6,41%

Sicily and Sardinia

897,300

786,200

949,950

970,742

1,029,461

14,73%

4,740,150

4,568,300

4,905,725

4,918,645

5,068,039

6,92%

Soft wheat

Italy

-

3,431,600*

3,666,500

3,589,000

3,575,000

4,18%

Durum wheat

-

1,175,800*

1,183,000

1,289,000

1,490,000

26,72%

* Data on soft wheat and durum wheat refers to the 1921-1925 average. ** The starting points for calculating the 1934-1937 growth rates are 1909-1914 for macroregions, and 1921-1925 for soft wheat and durum wheat. Source (1909-1922): Fileni, 1930. Source (1926-1937): Bollettino mensile di statistica agraria e forestale for macro-regions; ICS, 1968 (tab. 47) for soft wheat and durum wheat.

with the data on the 1930s (Table 8.2; Fileni, 1930: 63), one half of the 200,000 hectares newly dedicated to wheat was concentrated in the hills of the South and on the islands, where the dry climate was favourable to the durum crop. The contrast was not only geographical. On the one hand, the battle of soft wheat was essentially concentrated in the Po Valley, encouraging the intensification of investments on technical assets and aiming to increase productivity. The big agrarian capitalists of the Po Valley took advantage of these policies and their high total production secured the greatest part of the benefits of protectionism. The small farmers were instead penalised because ‘the duty has generally only a small effect in the first part of the commercial season ( July-December), which was explained by the fact that many agriculturists found they had to sell their crop as soon as possible in order to obtain cash’ (IIA, 1933: 303e). On the other hand, the battle of durum wheat favoured the growth of total production through the increase of the harvested area on poorer and poorer soils or at the expense of the other crops. Capital investments were small and this second battle adopted a labour-intensive approach based on the abundant and unemployed peasant workforce. Here, the rent of the big landowners gained from the protectionist policies; they were not compelled to make additional capital investments to improve the farming system. They had the advantage of the natural conditions of the Mediterranean wheat belt,

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Northern Italy

Central Italy

Southern Italy

Sardinia and

Sicily

Map 8.1. The weight of soft (grani teneri) and durum wheat (grani duri) in the total wheat surface of the provinces of Italy Source: De Cillis, 1927 (Tav. XI, the author of this chapter added the frontiers of the macro-regions).

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture

where the yields per hectare could reach up to 14-17 quintals, as attested in Sicily by the new agricultural cadastre of 1929. In the southern part of Italy, the use of the available resources – both natural and human – was preferred and the mechanisation process remained quite marginal. In Sicily, for example, 96 threshing machines operated on less than 10,000 hectares in 1928, at a time when the total wheat surface in the island exceeded 600,000 hectares. At the same date, 2,638 threshing machines were operating on 185,000 hectares in Lombardy and 3,379 on 329,000 hectares in Emilia-Romagna. Thus, in the South of Italy, the Battle of Wheat must be interpreted as a social policy that fought against unemployment by attaching the peasants to the land rather than as a policy in favour of agricultural modernisation. Here, low-input farming seemed the best solution on poor soils where alternative uses were not viable and a high surplus of rural workforce was available. On the other hand, capital and technical investments were essential to developing intensive farming on the fertile lands of the Po Valley, where wheat competed with alternative crops for the better soils.

V. Conclusion This article analyses the dynamics of the Italian primary sector, looking at the interactions between wheat and citrus fruits since the unification of Italy, with a specific focus on the 1920s and 1930s. Though the fascist regime presented the Battle of Wheat as the way to modernise the countryside during the interwar period, this article has questioned the choice of grain by examining alternative paths and durable influence on the agricultural development of Italy: did these autarkic policies contribute to feeding the nation? Did protectionism damage the commercial opportunities of Italian cash crops on international markets? Of course, we cannot reduce the agricultural dynamics of the interwar years to the contrast between food and cash crops, but it can be interesting to examine these changes by looking at the interaction between wheat, the dominant crop, and citrus fruits, the alternative crops. It was therefore useful to adopt the perspective of Joan Thirsk’s alternative agriculture, which makes it possible to analyse the influence of a dominant crop on the development of other crops. However, I have also tried to reverse the perspective and look at the fate of the alternative crops, the better to understand the trajectory of the dominant crop. The case of citrus fruits in Italy was a good test-case of this hypothesis. Especially in the Southern regions, citrus specialisation developed as a rich and export-oriented cash crop that contrasts with both the poor soils and the low-input grain farming of the large estates (Aymard, 1987). Often identified as the symbol of progress, the citrus alternative profited by its privileged position on international markets and guaranteed high profits to the Italian

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producers over several decades. This natural advantage polarised capital investments. It may be wondered whether it did not in the end remove every possible incentive to modernise cereal farming in the Italian South. Indeed, wheat and citrus fruits were rarely direct competitors for the use of the same land, but they shared the same ability to become the pivotal crop of a region, conditioning both the aims of private investments and the priorities identified for public policies. The study of these two crops, wheat and citrus fruits, proves that the dynamics of the agricultural sector during the interwar period cannot be reduced to the struggle between protectionism and free-trade. Those who made the economic policy of the fascist regime could in fact choose either solution, according to the overall situation. Thus their long-term effects need to be analysed more by looking at the internal reorganisation of the primary sector, the rationalisation of inputs and the implementation of common standards on the international markets. In the end, the foregoing analysis brings us back to the dilemma mentioned in the introduction and formulated by Cohen (1988) as follows: was Italian Fascism a developmental dictatorship? Perhaps it was, even though this hesitation mainly depends on the definition of development we choose. From an economic perspective, Fascism was ‘developmental’ insofar as it was useful to the reorganisation of Italian capitalism during the interwar period. From the agricultural perspective, fascist economic policies completed several pre-existing modernisation processes, but subordinated the primary sector to other priorities. From a social perspective, the fascist regime, rather than helping social mobility, reproduced class inequalities not only because it was non-democratic in nature, but above all by the way it distributed the profits and the costs of the interwar crisis between the different social groups earning revenues from agriculture. The answer to the question on developmental dictatorship is inevitably ambiguous. Thus, the agrarian dynamics of the interwar period seem more interesting to explore than the debate over the hypotheses of growth and stagnation. From this point of view, the category of modernising authoritarianism (Fernández-Prieto et al., 2014) is particularly useful: governing the permanent tension between modernising and conservative forces, the fascist regime secured its power and served the consensus-building process. Through technocratic State intervention that simultaneously combined heterogeneous elements within its ideological framework, Fascism finally reinforced the dualistic model of development that persisted and served as a guide to the Italian primary sector well beyond the end of the Second World War. As the interconnected dynamics of wheat and alternative crops proved for the 1920s and 1930s, it was the capitalist farmers and agri-industrial firms that took advantage of market regulation and the definition of standards, while the small peasants underwent a selection process that was to achieve modernisation for a small part, public assistance for some others and rural exodus for the large majority.

8. the battle of wheat and other fascist battles in italian agriculture

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191

Alternative Agriculture and Growth

T.J.A. Le Goff  

9. A  lternative Agriculture in Northern Burgundy The Wines of the Hôpital Général of Dijon in the Eighteenth Century I. Introduction Among the wide range of products offered by French agriculture, wine constitutes a good example of an ‘alternative agriculture’, and wine prices, like those of cattle and wool, tend, over the long term, to move in opposite directions from those of cereal crops. During periods of good grain prices – good for producers and landowners, that is – consumers are forced to shift more of their resources to the purchase of grain and bread, and to cut back other purchases. Conversely, a long fall in cereal prices is generally supposed to have given consumers more leeway to buy non-cereal products such as wine, thereby encouraging wine producers to increase their output and diversify their products. At the core of Joan Thirsk’s model of ‘alternative agriculture’ is a similar process whereby low cereal prices incite producers to try new crops and methods (Thirsk, 1997; criticisms by Poussou, 1999). Such shifts can of course be merely cyclical, thereby vitiating any long-term structural change in sectors developed or renewed in this way. If Joan Thirsk’s stories of long-term change usually end happily with a durable conversion to a new, sustainable mix of product, the customary tale told of French wine production in the eighteenth century does not. In the first half of the century, relatively high wine prices led to the expansion of vineyards. In 1937 the great Revolutionary historian Georges Lefebvre wrote an influential review article on Ernest Labrousse’s recent thesis on eighteenth-century prices, summarizing its dense text for a wider audience (Lefebvre 1937a and 1937b)1. From the relatively brief chapter on wine prices he concluded, in what became the common reading, that Much planting of vines took place during the eighteenth century; a glut developed from 1770 to 1775 and especially from 1780 to 1785; on the eve of the Revolution wine prices had gone back up, though in relation to the period 1726-1741 the rise was less than 13 %, whereas grain rose by at least 66 %; winegrowers, who were numerous and many of whom produced their

1 In his review, Lefebvre also devoted considerable space to the work of the economist François Simiand, notably Simand, 1932a and 1932b. Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 195-234.

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DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119530

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own product on a small scale, were caught, totally without resources, by the food shortages of 1788-1789 (Lefebvre, 1937a: 160; Lefebvre, 1937b: 313).2 A scenario in short, of overproduction, oversupply, impoverishment and crisis. In 1944, Ernest Labrousse published the first volume of what was intended to become a massive study, in which he explored the wine crisis of the later eighteenth century in much more detail (Labrousse, 1944, esp.: 468-487 and 578-579); in the same generation, on the regional level, Labrousse’s conclusions found an echo in, among others, Pierre de Saint Jacob’s monograph on northern Burgundy (de Saint Jacob, 1960: 314-316 and 481-482). More recent historians, particularly Michel Morineau and Louis Cullen, have cast doubt on this ‘viticultural crisis’ of the later eighteenth century, seeing evidence, in vineyard accounts and developments in the distillation and marketing of brandy, of marketing strategies including use of high output and stocks to counter periodically low prices, and generally a more organized restructuring of French vineyards by an alliance of vignerons, owners and merchants, looking to diversify strategically their production and markets (Cullen, 1998: 53-57 and 2005; Morineau, 1996, 1998, 2002)3. This paper attempts to test both the ‘alternative agriculture’ and ‘crisis’ interpretations in a case study of wine production, sales and consumption in the accounts of the Hôpital Général of Dijon, in Burgundy, which owned several vineyards in the nearby countryside (Lamarre, 2004). The Hospital cared for and fed large numbers of the sick, the aged, the poor, and its own personnel, and wine was considered to be a necessary part of their diet. It is hard to obtain exact figures on individual rations and indeed on the population of the establishment at any given time. Administrators at mid-century did their estimates on the basis of about 400-450 people; the standard daily wine ration at that point, more frugal than in many other comparable establishments, was about a quarter-litre for the poor and invalid, about half a litre for most of the personnel. These remained more or less constant until the Revolution (Lamarre, 2004: 234-242)4.





2 In the Esquisse, Labrousse, was slightly more ambiguous: ‘Le retentissement de cette hausse [of production]… sur les revenus sera considérable dans les pays de vignoble. Des quantités croissantes de vin s’échangeront, à partir de 1781, contre des quantités de blé. Toute une partie de la population française subira douloureusement cette crise “des ciseaux”…’ (Labrousse, 1933, t. I, p. 270). He also noted, correctly, divergences between long-term trends in cereal and wine prices, though pointing out that these were less pronounced than those between cereals and products such as livestock or wool (Labrousse, 1933, t. II, p. 309-332). 3 See also the general considerations in Jean-Pierre Poussou, 1989 and 2011. 4 Lamarre was relying mainly on the 1752 regulations. The problem with many of these schedules is that they were drawn up, not in order to prescribe rules for normal practice, but to impose temporary rationing in a period of shortage, e.g. Archives des Hospices de Dijon [AHD], E1 39, 08-07-1770, 15-11-1772. These archives have recently been deposited with the Archives départementales de la Côte d’Or [ADCO] where they are classified under the general heading H Dép 239. The wine accounts provide some figures for consumption

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy

II. Sources for this study There are two principal sources for this study. The first is a register of some 270 pages entitled ‘Wine expenditures’ (Dépense du vin)5. The title is misleading: in fact the document deals in volumes, not values. And it presents not only wine ‘expenditures’, that is, the wine that the hospital consumed or sold in the course of the year, but also ‘receipts’, meaning wine that entered the institution at the start and during the course of the harvest-year. The register starts in 1749 and ends in 1823. It evidently continues on from an earlier document, now lost: its first page bears the inscription ‘n° 3’ and there are allusions to it in the series of parallel ‘detailed accounts’ (see below), kept by the Hospital’s accountant6. The wine account was primarily a device for stock control. It kept track of volumes of wine entering and leaving the Hospital’s control, but only occasionally dealt with its monetary worth. Under the heading ‘expenditure’ (dépense), the accountant put together a yearly statement of (1) internal consumption, that is the volume of wine distributed to the poor, the sick and people working in the Hospital and (2) wine sales to various individuals outside the institution. Under the heading ‘receipts’ (recettes) are found the volume of wine produced for the institution by its vignerons, and the extra purchases that the Hospital had to make when internally-provided supplies ran short. All these ‘receipts’ and ‘expenditures’ are expressed in the units of volume common to Burgundy: queues, tonneaux, feuillettes, pièces, poinçons, pintes and the like; sums of money, when mentioned, are in the standard money of account, the livre tournois 7. This source is valuable, but incomplete. Not only are the data from before 1749 missing, but much else is wanting: continuous records of expenditure on labour, investment and external purchases of wine by the institution. Many of these items can be found in a different document, the registers of the ‘detailed accounts’ (comptes de détail) kept by the Hospital accountant, big ledgers summarizing the cost of all the annual expenditures and receipts of the institution. This second source goes back into the seventeenth century and earlier8, and also, looking forward, up to the end of the nineteenth century.



5 6



7



8

on a weekly basis. In 1750 (AHD, EE1 7) total consumption came to 24,734 pintes (39,574 litres) over 51 weeks. With a population of about 440, this works out to the equivalent of the prescribed average ration, a quarter-litre a day. See also AHD, EE 1 37, 06-08-1752. AHD, EE1 7. Another register, AHD, EE1 8, follows it in the series and will make it possible in the future to continue the series until 1837. Metric equivalents : 1 queue = 456L; 1 tonneau (or pièce, or poinçon) = 228L; 1 feuillette=114L; 1 pinte = 1.6L; see Saint Jacob, 1960: xxxvii and Lachiver, 1997). I have assumed all the Hospital’s tonneaux (which were locally made) to be Dijon tonneaux and not of the slightly larger capacity (257L) used in Beaune. AHD, E16 and E19.

197

1 98

T. J. A . L e Go ff

This article, however, is limited to the study of the period from 1716 to 1793, and particularly to the years between 1749 and 17899. For these purposes, the most immediately useful entries in the ‘detailed accounts’, are to be found the lists of ‘wine sales’ (ventes de vin), and, under expenditures, the various entries for ‘wine, vines and vignerons’ (vin, vignes et vignerons). Some other items in the ‘detailed accounts’ have also been used, notably those concerning income from ‘demesnes and properties’ (domaines et héritages), in order to get the amounts collected for cash rentals of vineyards and agricultural holdings, and the cost of investments in buildings and improvements, taken from the entries on ‘works’ (ouvrages) and ‘extraordinary expenditure’ (dépenses extraordinaires). The loss of the ‘wine accounts’ from before 1749 is probably no coincidence. That was the year when responsibility for the Hospital’s accounts passed, on the death of the notary Jean Philibert Maret, into the hands of another notary, François Poulet. Under his management, and even more that of his son, Pierre Bernard Poulet (in office 1763-1806), accounts took on an increasingly uniform and tidy format10. But for the historian, the less systematic habits of the earlier accountants have the advantage that their ‘detailed accounts’ often contain some of the material that they must have also entered into the registers of the now-lost ‘wine accounts’ from before 1749. In the pre-1749 ‘detailed accounts’ one often finds the volume of purchases and sales, whereas the stricter forms of the Poulets’ ‘detailed accounts’ left no room for production and internal consumption, and were written up only in terms of values, in livres tournois. This documentation has been rounded out with material from the dossiers of title deeds, exchanges, leases and the like kept by the hospital’s staff over generations, classified in its B1 series and the deliberations of the Hospital’s administrators (series E1). For the overall evolution of prices, the annual price lists of Nuits-Saint-Georges have been used, which contain both wine and grain prices. Nuits was, along with Beaune, one of the two great wholesale markets for wine in the region11.

III. T  he vineyards of the Hôpital general: location, size and changes In the eighteenth century, the Hospital had vineyards in four rural communities around Dijon (Map 9.1). One concentration was in Dijon and its suburbs, a second in the villages of Ancey and Lantenay, a few kilometres north-west of the town, and a third was at Fixin, situated not far south of the city’s gates,

9 AHD, E16 197-277. 10 On the Maret and Poulet dynasties, see Lamarre, 2004: 21. 11 ADCO, 1M1 1 (B 1-15), Livre des taux des gros fruits du bailliage de Nuits, reproduced for the most part in Lavalle, 1855: 54-66, whose monograph is widely available on the Internet.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy

though within the area of the famed Burgundy Côte, beloved of connoisseurs then as now. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, most of these vines had produced wine of some distinction, but by the middle of the century, they had fallen, in the estimation of the Hospital’s own administrators, to the status of ‘ordinaire et grand ordinaire’12. All of these growths however were overshadowed by the reputation of a fourth vineyard a few kilometres beyond Fixin on the road to Nuits and Beaune, where the Hospital began to get a footing in the last third of the seventeenth century: Chambolle. The area covered by the Hospital’s vineyards was always in flux. New vineyards were accumulated by bequests and purchases; the administrators sometimes sold or traded off parts of them; but the area of the vineyards in the Hospital’s hands virtually never shrank. Thus, when a vineyard at Lantenay (1.19 hectares), part of a bequest from a certain Mlle Joly in 1725, disappeared after mid-century13; its place was taken, so to speak, by another vineyard of similarly modest dimensions (1.114 hectares in 1764), situated at Fixin, and bequeathed to the institution in 1746 by M. Béguin, the local parish priest. More impressive was the dramatic growth of the vineyards of the Hospital at Ancey; their surface expanded threefold from 1.028 hectares in 1732 to 3.48 hectares in 1750, and then nearly doubled again in the next four years to 6.23 hectares; subsequently they appear to have kept that size until new planting began in 1810-181614. But the pride of place among the Hospital’s vines was indisputably occupied by its three vineyards at Chambolle. In the year 1681, Barthelemy Marc, a chief clerk of one of the chambers of the Parlement of Dijon, left 3.16 hectares of Chambolle vines to the Hospital15. The total area doubled a half-century later with two other legacies, one of 1.62 hectares from Mlle Rapin, a former pensionnaire of the Hospital, in 1725 and a handsome bequest of 2.47 hectares in 1746 from Jean de Berbisey, First President of the Dijon Parlement and one of the great benefactors of the institution. These two acquisitions, rounded out by two or three other parcels and some minor adjustments, brought the total area held at Chambolle to 7.75 hectares by 1784, a figure which remained constant down to the time of the Napoleonic Empire16.

12 AHD, E16 301 (1813) perceptions en nature n° 35-37, ranks Fixin as ‘bon ordinaire’, and Dijon as part ‘bon ordinaire’ but mostly ‘vin commun’; Ancey wine (except from its enclos) and wine from newly-planted vines at Chambolle was also ‘vin commun’. However the produce of the Hospital’s ‘vieilles vignes’ of Chambolle remained a high-end product under the Empire, the only wine not consumed in the Hospital itself by that point. 13 AHD, B11 lease of 30-12-1726; the last mention in the Hôpital accounts of vines in Lantenay is in 1749 : AHD, E16 232 : vignes & vignerons. 14 AHD, B1 11 (1732), EE1 7 (1751), E16 298 to 304 (1810-1816). 15 AHD, B1 85 08-11-1677, testament, with a codicil of 23-09-1680. 16 AHD, B1 91. At that point, the remains of the three bequests were as follows: Berbisey, 2.47 ha, Marc, 3.42 ha, Rapin 2.03 ha. Cf. Lamarre, 2004: 91.

199

200

T. J. A . L e Go ff

Estimates of the total area under vines are represented as a graph in Figure 9.1. They are approximations, but give a rough idea of the trend17. Total vineyard area grew through the first half of the eighteenth century, when cereal prices were low and wine sold at a premium, but stopped growing during the second half of the century, when the overall advantage lay with other crops. Or so it might seem, but in fact, within the land owned by the Hospital, vines in need of renewal would be pulled up, the land sown in sainfoin and rented out for a time before being re-planted (Lamarre, 2004: 92). And occasionally non-viticultural land owned by the hospital might be converted to vines. The effective surface of vineyards in production was thus more variable than a simple tally of properties owned might appear to indicate. Nor did all the wine that came into the Hospital actually originate in the institution’s vineyards. The Hospital possessed two cens levied on vineyards, not feudal cens but emphyteotic (proprietarial)18. The cens of Fixin appears in these documents right at the start of our period, 1716, but was probably of much older origin. It was levied in kind in Fixin and the neighbouring communities of Couchey, Fossey and Brochon19, proportionally to the harvest, and therefore reflects the ups and downs of production; it accounted for about 6 % of the volume of all wine received by the Hospital during the 1780s. The second emphyteotic cens was actually a trio of minor cens, also levied in kind, but in fixed quantities, on the exurban vineyards of Plombières, Ahuy and Asnières; it accounted for only a tenth of a percent of all wine taken in by the Hospital during the same period. From 1753 onwards, the Hôpital, as seigneur of its newly-acquired seigneurie of Ancey, collected a tithe on grain that also included some wine; at first this tithe was leased out, but from 1762 onwards, it was collected in kind; it did not amount to much either20. A more substantial flow of wine came from what the Hospital got as owner of the Ancey wine-press, from which it collected pressurage, a share of the wine paid by the locals who used it. This levy survived the Revolution; we know that

17 The Hospital also rented out to three or four small vignerons a few tiny bits of arable or chennevières (plots given over, in principle, to the cultivation of hemp), which appear at various times to have become temporary micro-vineyards. In the 1810s, plots currently under sainfoin covered 3.638 hectares, and micro-vineyards rented out amounted to less than a hectare. The comptes de détail provide evidence of similar arrangements during the eighteenth century; although the accounts do not allow us to establish the precise area of the vineyards in this state, it was probably a roughly constant proportion. 18 On the nature of these cens, see AHD, E1 41 and 42: proceedings of 20-02-1785 and 12 brumaire an 4 [13-10-1793]. 19 AHD, E16 197 (1716), p. 164. 20 The seigneurial tithe of Ancey was levied on both grain and wines, and farmed out for 430 livres a year until 1761. After that time, an indeterminate proportion of the wine recorded as coming from Ancey included wine from the tithe and wine collected from other vignerons as a fee for using the seigneurial wine-press (see below, note 21). The wine tithe at Ancey was levied at a rate of about 5%.

0.0 1725

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

1730

1735

1740

1745

1750

1760 Ancey

1755 Dijon

Fixin

1765

1775

1780 Chambolle

Source: AHD, B1 11, 14, 89; B9 17; E16 216, 219, 220, 227, 242, 298-300; EE1 7-8.

Lantenay

1770

Figure 9.1. Approximate area of Hospital vineyards, 1725-1812

hectares

30.0

1785

1790

1795

1800

1805

1810

1815

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy 201

202

T. J. A . L e Go ff

in the years 1809-1813 it amounted to 22.1 % of the volume of wine that the Hospital got from Ancey and 6.7 % of its overall wine harvest21. Figure 9.2 gives an idea of the relative quantitative importance of these vineyards, tithes and dues. As to the quality of production, it fell into two broad categories. The first was wine of ordinary quality (as at Ancey) or a mix of ordinary or middling quality (as at Dijon), used for everyday consumption by the sick, the poor and, especially, the hospital personnel. This accounted for three-quarters of the volume entering the Hospital’s cellars (see the lower graph in Figure 9.2)22 The second kind, around 15 to 25 % of the volume produced, consisted of wines too good to be used in the Hospital, except for a few bottles supplied to the gravely ill, to surgeons (to strengthen their arms and stiffen their morale during operations), to senior administrators or strategically-targeted local notables; these were almost always the good Chambolle wines. It is not surprising that Chambolle production, 15 % of the volume taken in, represented 32 % of the estimated value of wine produced. This contrast can be observed in the graph at the top of Figure 9.2, illustrating the estimated value of this production based on current prices. The Chambolle wine and sometimes the better wines from around Dijon, probably including wine from Fixin itself23, were destined for the market. Some of these wines were sold to local notables but most went to merchants from Dijon, Beaune and Nuits-Saint-Georges, who became the normal intermediaries between the region and the great consumption centres of northern and eastern France, Normandy, the Empire and, increasingly, Paris (Perriaux, 1952; de Saint Jacob, 1960: 394-396; Darcy-Bertuletti, 2009; Garnot, 2001; Poussou, 2011)24.

IV. ‘Alternative agriculture’ and entrepreneurial choices on the Hospital’s estates25 Among the agricultural activities of the Hospital, winegrowing occupied an important place. To be sure, a cursory examination of the documents does not immediately lead to this conclusion. Set against the annual average income produced by the Hospital’s ‘domains and lands’, the

21 The figures recorded in the wine accounts lump the wine-press income with the revenue from the Hospital vineyards there (e.g. AHD, E1 7, recette de 1763), but the accounts (AHD, E16 297-301) provide the amounts collected from the Directory onwards (cf. Lamarre, 2004: 246). 22 Some Dijon wines also went to the market before 1750 and after 1770. See below. 23 Fixin wine was almost never specifically designated as such, despite the great detail of the accounts. It, along with the other wines from the Dijon suburbs, had lost much of its high reputation by mid-century (Arnoux, 1728; Lachiver, 1988: 370-371). 24 ADCO, 1F 38 (Statistique Vaillant), t. 1, p. 428-429.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy % of estimated value Cens PAA 0%

Cens, Fixin 6% Fixin 4%

Ancey 22%

Chambolle 32%

Dijon 36%

% of total volume Cens PAA 0%

Cens, Fixin 6%

Fixin 4% Chambolle 15%

Ancey 42%

Dijon 33%

Figure 9.2. Volume and estimated value of Hospital wine production by place of origin, 1780-178925 Source: AHD, EE1 7, E16. 1

25 To estimate production values, the continuous price series from Nuits-Saint-Georges was used because the sporadically-recorded prices in the Hospital accounts sometimes include haulage and sometimes not. The level of Hospital prices however is very close to those of Nuits; Nuits prices were frequently used by the Hospital to calculate its debt to its métayers when it bought up their share of production, e.g. AHD, E16 219 (1738) fol. 313 bis.

203

2 04

T. J. A . L e Go ff Table 9.1 Value of Hospital agricultural and wine income compared (annual average by decade, in livres tournois)

agriculture

wine

(fields and sales meadows) (E 16)

1750-59 1760-69 1770-79 1780-89

9,405 13,637 17,068 27,089

1,485 1,212 3,898 5,889

sales as % of income from fields and meadows

estimated in-house wine consumption (production sales)

total wine production

15.8 8.9 22.8 21.7

3,418 5,302 5,452 4,652

4,903 6,514 9,351 10,541

total wine production as % of field and meadow income 52.1 47.8 54.8 38.9

Source: AHD, E16 197-277.

amount coming from the sale of its wine might seem slight (Table 9.1), only around one-fifth of the value of agricultural rents. But this is to ignore the considerable amount of wine consumed by the Hospital’s poor and its patients, for whom it was an essential element of nutrition and therapy according to the received medical wisdom of the time, and by the personnel looking after them. As this table shows, a calculation of what the institution would have been obliged to pay in order to buy the amounts of its wine consumed by its own people (staff, patients and poor) leads to a surprising conclusion. When the value of the Hospital’s wines consumed within its own walls is included in the calculation, the value of the institution’s total wine production reaches about 40-50 % of what it earned from its various farms, fields and meadows. Of course, when the product of its vines did not meet its people’s needs, the price to pay for the equivalent amounts on local markets or from local vignerons in Dijon, Ancey, Chalon-sur-Saone, Chagny, Gy-l’Évêque and similar places, sometimes in the form of grapes for vinification26, could be heavy (Figures 9.3 and 9.6). In very bad years, the administration would cut back on hospital rations. This happened for example in November 1789, when ‘because of the rarity and current high price of wine’, the administrators temporarily distributed the health-giving liquid more parsimoniously27. The healthy poor suffered the largest cutbacks, the old folk, the ill and the nursing 26 Grape purchases in AHD, E16 223-260, E1 36, 39 for 1742, 1745-1746, 1748, 1751, 1766-1772 and 1774. 27 AHD, E1 41 Registre des délibérations, 29-11-1789. Other temporary cutbacks occurred in 1737, 1744, 1749-1750, 1759, 1767 and 1770. See Lamarre, 2004: 240, note 25 and AHD, E1 38, 07-01-1759, E1 39, 02-12-1770, 09-12-1770.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy

personnel were let off more lightly (Lamarre, 2004: 240). But the beliefs and practices of the period made it difficult to eliminate the ration completely for any length of time.

V. Entrepreneurial choice and economic fluctuations Adjusting production and sales to economic fluctuations was therefore crucial. How might the administrators have viewed the economic environment, and how did they respond to it? Given their resources and stock of capital, given their mandate to feed and slake the thirst of their charges and their staff, did it make sense to own vineyards? And if so, how should the vineyards be used? We can begin to answer this question by trying to put ourselves in their shoes. Was their switch to this ‘alternative agriculture’, wine, by the accumulation of vineyards in the first half of the century, justified? That depends on how they saw the relation between grain and wine prices. The essential data come from the annual series of wine and grain prices at Nuits-St-Georges28. Figure 9.3 gives an overview of the movement of these prices in the long term, while Figure 9.4 draws attention to the changing relationship between the two prices, based on the rates at which the prices of the two products accelerated. The purpose of this exercise, it should be emphasized, is not to explain wine price formation or calculate profits and losses, but rather to approximate what producers and landowners in a position to substitute one crop for another, or to acquire one type of land and sell another, might have sensed as ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ crops, judging on market performance in the previous few years. These figures bring out nicely the relative stagnation of grain prices during the ‘agricultural depression’ of the first half of the century, and the consequent incitement they offered to intensify investment in viticulture rather than in cereals. Shifting part of the Hospital’s resources to wine production undoubtedly made sense at that point. Around 1745-1749, the relation of wine and grain was reversed. It might be asked whether it made economic sense to carry on producing wine after then. Now a cyclical rise of cereal prices, a dominant feature of the second half of the century, turned wine, despite some exceptional years, into an apparently more risky investment. We know that the Hospital authorities did not acquire any more vineyard land after 1754. But they did not sell it off or trade it away in significant quantities either. Instead, they tried to make the best of the existing situation. With what success? The Hospital’s production of both ordinary and Chambolle wine first reached a peak at the start of the 1760s and then fell back to mid-century levels. Then production began to recover the

28 ADCO, 1M1 1 (B 1-15); Lavalle, 1855.

205

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

1720

1740

wheat (froment beau), Nuits

1730

Chambolle wine

1750

1760

1770 ordinary wine (Pays-bas), Nuits

1780

Source: ADCO, 1M1 (B 1-15); Lavalle, 1855 : 54-56.

Figure 9.3. Price of wheat and wine at Nuits-St-Georges (index 1750-1759 = 100, 7-year moving averages)

indice 1750-1759 = 100)

206 T. J. A . L e Go ff

1725-1734

1730-1739

1735-1744

1740-1749

1745-1754

1755-1764

1760-1769

1765-1774 spread ordinary wine - wheat

1750-1759

spread Chambolle wine - wheat

1770-1779

Source: ADCO, 1M1 (B 1-15); Lavalle, 1855 : 54-56.

Figure 9.4. Comparison of ten-year growth rates in wheat and wine prices, Nuits-St-Georges, 1720-1789

-8.0% 1720-1729

-6.0%

-4.0%

-2.0%

0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

12.0%

1775-1784

1780-1789

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy 207

208

T. J. A . L e Go ff

lost ground by stages between 1765 and 1780. Finally, at the start of the 1780s, it climbed to hitherto unprecedented levels, practically twice the output of the 1750s, before suddenly falling back to the 1750-1754 threshold at the start of the Revolution – but the reasons for that were beyond anyone’s control. Figure 9.5 illustrates the total wine produced by the Hospital in column form, as absolute values, to give a sense of the change in overall volume coming in to its cellars, while the amounts of wine coming from each group of vineyards have been drawn to a semi-logarithmic scale, to bring out the underlying similarities and differences in their evolution. Among other things, these local data show that the amounts handed over to the Hospital from the wine tithe of Fixin, which depended on the output of winegrowers along the Côte, not otherwise linked to the Hospital, paralleled fairly closely the behaviour of the Hospital’s own vineyards (see the solid, fine line at the bottom of the graph). This makes these data of wider significance, suggesting that the Hospital’s wine output probably resembles the general trend of production on the northern end of the celebrated Côte. This ought not to have been good news, because it suggests that the Hospital’s wine production contributed to the strong downward trend in wine prices after 1770 that Ernest Labrousse viewed as a sign of serious overproduction and inelastic, weak demand, leading to a violent crisis in the course of the 1780s, culminating in the disastrously abundant year 1785. If that is true, the Hospital administrators would have made a bad choice indeed in gambling on the future of this peculiar form of ‘alternative agriculture’. Was that the case? The Hospital accounts appear to exonerate its administrators. When the value of the wines sold on the market is taken into account, the institution seems to have come out well. Sales went up appreciably across the century (Figure 9.6). They weathered the crisis of the mid 1780s by using their cellars to store their wine, releasing it to the market when prices became reasonable. Of course it may be claimed that these sales were made into the upper end of the market, consisting mainly of Chambolle wine plus a certain number of barrels from its good growths around Dijon, and that this says nothing about overall production and earnings. But the Hospital was no ordinary marchand-propriétaire. It had a higher mission, to feed and slake the thirst of its patients, its poor and its personnel, and most of its vineyards’ output was devoted to this end. Had it succeeded commercially on the upper end of the market but failed to meet its primary obligation? To better answer the question, an attempt has been made to estimate the monetary value of the Hospital’s total wine production, using the volume figures from the Recette du vin in series EE 1 7, and the annual prices recorded for ordinary wine as well as Chambolle wines at Nuits-Saint-Georges (Figure 9.7). Of course this is a virtual statistic, since the Hospital put relatively little of its ordinary wine on the market, but the procedure is legitimate: if a harvest was poor, the market was where the Hospital would be forced to buy its vin ordinaire. As even ordinary wine could

production by vineyard in feuillettes (log scale)

1775

1780

Fixin, cens (log sc.)

1770

Ancey (log sc.)

1765

Chambolle (log sc.)

1760

Total (absolute val.)

1755

Dijon (log sc.)

1785

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Source: AHD, EE1 7.

Figure 9.5. Evolution of production volume by place of origin (semilog scale) and total (absolute values)

5

50

500

900

1,000

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy 209

total production in feuillettes (absolute values)

-10,000

-5,000

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

1715

1720

1725

1730

1735

1740

1745 purchases

1750

1755 sales

Source: AHD, E16 197-280.

Figure 9.6. Value of wine bought and sold by the Hospital, 1715-1795

livres tournois

1765 balance

1760

1770

1775

1780

1785

1790

1795

210 T. J. A . L e Go ff

0 1750

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

1755

1760

1770

Chambolle, 5-yr. avg.

1765

other wines, 5-yr. avg.

1775

1780

1785

Source : AHD, EE1 7, E16, ADCO, 1M1 1(B1-15) ; Lavalle, 1855 : 54-56.

Figure 9.7. Minimum estimated value of total production (including in-house consumption), 1750-1791

livres tournois

9,000

1790

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy 211

212

T. J. A . L e Go ff

be very expensive in a bad year, it was important to cover in-house needs. The risk was real: the Hospital’s wine production sometimes did fall short of its internal needs during the second half of the century (Figure 9.8). We do not know the volume of wine produced and sold in the first half of the century, but to judge from the balance between the cash value of sales and purchases of wine (Figure 9.6), the situation must have been much worse in the earlier period, before 1749, because the hospital’s ability to produce for internal consumption was very limited then. It was therefore urgent to fill the void. Two solutions lay open to the administrators: (1) producing more wine for the Hospital’s own common consumption or (2) selling its quality wine. Both these courses appear to have been successfully followed. The cash value of the overall harvest, both common wines and the good wine from Chambolle, crossed a threshold in the 1770s, and then remained at a high level for a whole generation (Figure 9.10). To be sure, in-house consumption of Hospital wine continued to take a big share of production. After an encouraging start in the 1750s and early 1760s, production was hit hard in the later 1760s and during the 1770s, particularly by the failure of the Ancey holdings to live up to expectations (Figure 9.9). Finally, towards the end of that decade, the Hospital’s investments at Ancey and Dijon began to pay off, and the sale of the Hospital’s high-end Chambolle and other quality production took up the rest of the slack, making up for any additional cost of wine purchases for the Hospital. Moreover, the Hospital managed to set aside reserves from the late 1770s onwards (Figure 9.8). These reserves allowed the Hospital to profit from the generally low wine prices of the 1780s, waiting out the bad years and selling when demand resumed. These findings thus support the views of Michel Morineau and Louis Cullen. For the Hôpital, there was no Labroussian crisis – and, despite difficulties, during the twenty-seven years after 1772, there were no more restrictions on the wine given to the Hospital’s wards and servants29.

VI. Paths to growth What of ‘alternative agriculture’ in all of this? Were the efforts of the Hospital’s administrators simply an isolated, local case, in a region already heavily specialised in wine production, or were they part of a wider regional pattern of structural change whose magnitude and nature correspond to Joan Thirsk’s model? One thing is clear: as far as the scale of change is concerned, the shift in wine production in the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was not at all trivial. While it is true that Burgundy did have winegrowing as

29 AHD, E1 39-41. They returned with the breakdown of order and collapsing production in the fall of 1789.

-600

-400

-200

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1745

surplus/deficit

1750

1760

stock at start of year

1755

1765

Source: AHD, E16.

1775

1780

non-Chambolle Hospital production

1770

Figure 9.8. Consumption and surpluses/deficits by volume, 1749-1793

feuillettes of 114 litres

1600

1790

consumed in-house

1785

1795

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy 213

0 1750-54

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

1755-59

1760-64 Dijon

1765-69 Chambolle

Ancey

1770-74 Mardor

Source: AHD, EE1 7.

Figure 9.9. Volume of yearly wine sales by place of origin (5-year averages)

feuillettes (114 litres)

Fixin

1775-79 "vin"

1780-84

1785-89

1790-93

214 T. J. A . L e Go ff

0 1750-54

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

1755-59

1760-64 Ancey

1765-69 Chambolle

1770-74 Mardor

Dijon

Source: AHD, E 16.

Figure 9.10. Value of yearly wine sales by place of origin (5-year averages)

livres tournois

3,500

Fixin

1775-79 "vin"

1780-84

1785-89

1790-93

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy 215

216

T. J. A . L e Go ff

one of its specialities at the start of our period, it should be remembered that Burgundy was not at that point – and still is not – a region totally given over to vineyards. Even if we concentrate, as in Robert Laurent’s solid study of the nineteenth-century Burgundy vineyard, on the winegrowing heart of the province, the famous Côte d’Or called simply la Côte30 – the ridge and slope that parallels the course of the Saône southwest from Dijon towards Beaune and beyond (Laurent, 1957), we can see that winegrowing in the eighteenth century, was still a shadow of what it was later to become by the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Although there are no overall data for Burgundy which allow us to put figures to the advance of regional specialisation in wine during the Old Regime, it is generally agreed that a great deal of land was converted to viticulture in the province during the course of the eighteenth century. These impressions become quantifiable certitudes from the early years of the nineteenth century onward, with the compilation of reliable data from fiscal sources in Vaillant’s massive survey of the department of the Côte-d’Or31. From that vantage point, we can measure the impact of another eighty years of viticultural expansion in the figures of another exhaustive survey, by the Dijon Chamber of Commerce, completed just in time before the devastation wreaked by the phylloxera pandemic of the 1880s and 1890s32. To illustrate the scope for change still open ten years after the end of the old regime, I have followed Robert Laurent’s method of focusing on the traditional, specialised wine-producing communes of the Côte (Laurent, 1957, t. 2: 144-145). The data summarised in Table 9.2 and Map 9.1 make it clear that around 1800, in the specialised vineyard communes, even after the expansion of the eighteenth century, there was still much room for new vineyards: only 16 % of their total area was under vines at the start of the nineteenth century! Some of these communes were naturally more specialised than others; the principal producing area at that time, the Côte de Beaune, had 43 % of its surface under vines, followed by the Côte de Dijon (excluding the town), with 29 % and the town itself (21 %). Four generations later, in 1880, the total area under vines in these winegrowing communes had grown by over half again. In absolute terms, vineyards expanded most in the Côte de Nuits and the Arrière-côtes of Beaune and Nuits but this is partly a function of the differences in surface available for production of all kinds. A table of indices for the area under cultivation gives a better idea of the pattern of change (Table 9.2). Here we can see that the area under vines generally grew at the expense of woodland but also of arable and pasture. The degree of vineyard expansion was greatest in the

30 In 1790, the new administrative region of the Department of the Côte d’Or took its name from this geographical formation, but the Department covers a much larger area than the Côte itself. 31 ADCO, 1F38(1) Statistique du département de la Côte d’Or. t. 1, p. 712-738. 32 Chambre de Commerce de Dijon, 1880: 282-331.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy

Map 9.1. Regions of the Côte in 1800, showing share of surface occupied by different products Source: ADCO, 1F38(1) Statistique du département de la Côte d’Or t. 1 p. 712-738; Robert Laurent, Les vignerons de la « Côte-d’Or » au xixe siècle, Paris, Société Les Belles Lettres, 1957, t. 2, p. 144-145; Chambre de Commerce de Dijon. Statistique commerciale, industrielle & agricole du Département de la Côte d’Or, Dijon, Imprimerie Eugène Jobard, 1880, p. 282-331.

217

218

T. J. A . L e Go ff Table 9.2. Expansion of agricultural land, woodland and vines in the Côte, 1800-1880 (Index 1800 = 100)

Arable & pasture

Woods

Vines

85

144

241

Arrière-côte de Dijon

91

69

261

Arrière-côte de Nuits

90

91

247

Côte de Beaune

47

91

113

Côte de Dijon

96

82

132

Côte de Nuits

79

91

221

Arrière-côte de Beaune

Dijon

80

0

188

Pays-bas de Beaune

90

44

94

Pays-bas de Dijon

89

81

264

Pays-bas de Nuits

100

65

282

86

75

153

Total, Côte Source: see Map 9.1.

Pays-bas of Nuits (index = 282) and Dijon (264) and in the Arrière-côte of Dijon (261). Older vineyards such as the Côtes de Beaune with an index of only 113 were closer to their maximum potential already and as a result had less room for new vineyards. But with the one exception of the Pays-Bas de Beaune, where it remained virtually stable (index = 94)33, the general pattern of growth is clear. If ‘alternative crops’ are crops other than cereals and cattle, wine was an alternative crop with plenty of potential for growth. And grow it certainly did. Where did the Hospital’s vineyards fit into this growth during the eighteenth century? To judge from the expansion of vineyard area in the nineteenth century, the institution’s principal vineyards were in villages where the surface under vines was already closer to its nineteenth-century maximum than it was in the surrounding area. In the Côte de Nuits, Chambolle was to see much less expansion in the nineteenth century (index=128) than its surrounding region (index = 221). Ancey (index=152) had less room to expand than the Arrière-côte of Dijon as a whole (index=261). True, the Dijon Arrière-côte also contained Lantenay (index = 638) where vineyards expanded quite remarkably in the nineteenth century; its tardy development is perhaps a sign that the quality

33 In this area, while the area under vines remained virtually stable, arable and pasture as well as woods declined, probably because of dramatic population growth in Beaune during the nineteenth century, on which see Laurent, 1957, t. i ; 35.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy Table 9.3. Some growth rates, 1754-1789

production:

% / year

total wine output

0.9

total, without cens

1.0

Ancey

0.0

Dijon

2.9

Chambolle

1.0

cens de Fixin

-0.5

vineyard area: pessimistic (based on1809 area)

0.0

optimistic (based on1784 area)

0.3

labour costs: in wheat equivalents (GPP)

-0.7

in wine equivalents (WPP)

0.6

Source: AHD, B1 11, 14, 89; B9 17; E16 216, 219, 220, 227, 242, 298-300; EE1 7-8, E 16; ADCO, 1M1 1(B 1-15)

of its terroir was not thought to be among the best, and so the Hospital had good reason to give it up after 1750 in favour of Ancey and Fixin34. In any event, it is clear that the volume and value of the Hospital’s wine production was part of a general tendency to rapid growth which, for the region as a whole, accelerated after the turn of the century. But how did this growth occur, and were these changes related to the price fluctuations illustrated in Figures 9.3 and 9.4? Four explanations, each particularly relevant to the theme of ‘alternative agriculture’, are possible: the acquisition of vineyards, commercialisation, investment and the management of the labour supply. We have already seen how the Hospital acquired more vines, by bequest, gift and purchase during the first half of the century (Figure 9.1). The various Hospital vineyards, which covered only about 20 hectares in 1738, had reached a total of around 24 hectares by 1754. But after that their holdings stayed virtually stable until the Revolution and beyond, while during the same period (1754-1789), the volume of production increased at a rate of nearly 1 % a year (Table 9.3), and the raw data for vineyard production in the 1780s were almost twice what they had been in the 1750s. The acquisition of more

34 The numerous scattered vineyards whose output is grouped in Table 9.2 under the heading ‘Dijon’ are too difficult to pinpoint.

219

220

T. J. A . L e Go ff

vineyard explains none of the change, for there were no acquisitions. Wine production is of course notoriously fickle, but shifts of this size do not usually depend on the whims of climate alone. What was happening?

VII. The commercialisation of the Hospital’s wines One answer lay in more aggressive marketing, not only of Chambolle wine, but of its other growths as well. Down to mid-century, the Hospital could not put much Chambolle wine on the market, as it had chosen to lease most or all of the vineyards there to third parties, as we have seen. It took a long time to organize and improve the Chambolle holdings. At mid-century most of the Hospital’s wine sales were still of vin de Dijon, and they were made to a rather mixed and local clientele. Then, when the Hospital attempted to sell its Chambolle, it ran into problems: Laporte, the Beaune wholesaler whom they first chose, went bankrupt35. But the hospital found other intermediaries and a new pattern emerged in the 1760s; at that point Chambolle wines represented around 55 to 60 % of volume sold. After that, the Hospital’s ‘Dijon wine’ recovered a bigger part of market volume. In 1772, the Dijon merchant Champagne tried to interest Parisian merchants in one of the better Dijon growths, called vin de Mardor. In all probability it was produced in the ancient clos of the Marc d’or in the south-western suburbs of Dijon, where the Hospital increased its holdings by an astute land swap in 177536; and though vin de Mardor never seems to have found a niche in the national capital, it developed a local following37. These were signs of a readiness to bring new products on line and carve out more market share. They may have helped increase income from wine sales through the difficult years of the 1770s. Nevertheless, it was Chambolle that continued to be the Hospital’s bread-winner. Although “wine-winner” might be a better term: the administrators could use the earnings from this high-end product to supplement the Hospital’s in-house consumption of vin ordinaire

35 In 1756, his creditors gave him five years to pay; he owed the Hospital 2128£ 10s, eventually written off; see ADCO, 4E 2 2102, Atermoiement par le sieur Porte et sa femme… 17-071756; AHD, E16 239 (1756), Vente de vins, p. 150. 36 Probably identical with a vineyard reputedly dating from the sixth century AD, pulled up in 1967 but revived in 1981; it currently produces a Chardonnay white. After the wine’s initial success in 1772, the Hospital swapped a piece of another suburban vineyard for more of the Mardor in 1775. See AHD, E1 40, 24-09-1775; ‘Dijon : Une vigne au pied des tours’, Le Bien Public, 01-02-2012, http://www.bienpublic.com. 37 Sales fetched 612 livres in 1772, 459 in 1724, 600 in 1777, 2175 in 1778, 50 in 1785 and 1350 in 1787. See AHD, EE 17.

Dijon, 1750-59

law 0.8%

robe 24.0%

women 20.0%

clergy 8.0%

commerce 39.5%

clergy 5.8%

administration 12.4%

nobles 5.6%

unknown 19.4%

Dijon, 1780-89 clergy 2.8%

wholesalers 75.4%

administration 0.1%

Chambolle, 1780-89

Source: AHD, EE1 7.

Figure 9.11. Chambolle and Dijon wines: socio-professional origins of purchasers (% volume)

unknown 48.0%

wholesalers 12.4%

robe 12.0%

unknown 17.1%

Chambolle, 1750-59

wholesalers 65.3%

law 1.4%

commerce 5.6%

commerce 23.4%

unknown 1.1%

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy 221

222

T. J. A . L e Go ff Table 9.4. Wholesalers’ share of Hospital wine sales, 1759-1789 (% volume)

years 1750-59 1760-69 1770-79 1780-89

total Chambolle 34.0 51.9 34.3 42.3 74.3 85.4 69.7 98.3

Source : AHD, EE1 7.

and average-quality wine38 from its land in the Dijon suburbs and Ancey, by buying from local vignerons and wholesale merchants. During the period 1749-1789, the clientele for the Hospital’s wine was of two sorts (Figure 9.11). The first were the notables of Dijon: nobles and officers of the celebrated Parlement of Burgundy, clerics, lawyers and administrators. Some of the great names of the Parlement are among them, like the learned jurist Charles de Brosses39 or the barrister Guyton de Morveau40. But even though De Brosses was the biggest enthusiast for the Hospital’s vineyards among his legal colleagues, the total value of his purchases in the last forty years of the old regime amounted to only 782 livres, hardly the kind of demand that creates a boom. Local notables like De Brosses seem to have been typical of customers during the first half of the century too, to judge from a perusal of the entries in the ‘detailed accounts’. Of course this does not mean that big local people like him did not buy some of their wine for speculative purposes. But increasingly after 1750 it was the wholesale wine-merchants (négociants), who bought up most of the Hospital’s surplus production, and it was primarily Chambolle that attracted them. The biggest purchaser among these was the Dijon firm of Champagne41, who paid the institution’s receiver a total of 33,458 livres for wine bought over the same forty-year period. Wholesalers from Dijon, Nuits and Beaune took an increasing part of the task of marketing the Hospital’s Chambolle wines, but also its other marketable varieties as well (Table 9.4 and Figure 9.11). Firms like Champagne and Marey integrated the Hospital’s production into the great circuits of the wine trade, and this integration played its part in the institutions’ investment and management choices. So one of the reasons for the expansion of production lay in more aggressive marketing and increasing reliance on 38 Or, occasionally, grapes which the Hospital itself purchased and vinified on its own. This, however, as the accounts in AHD, EE1 7 show, only produced a fraction of the Hospital’s wine (cf. Lamarre, 2004: 246). 39 De Brosses bought 10 feuillettes of Chambolle in 1757, 1761, 1770 and 1771, 10 of Dijon wine between 1757 and 1768, two feuillettes of Mardor in 1773 and one of an unidentified wine in 1763. 40 Guyton was the recipient of one feuillette of Chambolle gratis in 1768, from the administrators for services rendered, presumably in litigation. 41 The Champagne firm ordered a total of 456 feuillettes of Chambolle, 41 of Dijon wine and 83 of Mardor from the Hospital between 1772 and 1788.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy

wholesalers functioning in a national wine-market. However this still does not tell us how the demand was met. For that we have to look at the management of labour and land.

VIII. Management of labour and land The choices made by the Hospital in managing its vineyard labour force (Figure 9.12) were a complex matter, not made any easier for the historian to understand by the often cryptic nature of entries in the Hospital’s books. At the start of the period studied here, in 1716, all of the Hospital vineyards were managed by vignerons under a system of sharecropping. Under this system, the institution paid for half of the expenses the vignerons incurred (usually the purchase of vine-props and binders) and a fee for cultivation (façons). In return it got half of the product; the other half belonged to the vignerons. In three payments over the course of the year, the Hospital would advance the vignerons a sum of money agreed upon in the current lease; this was to help them meet their expenses and was to be set against whatever the vigneron could earn by selling his share of the crop. The wine was harvested in September-October, and fermented in the Hospital’s vats. At Martinmas (11 November) the fermenting juice was put into barrels; this was called the ‘remplissage de la Saint-Martin’. Then, around the New Year when the stock of wine had been bought up, one or more of the Hospital administrators would settle up with the vignerons, deducting the sum of the vignerons’ advances from the value of their share of the harvest; unfortunately, none of the accounts of these dealings survive. The Hospital settled what it owed to its wage labourers and sharecroppers in cash, or rather, in mandats, the standard I.O.U.s issued by the Hospital for almost all its payments, cashable for a few weeks afterwards42. The terms of the lease allowed the Hospital to pre-empt all or part of a vigneron’s share in the current crop at the going local price for wine that year. If the administrators had given the men advances higher than the payments they were supposed to receive under the terms of the current lease, it had to pay them the highest local price plus a penalty of 5 livres a queue43. The vignerons who worked in this system usually enjoyed an informal privileged status as ‘vignerons de l’Hôpital’, and a claim on the institution’s charity in sickness or old age44. This was a complicated system. It did not work well when new vines were being planted; grapes took several years before they could be properly 42 But they sometimes took part of their advances or payments in maslin (blé conceau), which the Hospital got from other tenants; see AHD, E1 38 : 04-06-1758, 18-06-1758, 25-05-1760; E1 39 : 23-06-1765, 24-06-1765, 25-12-1768, 31-12-1769; E1 40 : 21-11-1779; E1 41 : 20-11-1788, 22-111789 etc. In 1784, the administrators laid down that mandats would not be acquitted more than one month after they had been given out; see AHD, E1 41 27-06-1784. 43 AHD, B1 11 Ancey, lease of 30 December 1726. 44 AHD, E1 36, 25-10-1750; E1 38, 07-09-1760; E1 39 05-10-1766; E1 42, 19-03-1794.

223

T. J. A . L e Go ff

224

locality year Dijon 1710 métayage

Chambolle, domaine lease (includes some arable)

Chambolle, Rapin bequest

Ancey

Lantenay

métayage

métayage

Fixin, Béguin bequest

1722 1725 1726

lease

1730 1739

métayage and wage labour

1744 1746

rent in kind, payment included in the cens

1747

wage labour

1749

(part sold, rest merged with domaine)

1750 1751

métayage

1763

métayage and wage labour

sold (3 jx 1/2) E1 36

1764 wage labour (la cuvée à l'argent ) 1767 wage labour

wage labour

1789

Figure 9.12. Remuneration of labour in the vineyards of the Hospital, 1725-1789 Source: AHD, B1 11 (Ancey), 89 (Chambolle), EE1 7, E1 34-41, E16 197-272.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy

vinified. And of course it meant that, despite the pre-emption clauses, after an over-abundant harvest, in the face of collapsing prices, the Hospital might feel morally obliged to buy the vignerons’ wine even when it could find better and cheaper wine on nearby markets. To avoid these and other complicated and cumbersome obligations, landlords had two alternatives: lease the vineyards out to third parties, who would assume management costs and themselves employ vignerons as sharecroppers or as wage labourers at the going rate; or simply hire vignerons directly, as wage labour. Each stage implied a decision to exert more or less control over the labour force; each stage required higher management and labour costs than the one before. But the greater the control, the greater was the volume of wine that went to the landlord. The Hospital successively tried all three versions in the course of the century, sometimes moving in three stages (letting the land out, then employing sharecroppers, and finally hiring wage labour), sometimes going in two stages from sharecropping to wage labour. For the Hospital, the Chambolle vineyards, some distance to the south of Dijon (17 km.), were relatively difficult to get at. In the first half of the century the Hospital shied away from managing them directly, and rented them out, successively, to a lawyer from Nuits, a bourgeois of Dijon and finally the chief clerk of the bailliage of Nuits. The results, particularly under the last tenant, were very unsatisfactory, and the Chambolle vineyards had to be restored wholesale after mid-century45. At first the administrators made sharecropping arrangements with the local vignerons, but the men had an unfortunate tendency, when many of the plants were not yet in production, to sow beans, peas and other vegetables beneath the new vines: an uncontrolled ‘alternative agriculture’ that the Hospital preferred to avoid. As a result in 1761, the Hospital moved to employing labour directly for wages there46. The Dijon vineyards, on the Hospital’s doorstep and thereby easier to oversee, were the last to be converted to wage labour; it looks as if the agricultural crisis of 1767, when the Hospital had to advance substantial grain supplies to its servants47, put the sharecropping vignerons deep into its debt, making it easier to shift them to a wage system. From then on, wage-payment became the rule in all the Hospital’s vineyards – until the Revolutionary years disrupted the Hospital’s operations, and it was forced back into self-sufficiency and sharecropping (except for part of its Chambolle operations). But this is to anticipate; in the period down to 1789, the Hospital ought to have received a payoff in the form of a greater wine intake as the sharecroppers lost their part of the harvest. 45 At a cost of 2300 livres, but the Hospital at least made the outgoing tenant pay; see AHD E16 232 (1749) fol. 77v and Lamarre, 2004: 91. 46 With perhaps the exception of three old vignerons, Bizot, Chevrey and Rousselot, who as late as 1771 appear to have still collected part of the crop as payment in kind (AHD E1 39 : 09-06-1771). 47 AHD, E1 39 : 22-02-1767.

225

2 26

T. J. A . L e Go ff

It certainly got more wine, as Figures 9.8 and 9.9 show. Overall wine production grew by about 1 % a year, while labour costs fell, (or rose a little, depending on whether they are measured in units of wheat or in units of wine) (Table 9.3). But the rise was not the same in all the vineyards although the surface under vines remained roughly constant over the second half of the century (Figure 9.1). The impact of the change in labour practices seems to have been greatest in the Dijon suburbs, where production rose at a remarkable rate of nearly 3 % a year; here it can be readily assumed that the Hospital really did gain by taking over the sharecroppers’ part of production. Output in Chambolle rose too, but not as much, perhaps because of the greater care necessary with its high-quality vines; in any event, at the prices Chambolle could fetch, its output had a much higher added value per unit. Ancey, by contrast, seems to have been a disappointment during much of the period. Basically, the Hospital intended it to supply an ordinary red wine for consumption in the hospital. When the Hospital’s accountant, Maître Maret, first inspected Mlle Joly’s bequest in 1738 the vignerons told him the red wine was ‘quite good… well cultivated’, but implied that the white wine from her clos was not up to the mark. In general, Maret had misgivings: all these vines did not seem to promise ‘much of a yield… very thin vines…’, concluding that they ‘need a lot of manure’ which, he observed, was ‘very hard to find in this area’48. The Hospital moved to wage labour at Ancey as early as 1747, so over the next forty years down to the Revolution, and contrary to what happened in Dijon, there were no more gains to be picked up by taking over the vignerons’ share of the harvest. The Hospital faced up to the task of improving production however, setting out to repair the wine-press, which could give them a quick increase in the income from other peoples’ produce, but they also undertook the longer-term task of renewing the Ancey vines, particularly those used to produce white wine. Here, they ran into the same problem as they had faced in restocking the Chambolle vineyards, as the vignerons tried to use the ground under the still-immature plants to grow beans and peas49. By the mid-1760s, this problem had been got round and a little higher-grade white wine from the enclos was even sold to a local connoisseur, the curé of Savigny50. By then, wage-labour had also substituted for sharecropping at Ancey. But soon they had to cope with the devastation wreaked by remarkably harsh hailstorms in 1768-1769. Over half the vines, including 48 AHD, B1 14 piece 14, 09-07-1725; he estimated the yield at 26 hl/hectare. Manure was supposed to be used as fertilizer only on lower-quality vines. 49 AHD, E1 38 12-09-1756; by the 1800s they turned the practice to their own advantage by allowing vignerons to plant vegetables under newly-planted vines – as long as they took care of those non-producing vines for free (see AHD, B9 17 Registre d’inscription, 1809, vignes d’Ancey n° 1). 50 AHD, EE1 7 dépense du vin, 1766, 16-08-1766.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy

les grandes vignes, one of the oldest and best vineyards in the village, had to be pulled up and put under sainfoin51. There followed a long period of renewal when, among other improvements, some arable was converted to vines. Finally, in 1783, Ancey’s grandes vignes were ready for replanting52. Here was an example of how deceptive the raw statistics of ‘surface under vines’ can be, when whole tracts could be put out of action for long periods of time; they hide the varying productive capacity at any given moment of vineyards owned. In any event, at the end of the period the Ancey vines came back brilliantly, and helped ensure that the overall output of the Hospital’s vines in the 1780s was twice as large as it had been forty years earlier.

mills 5%

vines, wine-presses etc 24%

fields, woods 6%

buildings, "works" 65%

Figure 9.13. Rural investment by the Hospital, 1750-1794 Source: AHD, E 16.

51 AHD, E1 39 06-11-1768 (destruction of 3 journaux of vines), 27-08-1769, 15-10-1759 (7 journaux of ‘les grandes vignes’); 05-11-1759. 52 AHD, E1 39 05-11-1769, 04-11-1770; E1 40 05-04-1778, 09-10-1780, 19-10-1783, E1 41 01-07-1787 on conversion of arable to vines.

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IX. Changing investment patterns Although in some cases taking over the vignerons’ share could give a boost to production, as it did around Dijon, it seems likely that this increase in output could not have been accomplished without a continuing commitment to investment too. How did the Hospital react to the changes in the wine market over this period? We can get some idea of this by winkling out a general picture of investment in the vineyards from the vast and confusing detail found in the Hospital’s detailed accounts under the heading of ‘extraordinary expenditure’ and ‘works’53. Contrary to what is often said of French landowners in the eighteenth century, the Hospital did put money into its fields, its meadows and its vineyards between 1750 and 1793/4: in all, a total of 134,000 livres, of which a quarter, more than 32,000 livres, went into its wines (Figure 9.13). If we consider wine production as an ‘alternative agriculture’, we can trace how the managers of the Hospital reacted to the changing relative advantages of cereal and wine production over time and compare this pattern with that of investment in the institution’s purely agricultural (i.e non-viticultural) holdings. The Hospital accounts allow us to examine this question over a very long term, from 1715 to 1793, and, ultimately (but not in this study) to extend it even further upstream into the seventeenth century and downstream into the nineteenth. It seems clear at the outset that the Hospital’s real interest in viticulture was born in the first half of the eighteenth century, a period marked by the later phases of the ‘agricultural depression’. The institution’s purchases of vineyards or potential vineyards, and the legacies and endowments it obtained, often after careful negociation54, display its administrators’ clear intent at that point of increasing its commitment to winegrowing. The Hospital had two motives. First of all, the earlier part of the century was not a good time to sell grain, so the Hospital’s agricultural tenants were not up to paying hefty rents. Secondly, the Hospital had trouble finding the wine that the science and common sense of the period insisted was necessary for the well-being of the people in its care and of its servants. The choice to invest in vineyards was therefore obvious. During this foundational period from 1720 to 1750 there was formed a very real, reciprocal and inverse link between the two ‘alternating cultures’ of wine and grain. Did the same reciprocal and inverse relation between grain prices and wine prices survive into the second half of the century when wine and vineyards ceased to be as profitable as they had been before 1750? Once the new ‘alternative agriculture’ was adopted, was the change irreversible? Clearly the Hospital did not make any significant new purchases of vineyards after 1751, which one historian has taken as showing a lack of further enthusiasm

53 AHD, E16. 54 e.g. AHD, B1 85 04-11-1736 concerning the Berbisey endowment.

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

1750-54

1755-59

1760-64

agriculture

1765-69

Source: AHD, E 16.

Figure 9.14. Chronology of investment choices, 1750-1794

livres tournois

30,000

viticulture

1770-74

1775-79

1780-84

1785-89

1790-94

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for the product of the grape (Lamarre, 2004: 92). But the Hospital’s records of its rising production imply the opposite. True, it is difficult to pin further changes down to shifts between different agricultural prices. During the time from 1750 to 1793 there were two periods in which the Hospital gave priority to viticulture over agriculture: 1750-1754 and 1775-1779 (Figures 9.4 and 9.14). In the 1750-1754 episode, the Hospital upgraded its newly-enlarged vineyards. It rebuilt its vats at Chambolle in 1750, and did the same to the vats at Dijon in 1751; at Ancey the administrators repaired the grape-press, rebuilt the wall around the clos, and planted new vines. It stopped leasing out part of its Chambolle vineyard to an absentee tenant farmer and handed it over to sharecroppers (and eventually, to wage-labour). In 1775-1779 the Hospital began a major project to renew and increase its stock of barrels; it also built walls around its vineyards around Dijon and in Chambolle, and fertilised its vines with pigeon soil – furnished by institution’s own accountant, Maître Poulet55. These two periods do not however appear to coincide with any increased advantages offered by wine prices over grain; quite the contrary (Figures 9.3 and 9.4). Moreover the Hospital’s improvements in its vineyards were not confined to these two brief periods. The little boom of viticultural investment at the start of the 1750s was really part of an upgrading process that had been started in the 1730s; it continued, albeit in more modest proportions, until 1765 – behaviour that did not fit with the negative performance of wine prices in relation to those of grain during the same period. After that, the momentary perceived advantages of wine over grain prices at the end of the 1760s may have encouraged greater investment in vineyards in subsequent years, but this did not prevent the Hospital from continuing to spend money on its fields and meadows as well. So the relationship between prices and ‘alternative agriculture’ became more complex after mid-century, but the determination to pursue the commitment to winegrowing continued. This suggests that we should look beyond simple price differentials to explain the change. One potentially fruitful approach is by way of a year-by-year analysis of investment. In the case of the Hospital’s agricultural investments we can observe a tight relationship between the revenues received by farmers and the level of investment in their farms in the same accounting year (Figure 9.15). A similar relation existed between income from winegrowing and investment in winegrowing investment (Figure 9.16).

X. Conclusion It may seem obvious that more money in the Hospital’s pockets meant more money to spare for its fields and vines. But on reflection, this instinctive

55 Awarded the lifetime use of the hospital’s dovecote in partial payment for this service (AHD, E16 258 (1775), dépenses extraordinaires, art. 17.

9. alt e r n at i ve ag r i cu lt u r e i n no rt he rn b u rgu ndy 16,000

100 90

14,000

80 70

livres tournois

10,000

60

8,000

50 40

6,000

30

% des loyers effectivement payés

12,000

4,000 20 2,000

0 1750

10

1755

1760

1765

1770

rural investment (viticulture excluded)

1775

1780

0

1785

works as % of effective income

Figure 9.15. Year-by-year relation between rents and investment on agricultural holdings (winegrowing excluded) Source: AHD, E 16.

10,000 140

9,000

120

8,000

100

6,000 80

5,000 4,000

60

3,000

% des ventes de vin

livres tournois

7,000

40

2,000 20

1,000 0

1750

1755

1760 1765 viticultural investment

1770 1775 1780 1785 viticultural investment as % of wine sales

1790

0

Figure 9.16. Hospital winegrowing investments seen as values and as a percentage of the value of wine sales, 1750-1790 Source: AHD, E 16.

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tendency to invest the annual surplus can be seen as a sign of confidence in the future, an indication that the decision-makers must have made their choices on the basis of their own experience: they knew there was a demand for their product, they had committed themselves to that product, so it was worth going forward, regardless of momentary shifts of the wind. If they had simply looked at the medium term, they might have got rid of their vineyards and followed the fashion for speculation in cereal-growing land that took hold in the 1760s, but perhaps their own experience with the risks of excessive dependence on the farmers of Northern Burgundy had taught them the prudent virtue of risk diversification (Le Goff, 2013). In any event, the Hospital administrators never really reduced the overall size of its vineyard holdings; instead, they built up their holdings in the first half of the century and subsequently put money into improving them. The pursuit of this strategy down to the outbreak of the Revolution is a sign that, at least as far as the Hospital was concerned – and quite possibly for the region as a whole – the viticultural crisis of the 1780s never took the catastrophic form on which Labrousse so greatly insisted, nor was there the long-term wine glut of which he believed it was a symptom. This persistent commitment to vineyard investment may also show that if the long agricultural depression in the first half of the eighteenth century turned the Hospital towards its investments in viticulture, the eventual triumph of this policy depended essentially, not on the ephemeral advantages of following annual price fluctuations but rather on a determined and carefully planned strategy, based on the long term.

Bibliography Arnoux, Claude (1728), Dissertation sur la situation de la Bourgogne, des vins qu’elle produit, Londres, chez Samuel Jallasson. Chambre de Commerce de Dijon (1880), Statistique commerciale, industrielle & agricole du Département de la Côte d’Or, Dijon, Imprimerie Eugène Jobard. Cullen, Louis M. (1998), The Brandy Trade under the Ancien Régime. Regional Specialisation in the Charente, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Cullen, Louis M. (2005), ‘Labrousse, the Annales School, and Histoire sans Frontières’, Journal of European Economic History, xxxiv, p. 309-350. Darcy-Bertuletti, Yvette (2009), ‘Les Prémices du négoce du vin à Beaune au xviiie siècle: l’exemple de Gabriel et François Lavirotte’, Cahiers d’Histoire de la vigne et du vin. Les vins de Bourgogne: une histoire des marchés, no 9, Centre d’Histoire de la vigne et du vin, p. 83-156. Garnot, Benoît (2001), ‘L’État de la recherche sur le vin, la vigne et les vignerons en Bourgogne au xviiie siècle’ in Benoît Garnot (ed.), Vins, vignes et vignerons en Bourgogne du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine, Annales de Bourgogne, t. 73, fasc. 1 & 2, p. 9-28.

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Labrousse, Ernest (1933), Esquisse du mouvement des prix et des revenus en France au xviiie siècle, Paris, Dalloz. Labrousse, Ernest (1944), La Crise de l’économie française à la fin de l’Ancien Régime et au début de la Révolution, Paris, PUF. Lachiver, Marcel (1988), Vins, vignes et vignerons: histoire du vignoble français, Paris, Fayard. Lachiver, Marcel (1997), Dictionnaire du monde rural. Les mots du passé, Paris, Fayard. Lamarre, Christine (2004), L’Hôpital de Dijon au xviiie siècle, Fontaine-lès-Dijon, Dominique Guéniot. Lavalle, Jules (1855), Histoire et statistique de la vigne et des grands vins de la Côted’Or, Paris, Dusacq. Laurent, Robert (1957), Les Vignerons de la ‘Côte-d’Or’ au xixe siècle, Paris, Société Les Belles Lettres. Lefebvre, Georges (1937a), ‘Le Mouvement des prix et les origines de la Révolution française’, Annales d’histoire économique et sociale, t. 9, n° 44, p. 139-170. Lefebvre, Georges (1937b), ‘Le Mouvement des prix et les origines de la Révolution française’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 14e année, n° 82, p. 289-329. Le Goff Tim J. A. (2013), ‘Crédit mobilier ou achats fonciers? Rentabilité, choix et risques dans les investissements de l’hôpital général de Dijon (xviiie siècle)’ in Dominique Le Page and Jérôme Loiseau (eds.), L’intégration de la Bourgogne au royaume de France (xvie-xviiie siècle), regards transatlantiques. Annales de Bourgogne, lxxxv, p. 119-138. Morineau, Michel (1996), ‘Esquisse et crise. Une relecture nécessaire d’Ernest Labrousse’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n° 303, p. 77-107. Morineau, Michel (1998), ‘Autant en emporte le vin, Autun en importe le vent... Les comptes d’un propriétaire de vignes bourguignon de 1774 à 1807’, Annales de Bourgogne, lxx, p. 143-166. Morineau, Michel (2002), ‘Variations sur des thèmes labroussiens’, in Rainer Gömmel and Markus A. Denzel (eds.), Weltwirtschaft und Wirtschaftsordnung: Festschrift für Jürgen Schneider zum 65. Geburtstag, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, p. 3-13. Perriaux, Lucien (1952), Maison Poulet, ‘Le Grand livre côtté A de Philibert Poulet’, Beaune, Poulet. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (1989), ‘Révolution de 1789. Guerres et croissance économique’, Revue économique, n°6, p. 1061-1077. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (1999), ‘L’Agriculture alternative? A propos d’un livre de Joan Thirsk’, Histoire et sociétés rurales, n° 112, p. 131-147. Poussou, Jean-Pierre (2011), ‘La Croissance exceptionnelle du vignoble et du commerce du vin en France au xviiie siècle et ses liens avec l’apparition de goûts nouveaux’, Cahiers d’histoire de la vigne et du vin, n° 11, p. 49-67.

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de Saint Jacob, Pierre (1960), Les Paysans de la Bourgogne du Nord au dernier siècle de l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Les Belles Lettres. Simiand, François (1932a), Le Salaire, l’évolution sociale et la monnaie, Paris, Alcan. Simiand, François (1932b), Les Fluctuations économiques à longue durée et la crise mondiale, Paris, Alcan. Thirsk, Joan (1997), Alternative Agriculture: A History from the Black Death to the Present Day, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

E mm anu ell e Ch a rp enti er 

10. The Emergence of the Breton ‘Golden Belt’ The Region of Saint-Malo in the Eighteenth Century I. Introduction In 1733, as part of his duties as Intendant of Brittany, Jean-Baptiste des Gallois de la Tour took a survey of all agricultural production in the diocese of Saint-Malo. Among the products he counted were cereals, of course, but also ‘alternative’ products considered to be of sufficient importance such as textile or leguminous plants, fruit and vegetables (Lemaître, 1999: 259). Nowadays, vegetables are the basic production of the Breton ‘golden belt’, which specializes in raising early vegetables for the market. Cauliflowers, tomatoes, artichokes, shallots, lettuces, potatoes, cabbages and broccoli are all packed and sent to the national market and abroad. Over time, production expanded to include horticulture and, to a lesser extent, fruit. The golden belt currently includes a number of production centres located along the coast, particularly around Saint-Malo. The correlation between a significant presence of fruit and vegetables around Saint-Malo in the eighteenth century, as recorded by Des Gallois de la Tour, and the current existence of market gardening demonstrates the long standing of this coastal agriculture. His survey provides a glimpse of the Breton golden belt in its early years, at the very time when fruit and vegetables were starting to be fully integrated into the market, particularly around towns, to meet growing urban demand (Quellier, 2007: 151-153). Though the supply of fruit and vegetables to big cities like Paris (Abad, 2002, Merot, 2015) or Bordeaux (Meyzie, 2003 & 2007, Figeac & Hubert, 2006, Figeac 2002) is well known, the situation in smaller towns has been less studied. Saint Malo is one of these, with a population of only 20,000 people in the early eighteenth century, despite its participation in lucrative trades, such as the Newfoundland fisheries, and its famous privateers like Duguay-Trouin (Lespagnol, 1997). The presence of a dynamic upper middle class specialising in these maritime activities explains why Saint Malo was one of the most important port towns in Northern Brittany. The pattern of a port town with a hinterland furnishing goods for export plus vegetables and fruit for its inhabitants is not infrequent. The area about Saint Malo, with its coastal situation and highly favourable climate had all the right conditions for this kind of agricultural development. It also had a market, with growing urban demand from a rich clientele of town-dwellers ready to consume fresh fruit and vegetables from their own estates outside the town, or from specialised intermediaries ready to import items not commonly found in Brittany, such Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 235-257.

© F

HG

DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119531

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Map 10.1. The Breton golden belt nowadays Source: Map made by the author. Source: Agreste-DRAAF Bretagne

as artichokes, asparagus, cherries, apricots, peaches or figs. Those products had become common objects of consumption for the elite since the sixteenth century and even more so during the seventeenth century (Flandrin & Montanari, 1996: 657-681, Abad, 2002: 631-632). This specialised demand came on top of demand from the lower classes, who ate fruit and vegetables of the more common sort in order to vary their diet and avoid paying high prices for grain, particularly during shortages. This local consumer market had to be supplied by producers and merchants from the Saint-Malo region: this explains how market gardening began to spread out around the town. More interesting is that this area became fully a part of the Breton golden belt in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Were there already some signs of this in the eighteenth? The reports issued by the fishing inspector Le Masson du Parc (1726 and 1731), as well as numerous documents from the notarial and judicial archives, the papers of the Intendancy of Brittany and the clergy, not to speak of family papers and occasional maps, allow us to study the extension of alternative farming during the eighteenth century and to track producer-to-consumer linkage of its products using a micro-history approach. The list of factors which encouraged to this development can be lengthened: the growth of the Saint Malo population, the need to victual the King’s ships, especially in wartime, and royal support for agricultural experimentation. As a result many producers were able to satisfy demand and adapt to it, either on their own or through the mediation of more or less specialised merchants.

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II. T  he Saint Malo Area: a good place for alternative farming II.1 The ‘Armor’: favourable natural conditions

Situated between land and sea, the Saint Malo area is highly suitable for farming. Despite dampness and occasionally violent winds, the temperature is moderate and frosts are rare; fruit and vegetables can be easily grown in its rich alluvial soil. In addition to the marnix kept on farms, farmers near the coast were able to enrich their soil with maritime products: fry from fishing companies1, mud from the bay of Mont Saint Michel and most important, seaweed (goémon), widely used in the Saint Malo area, which had the advantage of being abundant and totally accessible to anyone who wished to gather it (Charpentier, 2013). Once collected, seaweed was used differently from one parish to another. In Paramé, it was applied shortly after it was gathered2. Elsewhere, it might be combined with manure and spread on the land. Sometimes producers were forced to employ it. By the 1770s the upper-class or noble landlords of Pleurtuit, members of the ‘enlightened’ elite, made aware by writings on agricultural theory (Moriceau, 2002: 257-260) that it improved the land, required their tenants to use it. The landlord of the Chaise Saint-Jouan property even provided a boat and crew to harvest the seaweed, while the tenants took care of cutting and transporting the product3. Most landlords recommended mixing it with ‘city marnix’, namely mud and filth brought from Saint Malo via the river Rance. In fact the town council sold the rights to clean the streets of Saint Malo: a lease dated 12 March 1722 shows the holder, a farm labourer living in a métairie in Paramé, associating with a farm labourer from Saint-Ideuc and making over to him the right to collect in one half of the town streets covered by the lease4. This ‘town marnix’ was probably collected for resale. When the owner of the Maison de la Boulangerie in Pleurtuit leased out his property in 1778, he kept for himself the right to buy some this ‘town marnix’, on condition that his tenant pay for half of it5. II.2 The garden, cornerstone of the agrarian system

Everywhere, gardens were carefully tended and situated as near as possible to places of residence, in the cultivated area near the house (hortus). The situation was different in the country houses owned by the denizens of Saint Malo.



1 2 3 4 5

Archives Nationales (hereafter AN), C5/20, 1726. AN, C5/20, 1726. Archives départementales d’Ille-et-Vilaine (hereafter ADIV), 4E11559, Nov. 2, 1776. ADIV, 4E5423, March 12, 1722. ADIV, 4E11556, Sept. 28, 1778.

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These were made up of a main house for the owner, and a métairie, leased to tenant-farmers; the main garden, in front of the place of residence, was kept for the landlord’s use while the tenants were assigned another parcel for their own crops, apart from their own dwelling. Gardens were usually small and enclosed by fences, by ditches edged by thorn hedges, or by walls (Quellier, 2004: 67). In the typical Saint Malo countryside, the need to mark off the garden was reinforced by the desire to define property bounds, for this was not the traditional Breton hedgerow country (bocage); instead the méjou, also called champagne, dominated, with open fields surrounded by a common fence (Figure 10.2). The enclosure was also designed to protect planted areas from stray animals and thieves6. Gardens surrounded by walls had another advantage: they provided sheltered spaces on the usually windy coast; these turned out to be very suitable for raising delicate crops or early vegetables, and also gave additional space to train trees, an operation regularly carried out on these small and intensively-farmed plots. Thus, the total available surface was used profitably, in both a horizontal and a vertical direction. Plantations were optimised by layering the different plants according to their height: ground level, bushes and shrubs, dwarf, bush and standard trees and vines7. Fruit trees were planted in the open and, where gardens were surrounded by walls, they were espaliered, with particular care to expose them to the sun. Lease clauses recommended tree pruning and attaching trained trees to poles8. Tenants had to replace deadwood and, in some cases, had to cover the total wall surface9. In order to prevent the slightest abrasion, some owners enforced the use of spades, while others allowed ploughing and cattle, as long as the trees were protected10. These ‘fruit and vegetable’ gardens (Quellier, 2004) had value in the real estate market but few notarial acts describe them in isolation, so it is difficult to give more than a rough idea of their sale prices. These varied widely, from 66 to 200 lt. (livres tournois)11. Prices depended on the surface area and possibly other factors such as location, fertility, exposure, current crops, the type of enclosure and the quality of care bestowed on the land. The survey map of the ‘Marville property of Monsieur des Bassablons’12 (Figure 10.3) attests to the importance given these gardens. Drawn up after the marshes near Saint Malo had been drained13, it shows the options favoured by one of that



6 ADIV, 4E11558, Jan. 11, May 4 and Sept. 28, 1771 and 4B1316, April 28, 1766. 7 ADIV, 4E5423, Feb. 8, 1722, 4E5425, May 24, 1726, 4E5427, Oct. 6, 1731, 4B14 1266, July 19, 1745; Archives municipales de Saint Malo[Hereafter AMSM], HG142b4, Hôpital général de Saint Malo. 8 ADIV, 4E5425, May 24, 1726. 9 ADIV, 4E5425, Nov. 4, 1726 and 4E5427, Dec. 10, 1731. 10 ADIV, 4E5427, July 30, 1732. 11 ADIV, 4E1508, Jan. 8, 1768 and 4E5427, Oct. 6, 1731. 12 ADIV, CFI4917 04, eighteenth century map. 13 ADIV, C4917, Sept. 5, 1714.

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Map 10.2. The landscape around Saint-Malo: the champagnes Source: BNF [Gallica], Part of the Carte particulière des entrées du port de S. Malo et de la rivière de Dinan, map, Sainte-Colombe, 1680.

project’s promoters, Jacques Vincent, sieur de Bas Sablons, a ship outfitter and important merchant in Saint Malo (Lespagnol, 1997: 860). Vincent took this opportunity to design for himself a large estate with three gardens: a main garden adjoining the two houses, a ‘vegetable garden’ a little further away and a third one near the commercial and industrial buildings. These units occupied a considerable part of the estate, covering 4 % of its total area. In the Saint Malo area, the interest in gardens was even more understandable when we take into account the geographical situation of the town, on a peninsula. As a result, building density was much higher than in other cities with more space. From the seventeenth century onwards, the population pressure and the limited surface area of the ‘rock’ turned the city into a congested and

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Map 10.3. Map of Marville land owed by Monsieur des Bassablons Source: ADIV, CFI, 4917-4904, hand-drawn plan, xviiie siècle

saturated zone14, with about 125,000 inhabitants per km² at the end of that period (Lespagnol, 1997: 32). That left no space for gardening. The only green areas shown on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century maps are the holdings of the clergy, which had grown in size after the Reformation (Figure 10.4). They took up much space, leaving little available to the rest of the population, to say nothing of the area taken up by the local fortifications. The remaining gardens were very scattered because of the need to make the most of available space, even in the case of town houses, which were built on terrain reclaimed from the sea during the first half of the eighteenth century. These circumstances, peculiar to Saint Malo, explain why gardens expanded in the suburban town of Saint-Servan and the surrounding countryside (Paramé, Saint-Ideuc or near the river Rance): because of pressure on overcrowded inner-city space, the buildings and gardens tend to expand elsewhere. In the other parts of the Saint Malo area, the pressure on available space was less, except, possibly, for La Houlle, the little harbour of Cancale, where room for gardens had to be found on a narrow coastal band, bounded on one side by the cliff and on the other by the sea. Except in that particular case, circumstances from the

14 The population doubled during the seventeenth century. By the end, it had reached 20 000 people.

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Map 10.4. Plan of the city and of the castle of Saint-Malo Source: BNF [Gallica], Jean de Beaurain, hand-drawn plan, xviiie siècle.

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late seventeenth century onward forced the wealthy citizens of Saint Malo to purchase and lay out their country houses as near the town as possible, so as to escape urban crowding. In these malouinières, fruit, vegetable and flower production flourished through the eighteenth century.

III. Major incentives in the eighteenth century III.1 Fashions

Among the elites there was much enthusiasm for fruits and vegetables from the sixteenth century onward (Flandrin & Montanari, 1996: 657-681, Figeac, 2002) and port cities were no exception (Figeac & Hubert, 2006, Meyzie, 2003 and 2007). This favoured the emergence of new consumer goods (Meyzie, 2010: 165-166), noticeable in post-mortem inventories in the Saint Malo area during the eighteenth century. Objects related to the culinary preparation of vegetables can be noted: they suggest that simmering, stewing or boiling were the methods preferred in order to preserve the taste15. In 1719, a petition from the first bailiff of the Saint Malo Commercial Tribunal (Consulat) illustrates this nicely: when charged with throwing filth in front of his own house, the accused asserts that this was actually ‘cooking water for artichokes’ (he won his case when the law officers checked his street and found it clean)16. In another example, a recipe for tomato purée spiced with peppers and raisin, copied out at the end of the eighteenth century by the Saint Malo fruiterer Noël Prigent, demonstrates a decided penchant for novelty in taste17. The mention of tureens, soup spoons and soup plates are signs that soups were being prepared18, one of the few dishes common to all social classes. Fruits were eaten as they were or cooked in special containers such as the ‘fruit cloche made of iron and copper’ listed at a merchant’s in 1758; elsewhere, such containers were made of iron19. Cooking apples involved a series of specialised utensils such as the ‘old cloche to cook apples’ or especially the ‘apple-cooker’ (cuit-pomme) made of tin20. Two other kinds of item indicate cooked fruit was being eaten. Firstly, the compote dish, displaying the owner’s refinement when made of crystal21 or simple good taste when made of glass, earthenware or china22. Secondly, everything related to jam: a ‘jam pan’

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

ADIV, 4B14 915, April 30, 1785. ADIV, 4B14 11556, May 22, 1719. ADIV, 2Ep107. ADIV, 4B3445, May 11, 1758, 4B14 778, Aug. 28, 1743, 4B3427, May 19, 1747, 4B14 776, March 11, 1749. ADIV, 4B3442, Feb. 14, 1725, 4B14 918, Dec. 29, 1785. ADIV, 4B3445, Feb. 3, 1758. ADIV, 4B3445, Feb 3, 1758. ADIV, 4B3447, Sept. 18, 1747, 4B14778, April 8, 1747.

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belonging to a widow in Saint-Ideuc demonstrates a desire to preserve fruit when enough sugar was available23. This interest in preserves, as well as the need to protect food from vermin, can also be traced in domestic furniture, specialised or not, as with a ‘fruit bowl’, found in a bedroom along with apples and sugar, or a cupboard filled with fruit in an attic24. The less cramped houses found outside Saint Malo sometimes contained specially designated rooms, such as the ‘vegetable cabinet’ (légumier) or the ‘fruit cabinet’ (fruitier) listed in the houses of two merchants25. Other items, such as vases, show that along with the desire to preserve food went a wish to add a decorative element to the house. In SaintIdeuc, a widow possessed ‘6 flower pots’ and a ship’s officer from Saint-Servan owned a ‘small flower pot made of clay’26. Flowers were displayed in the main living rooms or bedrooms. Members of both the regular and secular clergy were particularly fond of flowers: the Sisters of Charity in Saint-Servan for example, who owned nine flower pots27. Flowers not only served liturgical purposes; they also made up part of the decor in the households of lay people, possibly more so with women than men. Thus, a milliner from Saint Malo had an earthenware pot with an orange tree, which she kept in her bedroom to shield it from the cold28. Nonetheless, it was only wealthy people, members of the clergy, nobility, upper or middle class who possessed such consumer goods in the Saint Malo area. Only 13 % of the post mortem inventories mention at least one of those goods. These consumer goods were also a means for their owners to display the social rank to which they belonged or aspired. As in the example of MarieJoséphine de Galathreau in Bordeaux (Meyzie, 2007), they either confirmed their owners’ rank or denoted a wish to climb higher in the social hierarchy. Owning a house or land near Saint Malo, as on the outskirts of Paris, was a way for people of quality to obtain a supply of fruit and vegetables (Quellier, 2002: 29-30), and the pleasure of eating them (Meyzie, 2010: 149). Most landowners favoured indirect farming though leases29. Although some owners kept a piece of land for their own use, the easiest way to ensure supply was to take a share of the tenants’ agricultural products in the form of rent. The proportion of fruit production taken this way could vary. The owner of the métairie of Le Dick at Pleurtuit took two-thirds of the apples and pears30, and another landlord, ‘a hundred’ of apricots31. This was also

23 ADIV, 4B3447, Sept. 18, 1774. 24 ADIV, 4B14 776, March 11, 1749, 4B14 919, Nov. 24, 1785. 25 ADIV, 4B3445, May 11, 1758, 4B14 919, Dec. 4, 1785. 26 ADIV, 4B3442, Feb. 14, 1725, 4B3444, Nov. 18, 1745, 4B3621, July 18, 1788. 27 ADIV, 4B14 776, March 11, 1749, 4B3429, Sept. 27, 1780 and Dec. 6, 1779, 30H5, an II. 28 ADIV, 4B14 919, Dec. 4, 1785. 29 Either fermage or métayage. 30 ADIV, 4E5424, March 24, 1725, 4E11558, May 4, 1771. 31 ADIV, 4E5424, May 17, 1724.

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done with combinations of fruit and vegetables: Aaron Pierre Magon kept for himself asparagus, walnuts, chestnuts, cherries, plums and figs growing on his estate of Saint-Ellier at Pleurtuit, while taking pears, walnuts, medlars and chestnuts as part of the rent from his other properties32. The lady of La Ville Duguen at Saint Malo kept for herself a ‘bed of yellow daffodils’, as well as a stock of cabbages, artichokes, parsley, sorrel and other herbs33. The merchant Claude Martin even arranged for weekly delivery of vegetables from his estate in Saint-Servan34. Thus the landowners ensured their own supply of the ‘noble’ fruit and vegetables available in the Saint Malo area in the eighteenth century: grapes, pears, figs, apricots, peaches, cherries, melons, asparagus and artichokes. These demonstrated the owners’ good taste to guests, just as they did among Parisian elites (Quellier, 2002: 29). Great attention was paid to the quality of fruit as early as the first half of the eighteenth century. In 1726, the owners of a garden in Paramé told their tenant to cut down all trees that that did not produce quality fruit, and to graft young trees in order to produce better apples35. Distinctions were gradually established between different varieties according to taste, preservation and method of preparation. Aaron Pierre Magon showed himself to be a connaisseur in drawing up the lease of his métairie in Montmarin36, in Pleurtuit parish, so as to keep for himself all ‘apples and pears – for eating or for keeping’, the ‘large cooking pears from the pear tree down the estate’ and to have ‘two bushels (boisseaux) of the finest pippins and two bushels of the other best keeping apples’ delivered each year. Priority was given to fruit that could be stored. The upper bourgeoisie and nobility of the Saint Malo area paid attention to fashionable fruit but not as much as the Parisian elites, who despised apples but adored pears, peaches and figs (Quellier, 2007: 63-72). There was a real difference here, but also a practical reason: apples and pears could be sold for cash, in the local market while the other, less common fruit, were used to distinguish oneself from common folk. Finally, a garden had to be beautiful according to the standards in vogue: harmonious proportions reinforced by the choice of plants and the appearance of controlling nature (Figure 10.3). This trend can be seen among the upper bourgeoisie and nobility as early as the first half of the eighteenth century, as their gardens become useful and agreeable places. But a garden had to be maintained and that is why Claude Martin paid particular attention to the alleys, which his tenant had to keep tidy37. It was the same with the borders of the main garden of the La Mabonnais estate in Pleurtuit, or on a residence at

32 33 34 35 36 37

ADIV, 4E11559 Nov. 2, 1776, 4E11558, May 26, 1772. ADIV, 4E5423, May 20, 1721. ADIV, 4E14 1267, Aug. 31, 1746. See also Quellier, 2002: 29. ADIV, 4E5425, Nov. 4, 1726. ADIV, 4E11558, May 26, 1772. ADIV, 4B14 1267, Aug. 31, 1746.

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Saint-Ideuc38: they had to be ‘adorned’. The owners of these gardens embellished them with additional flowers in pots: clerks listed ‘several earthenware pots in the court and around the garden, used to display flowers’ in a nobleman’s residence and ‘six matching flower pots of different sizes’39 in the courtyard of a former East India Company captain. For the elite, the ‘fruit-vegetable’ garden had also become an ornamental spot where it was pleasant to walk about. Some estate leases at the end of the eighteenth century gave their owners – all women – the right to enjoy the fresh air in their garden even if it was rented out, as in the case of a merchant’s widow40. III.2 Were gardens an alternative to grain crops?

Times of shortage still occurred frequently, raising problems of supply and movement of grain. Agronomists and phyisiocrats joined forces in an attempt to address these questions. Vegetables and ‘roots’ were to play a significant role in the fight against famine, according to a 1760 report to the Estates of Brittany by Huard, an inhabitant of Saint Malo41. Among these ‘crops for hard times’ (cultures de disettes) was the potato, the subject of many printed works, books and reports, some of which were approved by the Royal Agricultural Society of Brittany, founded in 1757 and the very first such group in the kingdom. Other agricultural societies were created in western France and corresponded with one another (Queniart, 1978: 435-440). All of their publications cast the potato in a positive light, to dispel common prejudice against it (Morineau, 1985). It was represented as a healthy vegetable, easily digested and widely popular in Germany, in some parts of Flanders and the French part of Thiérache, as well as in Scotland and Ireland where ‘the poor eat it out of need, the rich by personal taste’42; which suggests that the author had a good knowledge of the spread of the plant in Europe. Seed potatoes could be stored and they could also be used for fodder. They were described as an ideal substitute for grains, as they could be used to make ‘economical bread’43 (an excessively optimistic view, as we know that experiments with potato bread were a failure in the 1770s and 1780s) (Meyzie, 2010: 84-87). The tuber was thus seen as a near-miraculous product and Dupleix de Bacquencourt, Intendant of Brittany, proposed to disseminate it across the province, as it was already well

38 ADIV, 4E11559, July 31, 1773, 4E5427, Dec. 10, 1731. 39 ADIV, 4B3442, Dec. 30, 1724, 4B3442, Oct. 1, 1720, 4B3445, May 11, 1758. 40 ADIV, 4E5425, Nov. 24, 1726, 4E5424, Sept. 7, 1724, 4E5427, Oct. 16, 1732, 4E5425, Sept. 14, 1728. 41 ADIV, C1913, ‘Mémoire adressé aux États de Bretagne’, M. Huard, 1760. 42 ADIV, ‘Mémoire sur les pommes de terre et sur le pain économique, lu à la Société royale d’agriculture de Rouen par M. Mustel, chevalier de l’ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis, associé’, 1767. 43 ADIV, ‘Mémoire adressé par le sieur Dottin, maître de poste à Villers-Bretonneux, à monsieur Dupleix, intendant de Picardie’, 1768.

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implanted in Belle-Ile thanks to seed potatoes brought from England (Meyer, 1966: 461). Dupleix had one of his administrative subordinates purchase some in December, 1773. In the meantime, the parishes of the administrative district (subdélégation) of Rennes were offered seed potatoes along with a form containing instructions on growing methods; and about forty of them accepted. Was the experiment successful? Did it spread to the area about Saint Malo? A post-mortem inventory dated 9 July 1773 lists potatoes among other vegetables present in the garden of the Villefer farm in Paramé, even before the Intendant made his decision to bring some in from Belle-Ile44. The Daughters of the Cross at Saint-Servan bought potatoes as early as 1782, 1790 and 179245. In 1787, the fruiterer Noël Prigent noted that he sold some to a customer46. In 1800, a questionnaire completed by the sub-prefect of Saint Malo suggests the widespread use of the potato in the district47. Thus, the Saint Malo area appears to be a rather innovative region compared to the rest of the province and to a large part of France. Agronomists also considered gardens as places to try out new practices aimed at improving productivity. Huard’s 1760 report, in the papers of the Royal Agricultural Society of Brittany, recommended a series of improvements, designed particularly ‘to get a large variety of vegetables and roots’, for he believed that peasants grew only cabbages in their gardens48. The investment would turn a profit, he claimed, as the seeds could be kept for the following year, improving the range of food available, providing animals with fodder and so producing more manure for the vegetable garden. He advised increasing the varieties of vegetables (lettuce, onions, shallots, garlic, broad beans and peas), ‘roots’ (parsnips, carrots, beets, turnips and potatoes), herbs (thyme, marjoram, sage and hyssop), shrubs (grapevines, gooseberries and currants) and trees (pear, plum, cherry, chestnut, walnut and medlar). He also recommended pruning fruit trees. Were these propositions so innovative in the Saint Malo area? Not really, according to notarial acts and post-mortem inventories. Indeed, the leases helped spread new practices as early as the first half of the eighteenth century: grafting on young trees in 172449, espaliered trees and various trimming methods in 173050. Tree pruning become common practice. Moreover, post-mortem inventories show the presence of productivity-enhancing tools and equipment, notably verrines and ‘glass bell-jars’ (cloches), used to accelerate the ripening of melons and other vegetables51.

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

ADIV, 4B3412, July 9, 1773. ADIV, 31H1, ‘Cahier de dépenses de bouche’, 1781-1791. ADIV, 2Ep106, Aug. 1787 to Jan. 1788. ADIV, 7M115, 1800. ADIV, C1913, ‘Mémoire adressé aux États de Bretagne’, M. Huard, 1760. ADIV, 4E5424, Oct. 30, 1724, 4E5428, July 17, 1765. ADIV, 4E5424, May 17,1724, 4B3417, Sept. 3, 1730, 4E11559, July 31, 1773. ADIV, 4B3427, May 19, 1747 and March 25, 1745, 4B3445, May 11, 1758, 4B3427, May 19, 1747 and Nov. 23, 1758, 4B14 919, Feb. 2, 1786, 1Q894 (Calvairiennes, Saint-Servan).

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Thanks to intensive cultivation gardens could already provide diversified food: most of the varieties suggested by Huard were already present. The gardeners of the Saint Malo area used many practices based on experience long before they read the works of agronomists. The problem rather lay in systemizing and bringing together these practical experiences within a single farm. The parish of Pleurtuit became a place of agricultural experiment in these matters during the 1770s, thanks to Aaron Pierre Magon, who used sharecropping to impose new habits on his tenants. Other land owners in the surrounding area, all from Saint Malo, did the same52. Was this because of the action and advice of notaries, in whose offices all the legal documents of a region tended to be centralised? Was it a matter of imitation among the local landed elite, who frequented each other’s company? Did it come from reading agronomical books (though they were seldom found in post-mortem inventories)? From discussions between local connoisseurs? Whatever the origin, innovation required financial means: of course, no investment was needed to prune trees, but buying new varieties cost money. Likewise, how were seeds or young plants obtained? Some landowners had their own plant nurseries; others probably dealt with professionals or seed merchants around Saint Malo or beyond, a process made easier by the city’s location at a major crossroads for road, river and sea transport. We see this process clearly demonstrated in a 1785 auction in Saint Malo, after the death of Marie-Jacquette Pignot. Her shop sold seeds of hemp, clover, chervil, turnip, fenugreek and flowers, along with dried plants and roots53. Vegetables were a real alternative to grains in the eighteenth century and they were also promoted in the specific context of war. Indeed, Brittany had been considered as a ‘border province’ since the end of the seventeenth century, marking the beginning of the ‘Second Hundred Years’ War’ with England. During conflicts there were many soldiers in Brittany, stationed in barracks, billeted on the inhabitants or installed in temporary camps built for the occasion. Although they had priority in food supply over other inhabitants in the parishes where they were stationed, they were still tempted to get their food by raiding nearby gardens. Hoping to limit such practices, on 12 April 1748, in the middle of the War of Austrian Succession, the provincial Intendant Pontcarré de Viarmes, sent round a circular to rectors of parishes situated near military camps54, enjoining them to encourage peasants to bring vegetables there for sale. This measure directly affected the Saint Malo area, as a military camp had been established in Cancale, with 200 coastguard conscripts. The main purpose of the Intendant’s message was in fact to warn soldiers against pillaging, so the mention of supplying the camps with vegetables may refer to already-established practice. In any event, his encouragement could only stimulate local gardeners to produce more fruit and vegetables and, especially, to put them on the market.

52 ADIV, 4E11558, Sept. 22, 1771, 4E11559, Jan. 25, 1775, and July 31, 1773. 53 ADIV, 9B14 916, Aug. 25, 1785. 54 ADIV, C917, April 12, 1748.

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IV. Increased commercialisation IV. 1 From home consumption to sale

Most of the fruit and vegetables grown in gardens were for consumption at home. In fact, owning a garden was a means of securing extra food ‘for the nourishment of children’ or ‘household needs’ and may be considered, for the most vulnerable, as a survival strategy. For wealthy people however, fruit and vegetables were used to make meals more attractive, as, for instance, a priest in charge of a chapel in Paramé whom we find in 1779 growing artichokes, leeks and cabbages55. Growing fruit and vegetables as an alternative to grain, was thus a common denominator shared between different social groups living in the countryside. Yet in spite of their vital role in nutrition and the popularity of many fruit and vegetables, they do not figure prominently in post-mortem inventories. The content of François Tanguy’s garden in Paramé amounted to only 1.4 % of the total value of his goods; to 0.5 % in the garden of a carpenter and building contractor, 3.8 % for one ploughman (laboureur) and 5.1 % for another56. Nor was the proportion any higher in most other inventories, though it varied according to the season, summer and early autumn being, naturally, the time when they were worth most. Nonetheless, attachment to one’s garden, a symbol of self–sufficient food supply, remained strong and occasionally led to quarrels between neighbours. The garden was also just as important for institutions that sheltered many residents, such as the General Hospital, or the convents and monasteries around Saint Malo. A fruit and vegetable garden – or a couple of gardens – was the ideal way to feed everyone. As an example the Ursuline nuns in Saint Malo owned a garden in Saint Servan producing food for their own consumption57. These institutions’ account books also tell us about what was purchased as garden supplies. The register for ‘food expenses’ maintained by the Daughters of the Cross between 1781 and 1792 shows regular purchases of garden tools, of onion and leek seeds and of broad beans and peas from 1785 onwards58. The accounts of the first bursar of the General Hospital point up similar expenses between 1775 and 1789: seeds of cauliflower, onion and ‘sowing flowers’, ‘800 units (pattes) of asparagus’, peas and broad beans, ‘1000 leeks’ for replanting, not to mention the gradual purchase over the years of hundreds of fruit trees and bushes (apple trees, a mulberry, chestnut, walnut, peach, apricot and pear trees)59. The diet of boarders seems to have been much more varied than many other General Hospitals such as the one in Caen (Meyzie, 2010: 55 ADIV, 4B3429, Nov. 26, 1779, 4E11 556, August 13, 1776. 56 ADIV, 4B3410, Nov. 29, 1773, 4B3409, Oct. 10, 1725, 4B3441, June 2, 1708, 4B3418, June 26, 1777. 57 ADIV, 1Q893, April 21, 1791. 58 ADIV, 31H1 (Filles de la Croix, Saint-Servan), Jan. 1781 to Sept. 1792. 59 AMSM, HG142b4, 1775-1789.

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137-141) even though the Saint Malo Hospital could not provide the regional products like melons or grapes that were available in the General Hospital of Agen (Meyzie, 2010: 137-141). The amount of work and the surface area of these hospital gardens required the employment of up to three gardeners. The thirty-two iron rakes purchased in 1787 indicate that the poor made up part of the garden workforce. Such expenses were partly compensated by in-house consumption as there were 300 people to be fed60, but even this was not enough and the hospital managers had regularly to purchase other food products. The Ursuline Sisters benefited from the services of one gardener, though not the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at Saint-Servan or the Daughters of the Cross, whose communities were probably smaller61. In addition to produce for home consumption, gardens could also generate surpluses, though this is not often mentioned in sources other than the account books of religious communities. The account book kept by the Daughters of the Good Shepherd records sporadic sales of peas, walnuts and, especially, vegetables and strawberries, between 1727 and 1792.62 The transactions yielded small profits compared to other sources of income: in 1740 vegetables made up only 0.7 % of income and in 1742 only 0.1 %. They reveal however the desire to turn the surplus to account. The Daughters of the Cross grouped these amounts with their ‘small pieces of linen work’ and winery products. In time, fruits and vegetables became more profitable but still less so than other sales. In 1790, profits from the garden amounted to 66 lt. 12 sols but linen work brought in twice as much and winery products four times. Nonetheless, mention of ‘garden income’ appeared twenty-four times in the registers in the years from 1786 to 1792, with a yearly sum of between 3 to 30 lt. and an average amount around 11 lt63. In the bad weather conditions characteristic of the late 1780s, fall and winter were the best times to sell freshly harvested or preserved fruit. Poor grain harvests encouraged producers to sell larger quantities of vegetables as an alternative, especially the religious communities whose accounts were usually in deficit. Private individuals did the same and were encouraged to do so by very low dues on their transactions, as only petty tithes (menues dîmes) affected them64. It was thus quite tempting to sell a part of a crop to recoup cash assets. Unfortunately, this gets scant mention in the archives. In 1758, merchant Pierre Leneveu’s domestics sold his four bushels of peas on the market for 6 lt65. For the rest, we can only speculate. Did the buyers of a house in Rothéneuf (Paramé) in 1731, with two fig trees, one apple tree, two 60 AMSM, HG1282e1, 1731. 61 ADIV, 1Q893, 1790, 29H7 (communauté du Bon Pasteur, Saint-Servan), 1727-1792, 31H1 (Filles de la Croix, Saint-Servan), Jan. 1781 to Sept. 1792. 62 ADIV, 29H7 (communauté du Bon Pasteur, Saint-Servan), 1727-1792. 63 ADIV, 31H1 (Filles de la Croix, Saint-Servan), Jan. 1781 to Sept. 1792. 64 ADIV, 4E5426, April 22, 1729. 65 ADIV, 4B3445, May 11, 1758.

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peach trees and some vines, intend to sell or trade their garden produce66? Selling surplus products was a way to diversify income and fitted into a strategy of multiple activities. There can be no doubt of the desire to market garden produce when the fruit and vegetables grown greatly exceeded household needs; for instance as early as 1730 at La Godelle in Paramé there were nine peach trees, eight pear trees, two apricot trees, three cherry trees, two grapevines, all espaliered, and another sixty-eight apple trees, fourteen pear trees, seven peach trees and many currant and gooseberry bushes67. At Paramé in 1733, on the métairie of Villefer, vegetables were no longer grown in the garden, but instead raised on a special enclosed plot of land holding broad beans, peas, beans, artichokes, cabbages and potatoes and in a field with sections reserved for parsnips, broad beans, leeks (porée), onions and wheat68. Such choices went far beyond extra cropping known as culture dérobée and testify to the increasing importance of vegetables in the Saint Malo area: they were no longer grown in the garden area (hortus) but sowed on the arable fields (ager) near the cereals. The ultimate expression of this was attained on the métairie of Lucet in Paramé whose farmer disposed of a ‘demesne’ with one section entirely ‘dedicated to vegetables’69. The police statement taken there on July 1 1758 of the damages left after the English raid is eloquent testimony of the magnitude of production70: three thousand cored cabbages, one thousand artichokes, asparagus, lettuce ‘partly eaten by the enemy and the other half gone to seed’, peas ‘eaten and ravaged by the enemy’, broad beans, melons damaged by the ‘enemy’ horses, ‘ten thousand cabbages’ garlic, shallot and leeks that could not be planted, a section filled with onions ‘of which they seized and ripped up the best specimens’, haricots; the total damage reached an amount of 330 lt. The producer mostly specialised in market gardening: virtually no cereal or textile product is noted in the report. Taken singly, the vegetables, though in fashion, did not count for much in the estimate; the only way he could have turned a profit on them was to produce them in large numbers. Such production volumes show a willingness to adapt both to the demand of urban clients and to the context of the Seven Year War, with the military camp near Paramé71. The use of the term ‘gardener’ (jardinier) to describe this tenant is very significant: it was often used on holdings where vegetables and fruit were becoming more important from the 1720s onward. In 1726, a gardener and

66 67 68 69 70 71

ADIV, 4E5427, Aug. 16, 1731. ADIV, 4E5426, Oct. 14, 1730. ADIV, 4B3412, June 19, 1773 and July 9, 1773. ADIV, 4B3428, July 17, 1765. ADIV, 4B3424, July 1, 1758. ADIV, CFI 6228-6201, ‘Carte du terrain qui a été désigné en Paramé, Saint-Ideuc et SaintCoulomb près Saint-Malo pour le camp qui doit y être assemblé le 16è juillet 1756 dressée par ordre de monsieur l’Intendant pour parvenir à connaître les dédommagements qui pourront être dus’, map, 1756.

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his wife in Paramé were entrusted with two vines, one fig tree, 41 other espaliered trees, 18 cherry trees, 4 plum trees, 37 apple trees, 79 pear trees, five beds (planches) of strawberries and a section (quartier) of artichokes72. They were advised to plant apricot, peach, cherry, plum, apple and pear trees, and to sow the land as they wished except during the last year of their lease, when they were to sow peas, broad beans or ‘other pulses’. This suggests that even though market gardening was gradually increasing around Saint Malo in the eighteenth century, only a few farms were entirely given over to it. The same process can be seen near Brest, which got strawberries from Plougastel and vegetables (asparagus, artichokes, cabbages, onions) and flowers from Roscoff (Scuiller, 2012: 129). All these places were to become part of the Breton ‘Golden Belt’. This really does seem to have been the starting-point for specialised agriculture, even though mixed farming and livestock farming remained prevalent. IV.2 Specialised merchants as go-betweens

Much of this produce was sold directly by people with gardens themselves. Never the less, fruit and vegetable merchants were useful go-betweens for customers in Saint Malo. They were concentrated in the city centre or close by, though not all lived there: a greengrocer from nearby Paramé states that in 1723 she took in her vegetables to the weekly market at 5 a.m73. In 1730, ‘several country women’ sold herbs and milk on the streets74. These sellers, mostly women, hawked their produce on the streets or set out their fruit on tables75. Police inspections allow us a glimpse of them at work. In 1786 two street merchants were fined 5 sols, as were a greengrocer and another street merchant76. Fruit and vegetables were not necessarily their sole stock in trade, for they often sold other food: herbs, milk, groceries or fish77. These scattered indications suggest that there were numerous street merchants in Saint Malo, particularly as their trade required only a minimal investment to start with. An inquiry tracing the career of one of them shows that in her youth, while married to a sailor, she borrowed 6 lt. from an acquaintance to purchase fruit for resale78. It was a way to make a decent living and set up a strategy of multiple activities for her household. This was quite common for women in Saint Malo, whether they were wives of sailors, clerks and carpenters, or spinsters, or widows79.

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

ADIV, 4E5425, Nov. 4, 1726. ADIV, 19B269, July 3, 1723. ADIV, 4B14 556, Jan. 30, 1730. ADIV, 4B14 779, Dec. 9, 1749, 9B251, Sept. 3, 1715 and 9B257, April 30, 1718. ADIV, Sept. 12, 1786. ADIV, 9B324, Feb. 27, 1769. ADIV, 4B14 779, Dec. 9, 1749. ADIV, 9B273, Jan. 19, 1725, 4B14 915, May 24, 1785, 9B320, Sept. 28, 1767, 9B327, Dec. 31, 1770.

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For some, opening a shop could become a reality thanks to a wider range of income sources, management abilities, and a little luck and resourcefulness. The shop could also often provide a place to live, though it might cost more if the bedroom was distinct from the shop, as it was with a sailor’s wife, Pétronille Leroux80. But the extra cost was outweighed by the visibility the shop gave her products and by her practice of selling goods from other merchants for a percentage commission, rather than paying the full wholesale cost in advance. She had a wide range of offerings: apples, pears, onions and eggs from local farms, as well as sausages, almonds, figs, candles, oranges and lemons, plaster figurines, plums and grapes. Four months later, an inventory for the purposes of a lawsuit shows her with a stock that had initially shrunk but then had been subsequently renewed; it was estimated at 74 lt. out of an estate whose total value was 368 lt., or about one fifth81. To bring the suit to a close, Pétronille had had to buy back her stock. It seems to have been difficult for a well-established greengrocer to stock only local products. An inventory in the shop of a fruiterer (marchand fruitier) Noël Prigent confirms this82: rice, hazelnuts, walnuts, nougat, shallots, several varieties of plums, lemons, cheese, lemon juice, mustard, anchovies, capers, alongside apples and pears83. Unlike Pétronille, the merchant’s papers show that he had bought his stock wholesale: most of it came from Bordeaux and Marseille; it shows that he, like Pétronille, adapted to demand but on a higher level. Merchants of his kind had to meet the needs of religious communities in the Saint Malo area; by the late eighteenth century these bodies had developed a liking for ‘exotic’ foods such as figs, plums, almonds, grapes, lemons and chickpeas, as well as local products like turnips, potatoes, chestnuts, apples, pears, currants and raspberries and ‘jam fruit’, to supplement the insufficient quantities produced by their own gardens, and allow them to indulge in these rather expensive little treats84. The principal bursar of the General Hospital also mentions regular purchases of grapes, figs, white beans, plums, prunes and rhubarb85. This implies that their sellers had regular supplies and storage devices and facilities. In these circumstances, in order to make profits, merchants would favour short procurement circuits and local produce, especially for items not easily preserved or which did not travel well on foot or by boat. Noël Prigent’s account book, kept between 1776 and 1791, sometimes furnishes details on the sale of products grown in the Saint Malo area: asparagus, flowers and peaches, 19 lt., on 4 June 1779 then 5 lt. three days later for cauliflowers and artichokes sold to a domestic servant; pears in August; then flowers and fruit

80 81 82 83 84 85

ADIV, 4B14 915, Feb. 1, 1785 and May 24, 1785. ADIV, 4B14 915, May 24, 1785. ADIV, 2Ep104, end of the eighteenth century. ADIV, 2Ep107, end of the eighteenth century. ADIV, 31H1, Filles de la Croix, 1781-1792. AMSM, HG128 2e1, 1731 and HG142b4, accounts, 1775-1789.

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successively in May and July 178086. These entries are complemented with a series of invoices containing precise descriptions of all the purchases made by a few loyal upper-class urban customers. Monsieur Picard’s invoices report sales between 1787 and 1789, with small deliveries every two or three days87: in early summer up to late July, strawberries (available from May onward) predominated, along with asparagus and cherries; apricots, blackcurrant, gooseberries and raspberries and early pears were sold in July. In August, there were apricots, plums, peaches, figs, walnuts, blackberries and melons, which carried on into September with the addition of grapes and chestnuts. The early apples, reinettes, and Sainte-Catherine plums came out in October. Apples, pears and chestnuts were sold in wintertime. The sale of almonds and raisins started in January: as the stock of fresh fruit ran out, dried fruit and oranges took its place. Customers also bought flowers and assorted ‘fruit platters’ in July and lemons on a regular basis. The sums that went to pay for these individual items were quite small but the total came to 161 lt. over a two-year period, or almost 7 lt. a month and 35 lt. for the sole month of August 1787; expenditure fell off however by early 1789. These invoices show that fruit, vegetables and flowers were consumed on a regular basis, with a large share of local and fresh products in the spring, summer and fall, replaced by dried fruit in the winter. A similar year-long pattern of purchases, has also been noted in Bordeaux (Meyzie, 2007), showing how the upper class distinguished itself from other, ordinary people. The quantity and the variety of products purchased by Noël Prigent implies that he had some initial capital, which in theory would increase with the payments and profits. But some customers were bad payers: Picard for instance ran up a bill for 474 lt. in debts. In these circumstances, some of these fruiterers dealing with local elite could face bankruptcy, as had Prigent’s father. As we look at these fruit and vegetable merchants, a hierarchy slowly emerges: we see it on the tax rolls of the royal capitation tax, particularly that of 1786 where Noël Prigent makes an appearance. Paying 18 lt., he stands out among all merchants of fruit, vegetables or herbs, whose capitation assessments run from 1 to 4 lt., with an average amount of 2 lt. Prigent also stood out in that this trade was mainly a business for women, usually single women (though male merchants, in the minority, earned more than women). The 1786 capitation also shows the geography of the Saint Malo fruit and vegetable trade. Eight women merchants were concentrated in the street known as Bas des Halles. Except for another group close to, the rest were scattered around the city. Very few settled in the newly-built neighbourhoods of Saint Malo, reserved for the town-houses of the local elite. However the concentration observed in the Bas des Halles was a result of the long-standing presence

86 ADIV, 2Ep108, 1776-1791. 87 ADIV, 2Ep104, from May 1787 to Jan. 1788 and 2Ep105, from May 1787 to 1789.

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of notable merchant families living nearby. Capitation roles from earlier years88 show how the Saint Malo merchants had adapted their businesses to growing demand for fruit and vegetables: only four fruiterers were listed in 1737 and the same number in 1756. This does not necessarily mean that fruit and vegetables could not be found at that time in Saint Malo, but they might not have been profitable enough in the earlier period for the merchants to feel the need to specialise – and pose as specialists – in this trade. Fruit and vegetables suffered from a lack of visibility among a clientele that was not yet completely aware of the new fashions. But then changes occurred rapidly, and by 1770 the number of women fruit and vegetable merchants had grown to 28, seven times the number in 1737. Fruit sellers were the largest group, accounting for just under half of the women in the trade; fewer women sold vegetables. But a new branch had emerged with twelve women ‘herb-merchants’, this was probably a fad however, as only one remained in 1786. On the other hand, the concentration of the two main branches of the trade observed in 1786 was already quite noticeable. The figure rose to thirty fruits and vegetables merchants – 27 women – in 1786: at that point they made up 21.7 % of all the merchants, just behind the spice traders (31.8 %) and ahead of the fishmongers (21.7 %). Thus, the fruit and vegetable trade was really significant in Saint Malo, as much so as spice or fish trades that one would naturally expect to find in such a port. Women regraters (regrattières), who resold food products, already present in significant numbers, moved in a similar fashion towards greater specialisation: there were two in 1770 selling herbs and three hawking fruit but a total of seven in 1786 (six for vegetables, only one for fruit, and none for herbs). They paid quite modest amounts of tax, 1 to 2 lt., 3 lt. at the most. The rise of such trades should be seen as part of the wider development of the food industry and its specialisation during the eighteenth century, with the emergence of confectioners, caterers and pastry-cooks, grocers, and chocolate, sugar or coffee-sellers, all setting up in the same districts to serve a gourmet clientele (Meyzie, 2010: 62-64).

V. Conclusion By the end of the eighteenth century, the Saint Malo area can be seen as a ‘land of plenty’, marked by the development of market gardening. Thanks to an agrarian system combining intensive and extensive production, a mild climate and seaweed, the natural fertiliser found on the beaches, a favourable environment had been established in which fruit and vegetable production, already well represented in private gardens, could develop. These products flourished, partly at the behest of royal authorities, partly because of growing 88 ADIV, C4069, C4082, C4089, 1737, 1756, 1770.

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urban demand from the Saint Malo shipping outfitters, and from the clergy and the aristocracy, ever eager for novelty and keen to distinguish themselves from less affluent and less powerful folk. The lack of gardens inside the town and the ownership of country houses by many of these wealthy consumers also gave a strong impetus to the production of fruit, vegetables and flowers. These people carried out agricultural innovation and brought in new plants such as the potato, which had arrived by 1773 at the latest, to add to tried and true methods based on practical experience. Faced with the stimulus from this rising demand, some producers – mostly ‘gardeners’ – opted for these types of production. Without going over to them completely, most of these people produced more fruit and vegetables for home consumption and, above all, for sale. In this way, they widened their income sources to several agricultural products or activities other than agriculture: this was part of a strategy to avoid insecurity and even poverty. Those producers were not poor people: they had a garden or sometimes they rented some land or a small farm. The few well-to-do producers who rented a métairie of the larger sort, tended to specialise in fruit and vegetables. They treated the Saint Malo region as a viable outlet, making it worthwhile to shift growing their produce out of the garden and into the field. They were not, however, in the same class as the truck farmers near Paris, who had improved the storage conditions for their produce by the seventeenth century, meanwhile producing fruit and vegetables earlier and earlier in the year to satisfy the demands of the Paris market (Abad, 2002: 631-632). Moreover, the landscape around Saint Malo was less varied than the Montmorency valley near Paris, which gradually came to be covered with fruit trees, especially cherry trees (Merot, 2015: 153-157), or Montreuil, renowned for its peaches (Bennezon, 2008: 60-64). The merchants of Saint Malo operated efficiently as go-betweens and gradually specialised during the second half of the eighteenth century. Though fruit and vegetables were still an alternative to the predominant agriculture of mixed farming and livestock farming, they played a substantial part in the economy of the Saint Malo area. Thus, the region became a ‘land apart’, a harbour open to novelty, with a limited yet responsive hinterland and the convergence of all these factors allowed a town that was smaller than the national capital or even regional capitals to give rise to emerging agricultural specialisation. The case of Brest seems to be similar to that of Saint Malo but the supply area was bigger, perhaps because of the climate, mild enough around Plougastel and Roscoff for growing delicate plants (Scuiller, 2012: 127-147). Brest’s naval dockyard certainly increased the demand for provisioning the King’s ships and his employees; some of these people belonged to the middle class or even the upper class, and shared similar consumption patterns including a taste for fruit and vegetables. These were the bases on which the golden belt in the Saint Malo area flourished through the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. In 1929, the regional agricultural survey indicated that the production

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of vegetables and fruit had greatly expanded: in several towns in the area, the traditional alternative products had become their main production89.

Bibliography Abad, Reynald (2002), L’Approvisionnement alimentaire de Paris sous l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Fayard. Bennezon, Hervé (2008), Montreuil sous le règne de Louis XIV, Paris, Les Indes Savantes. Charpentier, Emmanuelle (2013), Le Peuple du rivage. Le littoral nord de la Bretagne au xviiie siècle, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes. Figeac, Michel (2002), ‘Les Pratiques alimentaires de la noblesse provinciale à la fin du règne de Louis XIV : l’exemple de la Guyenne’, Dix-septième siècle, 217, p. 643-654. Figeac, Michel & Hubert, Annie (eds) (2006), La Table et les ports. Cuisine et société à Bordeaux et dans les villes portuaires, Bordeaux, Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux. Flandrin, Jean-Louis & Montanari, Massimo eds (1996), Histoire de l’alimentation, Paris, Fayard. Lemaitre, Alain-J. (1999), La Misère dans l’abondance en Bretagne au xviiie siècle. Le Mémoire de l’Intendant J. B. des Gallois de La Tour (1733), Rennes, Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Bretagne. Lespagnol, André (1997), Messieurs de Saint-Malo. Une élite négociante au temps de Louis XIV, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Lespagnol, André (1993), Histoire de Saint-Malo et du pays malouin, Paris, Privat. Merot, Florent (2015), La Vallée de Montmorency aux xviie et xviiie siècles, Paris, Les Indes Savantes. Meyer, Jean (1966), La Noblesse bretonne au xviiie siècle, Paris, SEVPEN. Meyzie, Philippe (2007), La Table du Sud-Ouest et l’émergence des cuisines régionales, Rennes, PUR. Meyzie, Philippe (2003), ‘À la table des élites bordelaises au xviiie siècle’, Annales du Midi, 241, p. 69-88. Meyzie, Philippe (2007), ‘La Noblesse provinciale à table : les dépenses alimentaires de Marie-Joséphine de Galatheau (Bordeaux, 1754-1763)’, Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 54-2, p. 32-54. Morineau, Michel (1985), ‘Cendrillon devenue fée : la pomme de terre au xviiie siècle’ in Pour une histoire économique vraie, Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille, p. 121-140. Quellier, Florent (2007), La Table des Français. Une histoire culturelle (xve-début xixe siècle), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

89 ADIV, 6M989, arrondissement de Saint Malo, 1929.

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Quellier, Florent (2004), ‘Le Jardin fruitier-potager, lieu d’élection de la sécurité alimentaire à l’époque moderne’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 51, p. 66-78. Quellier, Florent (2002), ‘Le Bourgeois arboriste (xviie-xviiie siècles). Les élites urbaines et l’essor des cultures fruitières en Île-de-France’, Histoire urbaine, 6, p. 23-41. Queniart, Jean (1978), Culture et société urbaine dans la France de l’Ouest au xviiie siècle, Paris, Klincksieck. Scuiller, Sklaerenn (2012), ‘Approvisionnement et circulation des denrées alimentaires d’une grande ville portuaire : le cas de Brest au xviiie siècle’, Mémoires de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Bretagne, 49, p. 127-147.

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11. Between Conversion and Innovation Alpine Fruit Growing in Trentino-South Tyrol and the Valais, 1860-1960 I. Introduction Competition from imported wheat, mostly from the American continent, is generally considered as one of the reasons for the decline of alpine grain growing in the second half of the nineteenth century. At the same time, in line with Joan Thirsk’s thesis (1997), there are several indications that the grain crisis may have made it easier to transform alpine agriculture by intensifying stock rearing and introducing certain crops such as chestnuts, maize and potatoes, as well as by extending winegrowing, when environmental conditions permitted it (Mathieu, 1998: 56-64). In sectors firmly rooted in the alpine primary economy, this conversion mainly consisted of changing the mix of produce that came from each farm, but sometimes there were also novel ‘alternative’ solutions that brought innovations to the local and regional agricultural landscape. For example, the practice of growing fruit trees, though it had a long history in various alpine regions, experienced a rapid expansion at the end of the nineteenth century that changed the organisation of many agricultural holdings and their relationship with the market economy. This paper attempts to analyse the growth of this sector along these lines, looking at the regional and international economic climate and the process of intensification in alpine agriculture with reference to two alpine regions, Trentino–South Tyrol and the Valais. In other words, it will attempt to examine how supply and demand interacted in the fruit sector, in circumstances which saw the transformation of alpine agriculture.

II. T  he expansion of fruit tree growing in two alpine regions (1860-1914) II.1 A common crisis with common features

Trentino – South Tyrol and the Valais are important centres of alpine fruit production. Fruit growing is known to have existed in both regions since the early modern period, although its size cannot be determined; according to contemporary accounts, it was mostly destined for consumption on the holding * Translation by Judith Le Goff Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 259-274.

© F

HG

DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119532

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Map 11.1. The canton of Valais (Switzerland) and the region of Trentino – South Tyrol (Italy) Source: processing of the author from https://www.d-maps.com/

or for sale on local markets. Various signs suggest that fruit consumption was far from sporadic or marginal. Dried fruits were an important part of the diet and sometimes, as in years of under-production, they complemented cereal consumption1. It was only in the last third of the nineteenth century that this branch of primary production took on more economic weight and turned to firmly market-oriented production. Three factors were decisive in this choice. The first, directly in line with the role of crises in Joan Thirsk’s analysis, came when powdery mildew (oidium) wiped out large swathes of vineyard in the middle of the nineteenth century. This disease forced many farmers to change their production and look to growing different commercial crops that could guarantee them other sources of income (Bonoldi, 1991-1992: 190; Métrailler, 1978: 91). The other two factors were part of the process of territorial modernisation that affected many other rural regions on the Continent at that time. In the first place, the railway reached the two regions almost simlutaneously, at the start of the 1860s2, joining the two regions to the main national and international markets of the Continent. On the one hand, it made it easier for wheat to be imported into the region; on the other hand it also made it possible to

1 On Switzerland, see Anne-Lise Head-Konig’s contribution to this collection. 2 The Brenner railway line was completed by 1867 but it had already reached Bolzano and Trento by 1859. Similarly, in the Valais, the railway reached Martigny in 1859 and Sion in 1860.

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think of new outlets for the produce from stock rearing (dairy products and meat) as well as wine and fruit-growing. Secondly, several years later, a start was made on draining the alluvial plains of the Adige valley and the Rhône valley. In Trentino and South Tyrol these projects were carried out in the 1880s and 1890s, resulting in 6,000 hectares of new agricultural land (Turri and Ruffo: 1992). In the Valais, the diking of the Rhone and the draining of its plain began in the 1870s and continued until the First World War. The projects drained more than 6,800 hectares, more than 5,000 of them in the central and lower part of the valley where the fruit growing industry was to prosper (Arlettaz, 1976: 34). II.2 The first period of growth (1890-1914)

In Trentino and South Tyrol the first development in growing fruit trees took place as part of an effort to diversify production. Around 1889 fruit production came to about 1600 hundred tonnes of apples, 1100 tonnes of pears, 480 tonnes of cherries, 300 tonnes of plums, 274 tonnes of peaches and 21 tonnes of apricots, in addition to 560 tonnes of chestnuts and 230 tonnes of walnuts (Gregorini, 2003: 551)3. This was a modest output, still insignificant, economically speaking, but it showed that progress had been made in the sector, achieved by promoting the many local varieties. For instance, at the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna, Trentino exhibited 220 varieties of pears and a hundred or so of apples (Comai, 2001-2002: chap.3: 8). This progress also led to change the way fruit was grown, such as the trees, previously situated in gardens near the houses, and now planted in the meadows and ploughed fields, alongside, and sometimes replacing, the mulberry trees affected by pepper disease (pébrine). In this phase of development of the agricultural societies, particularly the Landwirtschaftliche Verein, the Obst-, Wein- und Gartenbauverein and the Innsbruck section of the Provincial Agricultural Council, contributed actively to the spread of fruit-tree growing. They carried out information campaigns among the farmers, organized regional exhibitions4 aimed at improving irrigation and growing techniques (pruning, smoke treatment, anti-parasitic measures and the like) and created nurseries of fruit tree seedlings (Raffaelli, 2009:139; Zaninelli, 1978: 124). Thanks to these efforts, and more effective coordination between producers and distributors, fruit growing in Trentino and South Tyrol took on greater and greater economic weight in the regional economy and in peasant households from the early years of the twentieth century onwards (Leonardi, 2009: 55-56). This growth kept pace with the revival of the wine-growing sector (Raffaelli, 2009: 140)5. By the

3 These figures refer to production in the Adige valley, the Vallée de Non, the Valasugana, the Val dell’Avisio and the Valle del Sarca. 4 For example, the Blumen, Fruchte-und Gemuseausstelung, which was held at Bolzano from 1852 on. 5 The area under vines in Trentino rose from 8,984 hectares in 1904 to 16, 353 hectares in 1912. An additional 4,500 hectares were ploughed fields containing vines. Together these made up 17 % of the total agricultural land in the province.

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1880s the wine growing industry had begun to recover its impetus after the havoc wreaked by oidium in the 1850s. In the 1880s its output had been stuck at around 100,000 hl a year; by the 1890s it grew from 200,000 to 300,000 hl and oscillated between 300,000 and 500,000 hl in the first decade of the twentieth century (Zaninelli, 1978: 216-217). Similarly, wine yields, which had stabilized at less than 20 q/ha until the last years of the nineteenth century, reached 22 q/ha in 1895-1899 and 31 q/ha in 1908-1912 (Gregorini, 2003: 577), despite the damage caused by phylloxera at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the Valais, fruit tree cultivation took off in a similar way but the absence of quantitative data makes it impossible to give precise figures for surface and production. During this phase, cherries and plums were the main fruits produced for export in the canton. This was because these trees were tough, needed little care and were perfectly suited to the very empirical growing methods of the time (Bovier, 1936: 14). However, production also included apples and pears of many different varieties, as was seen at the Fribourg agricultural exhibition of 1877, where Valais producers displayed 150 varieties of apples and 200 varieties of pears (Terrier, 1947: 220). From the beginning of the century, thanks to the work of the Agricultural School at Ecône, there was a rapid increase in growing apples, particularly Reinettes du Canada, and pears, mainly of the William variety. Two industrial firms that produced preserves contributed to the growth of this sector in both these regions. In 1856, Joseph Ringler opened a fruit cannery in Bolzano. It produced tinned fruits and jellies, syrups, candied fruit as well as sweets. In 1916, Ringler’s plant moved to a new factory site and in 1925 it also began to produce chocolate. By the beginning of the 1930s, Ringler was exporting its products to several European countries as well as to South and Central America and Egypt. The Saxon cannery, which started in 1875 and took the name ‘Doxa’ in 1889, followed a similar path (Unnasch, 2006: 178). In the years before World War I, the factory absorbed large amounts of produce from the Valais (Terrier, 1947:220). The needs of the factory limited the amount of fresh fruit that could be exported from the canton, which rose from about 350 tonnes in 1880 to 1,000 tonnes a year at the beginning of the twentieth century (Métrailler, 1978: 91)6. At the same time, however, it limited the risks of overproduction and excessive downward pressure on prices. It also helped to provide an outlet for types of fruit such as cherries, that did not travel well (Bovier, 1936: 72). In 1902, at a time when fresh fruit exports were worth more than 194,000 francs, the value of the products from the Saxon factory (along with local dried fruits) was about 700,000 francs.



6 By the end of the 1920s, at the height of its activity, the Saxon factory produced annually between 2,500 and 5,000 tonnes of jams, jellies and fruit syrups, of which 1,000 tonnes were exported to England, Germany, France and Greece, while the rest was distributed in Switzerland (de Torrenté, 1927: 29-30).

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In Trentino-South Tyrol, as in the Valais, the fruit tree sector grew parallel to the winegrowing sector (Brugger, 1978), both in the systems of production and the way produce were sold on national and international markets. In Trentino, it was from the 1880s on that improved growing techniques increased production, which could now be sold beyond local outlets and more easily find a place in the export market7. Much the same thing happened in the Valais, where the move to commercial production in wine growing was linked to the arrival of Vaudois winemakers in the canton from the late 1850s, where they began to grow Fendant, a variety that not only made an increasingly popular wine, but also produced table grapes much sought after in the tourist resorts of the Lac Leman region (Zufferey-Périsset, 2009: 247-248). Pylloxera only slightly affected the vineyards, and grape and wine exports do not appear to have declined. Between 1877 and 1915, moreover, the surface under vines increased by 41 %, from 2,200 to 3,100 ha. Finally, as in Trentino and South Tyrol, this stage of growth in the Valais fruit sector does not seem to have hampered winegrowing, which continued to dominate exports thanks to its increased orientation towards market production (Arlettaz, 1976: 38; Zufferey-Périsset, 2009: 261-270).

III. Towards a market model (1920-1940) III.1 An expanding sector

The First World War temporarily interrupted the growth of the fruit sector and marked a pause in its development model. The postwar period saw rapid growth due both to increased demand (among other reasons because of medical propaganda praising the benefits of vitamins, discovered at this time), and to better communications, which improved distribution systems. In Trentino-South Tyrol the War caused great damage to the sector because it was hard to tend and maintain the trees. Production fell heavily, and stayed low until the early 1920s. Moreover, when Trentino and South Tyrol were integrated into the Italian state in 1919, they were suddenly cut off from the vast market of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which until then had absorbed most of their fruit and wine production. There was a rapid response however, and as early as 1922, 60 % of the fruit production of Trentino was being sold in the Italian domestic market. In addition, from 1925 on, important markets opened up in Scandinavia, Germany and Egypt (Cattedra ambulante d’agricoltura, 1932: 16-20). These new opportunities



7 At the beginning of the 1890s, Trentino had a total area of 7,000 hectares under vines; the surface for winegrowing in South Tyrol was similar. Together, the two regions produced 300/400,000 hl of wine, most of which was exported to Switzerland, northern Austria and Germany (Gregorini, 2003: 579).

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lui gi lo re n z e t t i  Table 11.1. Evolution of the production of the main fruit crops in the provinces of Bolzano and Trento 1923-1928 – 1936-1938 (in tonnes)

Bolzano

 

Trento

1923-1928

1936-1938

Variation (%)

1923-1928

1936-1938

Variation (%)

Grapes (specialised vineyards)

46,787

33,906

−27.5

29,700

22,630

−23.8

Grapes (mixed farms)

10,036

5,504

−45.2

33,103

20,833

−37.1

Apples

39,113

61,420

57.0

4,009

9,506

137.1

Pears

9,365

25,513

172.4

4,333

7,008

61.7

Peaches

485

473

−2.5

174

393

125.9

Apricots

1,062

1,097

3.3

0

42

−

 

Source: Raffaelli, 2009: 142, 144.

helped to transform the productive structure of the regional fruit sector. In 1929 the 5,000 agricultural holdings of the province of Bolzano had a total of 611,000 fruit trees, an average of 122 trees per holding (Ruatti, 1940: 74). The surfaces used for fruit production made up 13 % of the agricultural land but rose as high as 22 % in the arrondissement of Isarco, 26 % in that of Merano and 40 % in that of Bolzano (Ruatti, 1940: 27, 48). This proportion continued to increase in the next decade, particularly on specialised holdings (Toschi, 1956: 234), even though the share did not increase as much in relation to production of fruits (with the exclusion of grapes) that increased by 76.9 % between the years 1923-1928 and 1936-1938 (see Table 11.1). This suggests a noticeable increase in the yield from the harvests, which may be related to increased specialisation in apples; at the beginning of the 1930s, 80 % of the fruit production of South Tyrol came from apple trees8. Faced with the risk of domestic food shortages in 1914, the Valais cantonal government banned the export of fruits9. When this prohibition ended after the war, the sector experienced a rapid growth. In the first half of the 1920s, the Valais authorities estimated that ‘in an average year, 25 to 30,000 trees are planted’ (DIVs, 1927: 1) of which 28 % (7,000) were apple trees and nearly





8 Apple production was organized differently in the two provinces of Bolzano and Trento. In Trentino it was almost all done in mixed farming, where the fruit trees co-existed with other crops, particularly cereals; in Bolzano production was concentrated in specialized plantations with basse tige (bush) trees (Ruatti, 1940: 50-51). 9 The measure remained in force until September 1916, when a new cantonal decree fixed the norms and modes for fruit sales. See Recueil des lois, décrets et arrêtés du canton du Valais, 1916, vol. 26, p. 266.

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27 % pear trees (5,900 trees) but the figure rose to about 50,000 trees planted in the years 1925-1930 and 70,000 in 1930-1935. The cantonal census of fruit trees in 1926 registered 333,000 seedlings in nurseries (175,000 grafted and 158,000 not grafted) and more than 705,000 fruit trees of which 234,000 were apple trees (33.2 %), 169,000 pear trees (24 %), 88,000 apricot trees (12.5 %) and 92,500 plum trees (13.1 %) (DIVs, 1927). About 28 % of these (around 199,000 trees) were not yet producing, which means that in the mid-1920s the Valais had about 506,000 producing fruit trees. The market collapsed after the over-abundant harvest of 1922 (Schumacher, 2006), but growth in the sector resumed after the middle of the decade. Between 1926 and 1936 the number of trees increased by about 500,000, particularly pear trees (400,000 in number, an increase of 137 %) apricot trees (170,000, up 93 %) and apple trees, (380,000 up by 62 %) (Bovier, 1936: 68). Growth in the fruit sector was accompanied by specialisation, in the form of increasing production of commercial varieties (Reinettes du Canada for apples, Luizet for apricots and William for pears) and by a higher average number of trees per producer. So, while in 1926 fruit tree owners had an average of 77.6 trees, in 1936 the average was 130 trees (Bovier, 1936: 95). At the same time great tree estates were created, each bearing several tens of thousands of trees. The La Sarnaz estate, for example, was created in 1927 near Saillon on the Rhône plains. It covered 30 ha; vines, cereals, asparagus, strawberries, and above all, fruit trees (apricot, apple and pear) were grown there (Thurre, 2013: 21-23)10. The produce of the Valais which, in the 1920s, was still mainly absorbed by the Swiss market, was more and more directed to the export market (BFS, 1930: 1*) from the 1930s onwards. This tendency increased after the 1933 closure of the Saxon factory, which deprived the fruit producers of an important outlet. Though the quality of the production was not always up to the demands of international markets11, the redirection of Valais fruit production towards export markets took place quite quickly. Although before the war the annual export figures were less than 2,000 tonnes, in the 1920s they varied between 2,000 and 5,000 and reached a threshold of 8,400 tonnes a year in 1934-1939 (Germanier, 1978: 10). III.2 The relationship to winegrowing

In the two regions, the development of fruit-growing put it in a direct relation to the winegrowing sector. When Trentino and South Tyrol were brought into the Kingdom of Italy in 1919 their winegrowers were faced

10 In 1932 the estate covered 60 hectares and contained about 100,000 trees of various species. 11 A 1933 factory report stated ‘…The average proportion of fruits eliminated is 38 %, which is huge…’ See Archives d’État du Valais [AEV], Départ. Finances et Economie, 3250-3259, Rapports fabrique de conserves de Saxon, s. l., 30.10.1933.

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with a saturated market, as many regions of the peninsula were big wine producers. The situation became even more precarious for local producers, when the Fascist government devalued the lira in 1927. That led to a sudden fall in the price of agricultural products and widened the gap between their prices and those of industrial products. The price decline hit the winegrowers worst of all because they had invested heavily in the preceding years to build back the vineyards after the phylloxera epidemic (Lorandini, 2005: 493-494). When the credit they needed to modernise their holdings and meet the crisis dried up, the surface under vines shrank. Several wine co-operatives even went bankrupt because of the falling wine prices. By contrast, the fruit sector went through a period of expansion. Sometimes fruit trees took the place of vines affected by phylloxera; other times that of mulberry trees, as farmers found that it was also becoming increasingly less profitable to raise silkworms. Fruit growing paid much better, and pruning and harvesting could be done at times when other crops did not require urgent work (Lorandini, 2005: 495). Moreover, inserting fruit-growing in irrigated meadows made it possible to spread risk and optimize the land’s yield, thanks to manure, which improved the fertility and yield of fodder crops. In this way, the fruit growing sector remained integrated in a diversified production system that also included stock-rearing and cereal crops, allowing peasants to avoid taking the risky step to monoculture (Lorandini, 2005: 495). Developments in the Valais were slightly different insofar as growth in the fruit sector went hand-in-hand with growth in the wine sector. Even though over-production made things harder for viticulture in the inter-war period because of shrinking profit margins – prices paid to producers fell from 116 Fr/ hl in 1924-1928 to 80 Fr/hl in1929-33 and to 63 Fr/hl in 1934-1939 – and a fall in consumption per inhabitant (Germanier, 1978: 19-20), the area under vines in the canton went up from 3,100 ha in 1915 to 3,400 in 1935 before falling to 3,300 ha in 1939 (Zufferey-Périsset, 2005: 541). In this way, the two crops seem to have developed a sort of co-existence, which is confirmed by the 1934 report of the Union Valaisanne pour la vente de fruits et légumes, according to which ‘the easy sale of harvests and favourable prices have led them [the farmers] to develop this kind of crop consistently, so that today, in the Sion region, there is a considerable production of apples, while the slopes of Saxon and Charrat are abundantly covered with apricot trees’ (see also Bessero, 2007: 68). On the slopes, then, vines and apricot trees grew alongside each other, and up to the middle of the twentieth century it was not unusual to find apricot trees planted among the vines (Bessero, 2007: 66, 75). At the same time, however, the gradual land-drainage in the plain made it possible to move subsistence crops and fruit trees there, leaving vines to dominate the slopes. In this way, at least on the plains and on the hillsides, growing fruit trees became more and more a complementary activity to wine-growing, enabling producers to make up for falls in income.

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III.3 Modernising supply and meeting demand

From the 1920s on, fruit growing became one of the main factors in fitting agriculture into the market economy and making agricultural holdings entrepreneurial. In both South Tyrol and Valais, producers’ strategies clearly changed, the range of fruit grown was reduced and varieties of higher quality or better adapted to diverse climatic and pedological conditions were chosen. In the Valais for example, producers now clearly felt that ‘The market guides production, or rather the choice of varieties planted’12. The accent was put on quality. In effect, the programme to develop tree-raising in the Valais now provided only for growing the better varieties among those best adapted to the general conditions of the various parts of the canton13. With this in view, the Valais agronomists organised study visits to various European fruit-producing regions to observe the methods of production and marketing14. At the same time the fruit producers became better-trained, thanks to the agricultural schools at Ecône, Châteauneuf, Viège and San Michele all’Adige. These schools improved growing techniques (Ruatti, 1932: 18) by creating nurseries, setting up projects for developing fruit-growing at high altitudes (above 1000 meters a.s.l.), creating experimental gardens in mountain areas15 and introducing trees in bush form (basse tige) which ensured earlier16 and more flexible production than from standard trees (haut tige), as well as easier harvesting. Irrigation systems were a major element in the strategy to modernize the sector. In Trentino and particularly in South Tyrol the building of aqueducts greatly improved fruit trees yields. Thus, in the province of Bolzano, the irrigated surface already covered 14-18,000 hectares around 1929. Irrigation was carried out by 383 aqueducts and nearly a thousand kilometres of canals to distribute the water (Ruatti, 1940: 95-97). This system noticeably raised the profitability of holdings. In the Non valley, for example, where there was traditional mixed farming, with cereals, meadows and stockraising, the surface threshold for farm viability was 3 hectares, but by putting half of the area under the plough and using the rest as irrigated meadows with fruit trees, it 12 Le Valais agricole, 1929, p. 323. 13 Ibid., 1929, p. 39. See also the report of Charles Benoit, head of the Station cantonale d’arboriculture, to the Société de pomologie du Valais. AEV, Départ. Finances et Economie, 3250-3239, undated [1933]. 14 One of these was in 1933 in South Tyrol (Merano and Bolzano). It was promoted by the Station cantonale d’arboriculture and gave rise to a detailed report by Charles Benoit, its head. AEV, Départ. Finances et Economie, 3250-3239. 15 AEV, Départ. Finances et Economie, 3250-3258, Rapport sur le développement de l’arboriculture en 1930. 16 The bush trees produced a harvest four or five years after planting, while for standard trees there was generally a period of eighteen to twenty years before production. Also, with plantations of bush trees the harvest was spread over different periods of the year, reducing the bottleneck of autumn production.

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fell to 1.5 hectares (Comai, 2001-2002: chap. 5.6). An additional factor in the entrepreneurial turn taken by fruit growing was the presence of agricultural co-operatives, which from the end of the 1920s, helped to rationalize the sale of produce. The Valais case provides a perfect example. In 1934, producers and distributers agreed to optimize the marketing of local fruit production. The producers who belonged to the local farm unions were to direct their production to merchants belonging to the shippers’ syndicate, known as the Union des expéditeurs or UNEX; in exchange the merchants were required to sell all the produce of union members, at prices set by representatives of the two parties (Delaloye, 1937: 135-137). Following the example set by the wine sector, even the fruit producers now adopted a new marketing system which separated the production and sale of fruits, though in the following years it encountered its own share of problems. Indeed, now that they were free from worrying over sales, many producers increased their production and worsened the problem of overproduction that began to emerge in those years (Terrier, 1947: 224-225). These efforts to modernise supply were in the final analysis, a response to demand, which was consolidated and strengthened all through the 1920s. By the beginning of the 1930s, it was more and more obvious to the peasants of the Valais that modern agriculture is characterised by dependence on the market…. The market is the great problem…. We have to pay total heed to the market destination of our agricultural produce, study it with modern scientific methods and adapt it to new demands, since the truth is that today it is no longer the producer who can choose what to deliver but rather the consumer who imposes his choices. For this reason, ‘we have to take full account of the three demands of the market: quality, varieties and standardization’17. In other words, greater demand played an undeniable role in the expansion of the sector, but at the same time, the increased integration of markets required more and more effective processes of production, storage and selling, and marketing strategies to counter foreign competition18. However, the turn to capitalist production in the fruit sector also made producers more vulnerable because income in the sector was so variable. Production was exposed to the changing tastes of consumers, the customs policies of importing countries, weather conditions, the need for large numbers of temporary workers (day labourers) for the harvest and higher operating costs brought about by using chemical fertilisers, pesticides, mechanical 17 Le Valais agricole, 1933, p. 229. See also AEV, Départ. Finances et Economie, 3250-3267, Châteauneuf, 19.5.1931. Rapport de la Station cantonale d’arboriculture. 18 Le Valais agricole, 1929, p. 230.

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equipment and irrigation systems (Ruatti, 1940: 52). For all these reasons the fruit industry did not entirely replace the other agricultural sectors. Knowledge of the risks inherent in single-crop agriculture led many peasants to follow a diversified production model (Ruatti, 1940: 17-19), one which even incorporated working in non-agricultural sectors (peasant-workers). In the province of Bolzano, for instance, there was a high density of cattle rearing, particularly in the arrondissements where fruit-growing was most developed, notably in the Val Venosta and Merano (Ruatti, 1940: 49-50), suggesting a strategy of diversifying family revenues.

IV. A  fter World War II: consolidation and new challenges Following another period of stagnation during the Second World War, fruit-growing began to expand again at the end of the 1940s, stimulated by the economic recovery and the return of consumer purchasing power. IV. 1 Trentino and South Tyrol

At the beginning of the 1950s, the fruit production of Trentino and South Tyrol substantially exceeded the levels of the late 1930s and its economic weight was now greater than that of winegrowing, mainly because efforts had been made to improve product quality (Turbati, 1956: 230). The fruit sector in both regions gained from a commercial agreement concluded with the Tyrol- Vorarlberg in 1949 (Giacomoni, 2006: 142-160), which allowed the regional fruit sector to renew relations with its ‘natural’ market, the Austrian Tyrol and the Vorarlberg. Moreover the Centrale ortofrutticola di Trento was created in 1955; this provided a market for fruit (and vegetable) production and an industrial outlet (Lorandini, 2005: 496-497), maintaining the vertical integration of the production chain. Finally, after the constitutional reform of 1948, Trentino-South Tyrol became a region ‘with special status’, which gave it important fiscal privileges and enabled it to use public subsidies to support the agricultural sector. In this way, up until the mid-1960s, subsidies to the agricultural sector took up a third of the budget of the Trentino regional administration and directly fed the vigorous growth in the surface area dedicated to apple and pear trees that occurred between 1950 and 195219. The sums were mostly allocated to setting up co-operatives to promote building warehouses for storing and preserving fruits (Lorandini, 2005: 504-507).

19 In those years the area under apple trees increased fourfold (from about 1,000 to 4,000 ha), while that of pear trees doubled (from about 1,500 ha to 3,000 ha). See Lorandini, 2005: 501 (Figure 11.1).

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In the mid-1950s, overall fruit production in Trentino had grown to three times what it had been in 1939 or, if we consider only apple production, four times as much. Above all, fruit growing had gained weight in the province’s agricultural economy. In 1956 it occupied 2 % of the usable agricultural land but its production made up more than a third of the value of the gross production for the market (Trezzi, 1999: 567). This result, which was confirmed in succeeding years, came from improvements in cultivation methods, and also in the means of distribution. In those years the fruit-growing landscape also changed. Trees became smaller because of more rational pruning, which also made harvesting easier. Although the new pruning techniques delayed the start of the trees’ productive period, their life span was lengthened to 50 years. Similarly, there were further developments in artificial irrigation systems (Trezzi, 1999: 570). In 1951, 38,550 ha of fruit trees were irrigated, of which 21,250 (55.1 %) were in the province of Bolzano and 17,300 ha (44 %) in Trentino. Improvements in growing methods had a direct impact on yields, which showed significant increases (see Table 11.2). Thus, while the yield of cereal crops remained stable between 1936-1939 and 1950-1953, that of vineyards and fruit orchards rose, in some cases spectacularly. In the province of Trentino, particularly, the yield of apple trees rose by 127.1 % and that of pear trees by 95.2 %. In the period after the Second World War, growth in the sector kept pace with the renewal of wine production, so that the level of grape production on mixed farms reached that of 1923-1928 while output in specialised vineyards was 20 % greater than the level of 30 years before. In various parts of Trentino, fruit-growing and winegrowing replaced stock rearing almost entirely. In part this was because fruit-growing guaranteed a greater gross production for the same surface area; in part it was because increased pesticide use badly contaminated the grass used for hay, making the two activities incompatible (Comai, 2001-2002: Chap. 6.5). Table 11.2. Average production (in q) by hectare of some crops. Bolzano and Trentino

Bolzano

 

Trentino

1923-1928

1936-1939

Wheat

13.1

17.6

13.2

13.6

15.0

16.9

Rye

13.6

15.6

14.4

11.9

13.9

14.1

Maize

23.6

30.4

31.5

19.2

25.9

28.0

Potatoes

115.9

106.5

150.9

91.3

88.8

101.6

Tobacco

14.7

16.7

15.3

13.0

17.3

15.3

Crops

1950-1953

1923-1928 1936-1939 1950-1953

Grapes

71.4

52.1

62.5

48.2

35.1

69.3

Apples

56.9

86.4

109.5

17.3

57.2

129.9

Pears

80.0

128.2

159.0

41.8

60.0

117.1

Source: Toschi, 1956: 167.

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In the mid-1950s, specialised holdings provided more than 70 % of the total apple production in the two provinces (125,000 tonnes)20. However, technical and agronomical progress did not change the production structure and did not lead to increased concentration; the typical holding, particularly in Trentino, was still small and was worked on a part-time basis. So, at the end of the 1970s, only 40 % of the 35,000 farmer/fruit-growers of Trentino worked full-time; most of them (60 %) alternated factory labour with work on the fruit orchards. This solution was, moreover, encouraged by mechanisation in the sector, which made labour more productive, and by improvements in irrigation, which brought down labour costs while improving production quality (Lorandini, 2005: 499-500). In the case of apple production, in Trentino, higher output went along with an increase in the surface allocated to them. Thus, while in 1951 the surface area of apple trees was about 1,000 hectares, ten years later, it was around 4,000 and reached 8,000 in 1970 (Lorandini, 2005: 501)21. IV.2 The Valais

The Second World War interrupted Valais fruit exports for a time. The production was then almost entirely absorbed by the Swiss domestic market, which needed apple juice and fruit puree as sugar substitutes22. Exports resumed in 1945, but now faced competition from various countries that had previously been importers of Valais fruits: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Hungary. Various structural factors such as fragmented ownership and land shortages made matters even more difficult as they greatly increased production costs compared to those of the big international producers. Tensions created by this situation led to a genuine ‘peasant revolt’ against importing foreign fruits. Discontent among the producers forced the federal government to adopt protectionist measures in the form of a ‘three phase system’, which made it possible to limit, or even block, imports of foreign fruits during the periods while local fruit was on its way to the domestic market (Schumacher, 2006). In addition, the Confederation awarded export bonuses and subsidized selling apricots to mountain dwellers at reduced prices. Finally, in conjunction with the canton of Valais, it assumed the costs of transport of fruits to the Swiss border (Fort, 2002: 99-103). Over the middle term, these measures encouraged many farmers to pull up their vines and replace them with apricot trees. The

20 The gap remained between the province of Bolzano, where specialised cultivation dominated (two-thirds of the surface area), and the province of Trento, where mixed farming prevailed, with specialized crops making up only 8 % of the fruit growing surfaces (Toschi, 1956: 231). 21 The variations in the surface area of vines are less striking, going from about 7,000 hectares in 1951 to 11,000 in 1961 and 11,500 in 1971. For pear trees the surface area went from about 1,500 hectares in 1951 to 3,000 in 1961 but then fell back to 2,000 hectares in 1971. 22 See ‘Arboriculture et commerce du fruit, d’hier à aujourd’hui’, in Le Valais Agricole, 20 April 1963.

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hitherto established development model of fruit growing in the Valais was now suddenly called into question. In the region of Martigny, the co-existence of grapes and apricots gave way to a strategy of substitution. In the communes of Saxon, Riddes and Charrat, for example, vines all but disappeared, even the new varieties planted in the plain between 1933 and 1954 (Bessero, 2007: 78). Overall, the surface under vines in the three communes fell from 217 ha in 1954 to 124 ha in 1965, a decrease of 43 %. The orchards, on the other hand, covered 824 ha by 1965, or about 80 % of the agricultural surface of the three communes (Bessero, 2007: 78).

V. Conclusion Fruit growing has a long history in the alpine agricultural landscape. Sometimes, as in the case of the chestnuts in the subalpine valleys, it played a crucial role in the diet of peasants. In the Trentino – South Tyrol region and Valais, the first steps in growing fruit as a commercial crop occurred just after the great wine crisis of the 1850s, when the vineyards were ravaged by mildew. This seems to fit Joan Thirsk’s ideas about the importance of a crisis for triggering the growth of a new sector in commercial agriculture. The later causes of growth, however, are to found on the demand side. As in other sectors of European agriculture (Pinilla, 2009), the rise of fruit growing appears as a response to the dynamics of agrarian intensification, set off by increases in consumer purchasing power. Transport systems and preservation techniques improved; new dietary models appeared; and producers’ gained facility in satisfying consumer tastes and needs, but the role of demand was decisive in transforming alpine fruit into a real commercial crop managed on capitalist principles. The high profit margins favoured, in certain areas, a shift to a single-crop system, although this proved vulnerable when faced with volatile markets and production. The changes that the sector underwent from the 1920s onward were an attempt to respond to these challenges while developing strategies to build and control markets.

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Changing Alternative Crops

S alvado r C alatayud  

12. N  ew Crops in the Crisis of Mediterranean Agriculture Valencia, 1800-1950* I. Introduction In many Mediterranean agricultural regions, cereals did not have a predominant position during the Modern Age. Therefore, in contrast with Atlantic Europe, southern regions did not undergo an agricultural revolution based on the combination of cereal and fodder crops. Instead, marginal products, as described by Joan Thirsk (Thirsk, 1997: 169-189), played an important, even crucial, part historically. As a result, agricultural crises were not always characterised by the substitution of new crops for cereals, but rather by a shift from one ‘marginal’ crop to another. The region of Valencia, in eastern Spain, is a good example of this. The agricultural regime that prevailed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was based on the coexistence of a number of different crops, which were as a rule unevenly distributed across the countryside: vines, olive trees, carob trees, saltwort, wheat, barley, maize, rice, monkey nut, mulberry, hemp, orange and other fruit trees, and vegetables. Changes and substitutions were neither linear nor simultaneous, which emphasises the significance of local conditions for agricultural change. New and old crops coexisted until the advantages of one over the other were clearly demonstrated; moreover, the replacement of a crop in a given region did not mean that this crop was not maintained elsewhere. This peculiar model of agricultural change persisted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Garrabou, 1985). Now, however, new factors must be taken into consideration: the changes in demand in local and, increasingly, international markets (Morilla & Olmstead, 1985; Pinilla & Ayuda, 2008); the expansion of water distribution networks and the accumulation of social capital, which is an important variable in the collective management of irrigation systems; the evolution of a property structure characterised by the growing importance of intensively cultivated small holdings. This paper analyses the changes experienced by parts of this agricultural sector, specifically, irrigated plots or huertas, during the contemporary period. The territory under consideration occupies a narrow strip of land situated in the alluvial plains of the region. The rivers here had been used for irrigation

* This paper was prepared with the support of the Spanish research projects PGC20181000017-B-I00 ; HAR2016-76814-1-P. and AICO/2018/130. Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 277-294.

© F

HG

DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119533

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1 Castellón 2 Huerta of Valencia 3 Júcar Valley 4 Huerta of Gandía 5. Huerta of Alicante 6. Huerta of Orihuela Map 12.1. The main irrigated areas of Valencia

since the Middle Ages, resulting in a high population density. Irrigation was historically the most common strategy employed during intensification, and grew in a sustained manner, despite the limited water resources available. By the late eighteenth century the irrigated surface covered approximately 110,000 hectares, subsequently increasing to 243,000 ha by 1910, an increase of 121 %. During the same period, the population grew by 108 %. When the limited flow of watercourses made further expansion impossible, the extraction of underground water began – an activity that grew considerably during the twentieth century. The transformation of the agricultural model was driven by technological change in the irrigation systems, as will be seen presently. This agricultural model coexisted in Valencia with another typically Mediterranean regime: dry land agriculture, or secano. Secano agriculture occupied a much larger proportion of the agricultural land, but its productivity was considerably lower. Secano areas were generally situated to the west of the huertas, at the foot of the inland mountain ranges or in interior valleys, where irrigation was much less common. Cultivation was less intensive, but never the less changed considerably as market-oriented strategies were adopted. The most common secano crops were cereals, vines, olive trees and carob trees. Olive trees and carob trees in particular, were well adapted to the prevalent dry conditions. The scarcity of water set limits to flexibility,

1 2. n e w c ro p s i n t h e c r i s i s o f m e d i t errane an agri cu lt u re Table 12.1. Changes in the irrigation agricultural regime

 

1800-1850

1900-1950

Predominant

Mulberry Wheat Hemp Rice

Oranges Vegetables Rice

Secondary or marginal

Oranges Vegetables

Mulberry Wheat Hemp

and crops were replaced less often. In any case, secano and irrigation regimes complemented each other: for example, carob fed the numerous animals used in more intensive systems of cultivation. This freed up irrigated lands which would otherwise have been used to grow fodder crops. This paper, however, will not look closely at secano agriculture, as the most important transformations in the long run occurred in the huertas. The huertas were the source of most of the agricultural output and, crucially, of agricultural exports. Also, huerta areas had much higher population densities. As we shall see, between the late nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth, the huertas witnessed the development of a new agricultural model based on hitherto marginal products: oranges and vegetables. As seen in the schematic representation in Table 12.1, crops which had previously dominated became marginal (mulberries and hemp) or, at least, saw their previous importance reduced (wheat). This article is divided into two sections. The first explains the productive model that existed before 1850, which we can call ‘traditional’. Its main features and the reasons for the decline of its more characteristic crops will be discussed. The second section analyses the emergence of new agricultural specialities, which were to predominate during the twentieth century.

II. The traditional agrarian model and its crisis The most significant feature of the region’s agricultural model until the second half of the nineteenth century was the moderate predominance of wheat. Although wheat was the most common crop, it did coexist with other crops which, in irrigated areas, were in fact predominant. It could be said that wheat was basic but not crucial for the agricultural system, as well as for nutrition patterns. Agricultural patterns in irrigated areas was characterised by the following: a) No lands were left fallow. The land was left to rest only between crop cycles. b) There were two cereal crops every two years (wheat and maize), complemented with different vegetables (Ardit, 1993, I: 266-307). The importance of wheat fluctuated significantly with grain imports

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Mulberry

Legumes

Wheat

Vegetables Hemp

Corn Crop rotation

Mulberry Figure 12.1. Schematic model of the agrarian pattern in the huerta (17th-19th centuries)

and grain prices. Wheat was therefore more of a choice than a ‘default’ crop (Peris, 2003: 115). c) In some areas, hemp was included in the crop rotation and, less often, rice was sown after wheat. d) Some areas within each holding were kept for vegetables, fruit trees and fodder, which could also be integrated into the crop rotation (Aymard, 1864: 28). The various secondary crops were produced for home consumption and, to a lesser extent, for small-scale trading in nearby markets. e) Generally, mulberry trees were planted either in their own plots (i.e. not with other crops) or in combination with other crops, in both huerta and secano areas. f) In some sectors rice was totally dominant, especially in the vicinity of swampy areas. These variables allowed for many combinations, depending on the quality of the soil, the regularity of irrigation, the availability of fertilisers and the proximity of urban markets. At one extreme were plots in which only cereals were sown – one crop of wheat and another one of maize – and at the other

1 2. n e w c ro p s i n t h e c r i s i s o f m e d i t errane an agri cu lt u re

were areas closest to urban markets, where, alongside cereal and other crops, a bigger proportion of vegetables was to be found. Hemp was also commonly included in crop rotation, and it was common to find mulberry trees on the fringes of agricultural plots. Mulberry tree plantations, which made any other annual crop impossible on the same land, were also abundant. Wheat and rice were frequently cultivated in succession; this was possible because rice could be sown in seedbeds before being transplanted into the fields after the wheat harvest1. These combinations reflected a mixed strategy, in which home consumption and market-oriented choices coexisted. The market, however, was increasingly important, especially with crops such as the mulberry tree and hemp, but also for rice and wheat; the surplus product of the latter two crops were shipped to markets in other parts of the Iberian peninsula. What caused a crisis in this model? During the nineteenth century, mulberries and hemp were gradually displaced because of falling profits and increasing international competition. However, these products were marginalised for different reasons. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mulberry trees and the silk industry were crucial in the increasingly sharp turn of irrigation agriculture towards the market (Peris, 2003: 92). These activities combined agricultural labour, a job mainly for men, with the proto-industrial task of silkworm breeding, done mostly by women, and with the initial stages of silk spinning, which employed all members of the productive unit. In some cases, peasants sold mulberry leaves directly to silk producers. The whole sector was turned towards supplying raw silk to the textile industries in the city of Valencia. Mulberry trees were either grown on specialised plots of land, on which annual crops could not then be produced, or on the edge of agricultural fields, in combination with annual crops. The latter practice came to predominate in the first half of the nineteenth century. This trend to grow mulberries in conjunction with other crops reflects the falling profits on mulberry trees, resulted from two linked phenomena. Firstly, the crisis of the local silk industry, which could not compete with other European centres, especially Lyon and northern Italy; and, secondly, changes in the agricultural sector: mulberry trees were gradually becoming less profitable than other irrigation crops. The crisis in the silk industry also had an agricultural dimension: dirty conditions and deficient feeding practices made it undesirable to keep silkworms in peasant dwellings, and the silk thread was irregular in quality because of the dispersed production. The quality of the thread was also affected by the prevailing system of intensive agriculture: excessive leaf cropping undermined the quality of the leaves on



1 On a visit to Valencia in the early nineteenth century, the French writer Jaubert de Passà was surprised to see how a paddy field appeared within 24 hours on a plot where previously there had been wheat ( Jaubert, 1991, ii: 591).

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which the worms fed (Martínez, 1896: 16). Moreover, the combination of mulberry trees with other crops had harmed yields by making the soil too damp in the case of rice cultivation, or by tree-pruning in order to make sure that the other crops got enough sunlight. The combination of these processes exacerbated their effects: the declining manufactures made mulberry trees less profitable, which encouraged producers to combine them with other crops, and that in turn reduced the quality of the silk. The final blow came with the pandemic of pebrina in 1854, which killed a large proportion of silkworms, driving down production. Falling demand for mulberry leaves made the crop even less profitable, so that most peasants finally decided to uproot the trees. This succession of events brought the golden age of mulberry trees and silk to an end. It is true that a method of increasing the productivity of mulberry trees was later discovered, and this stimulated research into new varieties of trees and silkworms. In fact, the growing of mulberry trees developed again during the second half of the nineteenth century. By that time however advances in more profitable products, such as rice, oranges and vegetables, had permanently pushed mulberry trees to the margin. Hemp for its part, enjoyed a significant period of growth during the eighteenth century, stimulated by increasing demand for navy supplies. Although the eighteenth century was marked by rapid demographic growth, this crop could expand because it did not encroach on land needed to produce food; not only did it fit seamlessly into crop rotations alongside wheat, maize and some vegetables, but it also increased the overall productivity of the land for reasons we shall presently see. The crisis in hemp-growing began when Spanish naval power declined after the Battle of Trafalgar. Orders and prices fell, and hemp became less profitable. In the mid-nineteenth century, import restrictions were slackened, and competition from Italian hemp and other textile fibres presented a further challenge to the sector. Thus, although it never completely disappeared, hemp production declined. The process was very different from what happened in Italy: in Campania, hemp was one of the ways out of the agricultural crisis of the late nineteenth century, despite the competition of cheaper fibres from overseas. In Valencia, the hemp crisis was neither devastating nor particularly sudden. Unfavourable price trends had very different consequences depending on the local context. Whereas hemp completely disappeared from the huerta of Valencia, it was still grown in the huertas of Castellón and Orihuela during the twentieth century because of demand from local craftsmen (Garrido, 2004: 74; Millán and Macià, 1993: 160; Hansen, 2015). In fact, hemp was sometimes grown even when incurring an overall financial loss. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, hemp is a labour-intensive crop, and thus especially suited to small peasant holdings. Whenever profits fell, large-scale producers stopped growing it and smallholders took over. Secondly, hemp did not require complete specialisation which makes it suitable for small production units

1 2. n e w c ro p s i n t h e c r i s i s o f m e d i t errane an agri cu lt u re

(Millán, 1999: 168). Thirdly, there are also agronomic reasons: soil preparation and frequent fertilisation help increase overall yields and hemp, in addition, is a natural weed killer. These reasons also explain why hemp continued to be grown near Bolonia, despite the contrary advice of many experts, who deplored the crop’s low profitability (Martini, 2000: 382)2. In Castellón, there were further reasons for hemp’s continuing popularity: the predominantly clay soils were unsuitable for other alternatives, such as orange trees, while the absence of a large urban market limited demand for vegetables. The decline of mulberry trees and hemp should not be viewed in isolation, but as a sign of the more general crisis of a particular model of agricultural development within the wider context of the rural economy. Both of these crops produced textile fibres needed for various forms of production. These included cottage industry, in which peasant families produced silk thread and prepared hemp; the urban silk industry; and the manufacture of hemp espadrilles and rope. The decline of these crops, had, it follows, an impact on domestic and industrial production and encouraged the adoption of a new, food-oriented, production model. Rural society focused more on agriculture, while agricultural production increasingly revolved around food production.

III. The new productive model During the second half of the nineteenth century, a number of hitherto marginal crops took on greater importance. By the beginning of the twentieth century, two very different production models were well on the way to consolidation: vegetables, sometimes grown together with wheat, which allowed for a very wide range of rotations and combinations; and the orange tree, which tended to become the only crop wherever it was adopted. Table 12.2 shows the evolution of major irrigation crops during the period under consideration. These figures show that grain crops did not lose ground, at least not in absolute terms. However, it must be noted that legumes were gradually becoming more important and that wheat only made up 12 % of total agricultural production in 1922. In Spanish historiography, the survival of wheat is generally seen as a sign of backwardness, because its productivity was low in comparison with that of other European countries. Yet, in the irrigated areas of the Mediterranean coast, the situation was very different: while average yields in Spain were only 8.7 qm/ha in the period 1898-1902, those in the huertas of Valencia reached 22.5 qm/ha for the same period, higher than the 20 qm/ha harvested in the Po Valley in 1890 (GEHR, 1991: 1076 and 1080; Corona and Masullo, 1990: 382). It cannot therefore be maintained that growing wheat



2 ‘…hemp in biennial rotation with wheat has the same function as fodder plants in fixing nitrogen, since it needs a great deal of fertiliser and deep tillage’ (Martini, 2003: 258).

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s a lva d o r c al atay u d  Table 12.2. Irrigation crops: Valencia

 

Cereals and legumes

Rice

Vegetables

Oranges

Total

A) Surface (hectares) 1860

50,513

26,169

7,494

545

91,327

1886-1890

38,605

26,954

20,282

7,150

101,560

1903-1912

51,595

28,349

29,340

16,024

131,417

31,084

40,986

20,336

147,205

1922

54,749

B) Area (Index 1860=100) 1860

100

100

100

100

100

1886-1890

 77

102

270

1311

111

1903-1912

102

108

391

2,939

143

1922

108

119

546

3,731

161

C) Area (percentage of irrigated surface) 1860

55

28.6

8.2

1886-1890

38

26.5

1903-1912

39

21.6

37

21.1

1922

0.6

100

20.0

7.0

100

22.3

12.2

100

27.8

13.8

100

D) Value of production (percentage of production of irrigated land) 1922

23.7

28.6

26.8

20.7

100

1962

8.3

6.1

36.3

49.3

100

Vegetables also include tubers, onions and fodder. Source: Garrabou, 1985: 176; Avance estadístico, 1923: 309-320; Martínez, Reig and Soler, 1978: 150.

was tantamount to underusing irrigated lands. In addition, wheat was an essential component in a complex and highly productive rotation regime. In sum, the changes predominantly affected the position wheat held in the overall agricultural strategy: it ceased to be the central crop and now become a secondary one. On the other hand, the expansion of rice must be seen as a sign of increasing intensification: rice yields in Spain were among the world’s highest throughout the twentieth century.3 The widespread use of chemical fertilisers, successful variety selection practices, the development of the first hybrid seeds and the gradual shift of the crop to wetlands, which were especially well suited to rice-growing, are the reasons behind this positive outcome (Simpson, 1997: 187-193; Calatayud, 2002).

3 In 1927-1932, 61.8 quintals per hectare in Spain, 47.3 in Italy and 34.5 in Japan ; Bulletin Mensuel de Statistique Agricole et Commerciale (International Institute of Agriculture), XXV, 3, March 1934, p. 193. See Acerbo, 1934: 184-185.

1 2. n e w c ro p s i n t h e c r i s i s o f m e d i t errane an agri cu lt u re Table 12.3. Net income per crop in the Jucar Valley (pesetas per hectare)

 

1860

1888

Orange

372

408

Wheat

240

240

Rice

276

144

–

396

Vegetables

Source: Archivo Municipal de Alzira, 352 ; and Archivo Municipal de Algemesi, ‘Agricultura. Varios’ 300 250 200

index 150 number 100 50 0

Fruits and vegetables

Oranges

Wheat

Figure 12.2. Price evolution of three products in Valencia (1918 = 100) Source: Torres, 1930: 101 and 104-105.

The most significant data in Table 12.2 refer to the rapid spread of oranges and vegetables, hitherto marginal crops, which were now to become increasingly central to the nascent model. The process had already begun in the late eighteenth century, but until the beginning of the period considered in Table 12.2 the progress of these crops was slow. During the second half of the nineteenth century however, the changes in the relative profitability of crops and the evolution of prices (see Table 12.3 and Figure 12.2) speeded up the pace of change. Orange trees had been present in Valencia since at least the Middle Ages, but were first used only as an ornamental trees or kept for small-scale consumption. Their earliest use as a crop, in specialised groves or in combination with other fruit trees, particularly pomegranate trees, can be dated to the late eighteenth century, and was at first very localised, in Soller (Mallorca),

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Carcaixent-Alzira, Vilareal-Borriana and Orihuela. The development of the crop in each of these locations appears to have been at first mostly by local initiative; later on the exchange of technical information between peasants in each of these areas seems to have played a crucial role (Pons, 1993). Soon leadership passed to wealthy farmers who had also imbibed the Enlightenment passion for agronomy. Orange trees were planted on two kinds of holding: those already equipped with irrigation facilities, where the trees replaced other intensive crops; and non-irrigated or secano land, where irrigation works had to be constructed, and orange trees replaced non-intensive, low-productivity crops. Each strategy had its own economic and social rationale. In secano areas, the initial investment was much more substantial, because of the need to build irrigation infrastructure, prepare the soil and secure the water supply. As traditional channel-based irrigation systems were on the point of breakdown, more water had to be made available by digging wells and installing lifting devices, which were energy-consuming (Sanmartín, 1999, I: 290). Why did orange trees expand in secano lands despite the extra costs? The answer is that, even when initial investment is taken into consideration, it cost much less to replace olive and carob trees than it did to introduce orange trees in lieu of vegetable gardens and rotation crops. As a result, land value increased substantially, and overall productivity soared. The orange tree became a popular option among all social classes. In some cases it was introduced by wealthy farmers, as previously noted. In other areas, however, the new crop was adopted by small farmers, who often had to develop new social strategies in order to cover the necessary investments and opportunity costs. Thus, while wealthy landowners had the capital needed to start the new crop, small farmers often financed the operation collectively, pooling their resources to dig wells and install water-elevating devices. Small farmers also combined orange trees with the traditional annual huerta crops on which they depended for their subsistence, sowing the latter between the tree rows. After a few years, when the orange trees had started providing regular yields, the annual crops, which competed with the trees for water and nutrients, were abandoned (Garrido, 2000; Roncalés, 1998). There were also other possibilities: some large landowners less given to investment adopted orange trees by signing agreements with tenant farmers, who planted the trees and worked the land during the tree’s growth period in return for ownership of some of the land which they had helped transform. The landowner contributed the tree saplings and temporarily abandoned his right to exact a rent for the land ceded. The multiple combinations demonstrate the flexibility of the productive structures in adapting to an increasingly profitable crop in the context of a growing European citrus market (Palafox, 1983: 339-351)4.



4 From the early twentieth century, Spain became the world’s biggest orange exporter (Garrido, 2010).

1 2. n e w c ro p s i n t h e c r i s i s o f m e d i t errane an agri cu lt u re

The situation as a whole also shows how agriculturalists, including those who possessed no land, were willing to participate in international markets. The expansion of this crop took advantage of the inequalities in land ownership by mobilising those whose property was too small to incur the necessary investments. The emergence of the orange tree as a major crop also brought changes to rural society. Soon, the trees were taking over the fields to the exclusion of other, less profitable crops, with which it had always been difficult to coexist, since they required different methods of cultivation and competed with each other for water. Orange plantations thus became the single crop in many areas where uniform agricultural conditions were imposed. The spread of the crop increased the demand for labour, especially at harvest time, which lasted half the year and was done by hand. At the same time, the new crop generated a good deal of post-harvest economic activity, with the emergence of companies specialising in the preparation and packing of the product, and others to provide the inputs needed, such as wood, paper, and so on. Demand for female labour soared. That, in conjunction with increased demand for agricultural labour, triggered an influx of immigrants to the producing zones; wage labour, with some of the characteristics of industrial work, grew more common. This resulted in a peculiar social configuration; a large number of day labourers coexisted with many small landowners, whose prosperity depended on the market. Up until the second half of the twentieth century, as in other citrus-growing regions such as Sicily, most of the production was exported. Valencia and Sicily, however, did not compete with one another: Valencia grew oranges, which were sold in Britain and France, and Sicily grew lemons, which were sold in Central Europe and the USA. The other new specialisation, vegetables, had very different characteristics, despite the fact that vegetable-growing was carried on in areas very near to orange-producing operations. The transition to the vegetable-producing model did not follow a straight line. Vegetables had been growing in importance, as part of the rotation cycle, since the late eighteenth century, but it was only in the final decades of the nineteenth century that their presence became really significant, especially in Gandía and Valencia. There were substantial local differences, especially concerning the pace of change and the range of crops. For example, in the huerta of Gandía, after the decline of the silk industry and the mulberry tree, production was briefly directed towards raisins for the British market, a link which facilitated the subsequent adoption of largescale vegetable production for export. The most important crops in this new sector were tomatoes, peppers, green beans, onions and melons. By the late nineteenth century, the new productive model was firmly established; as the local British Consul said, ‘the huerta of Gandia is really more dedicated to market-gardening than to agriculture, as usually so understood’5.

5 Consular Reports, Reports P.P. 1888, District of Gandia and Cullera, p. 2.

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In this region, agriculture could take advantage of a microclimate with temperatures higher than the regional average. This shortened the maturing time of produce by as much as three weeks, which gave the Valencian producers a head start in European markets. In general, Valencian vegetables were ready earlier than those of southern France, and could reach markets in Paris and other northern cities sooner; their only competition in this regard came from Algerian produce. This early maturity also resulted from the agricultural techniques that were used: vegetables were sown inside greenhouses and protected from the cold and the wind; even after being transplanted into the fields they were still sheltered behind artificial barriers (García, 1933: 180-185; Latière, 1908: 225). This was, then, a labour-intensive system that also required plenty of water and fertiliser. Most of the produce came from smallholdings, often operated by tenants. Vegetable gardens are labour-intensive and the work is irregularly distributed throughout the year, which gives small family-based holdings an advantage over larger units worked by salaried labour. In this period, tenancies tended to become longer, which gave tenants an incentive to invest and improve productivity (Garrido and Calatayud, 2011; Garrido, 2013). In the long run, this trend towards long tenancy, and collective pressure from tenants, encouraged landowners to sell their land to them. Here, tenants used their privileged access to family labour and their knowledge of the complexities of vegetable growing. They also adopted the strategy, not quite legal but accepted in practice, of making improvements to the land, so as to compel landlords to pay indemnities in case of eviction, thus forcing the landowners’ hand. In the end, indemnities rose so much that landlords had no choice other than to sell the land to the tenants. This way of getting access to property, which was connected with the characteristics of the economic strategy, also affected the main vegetable-growing area: the huerta situated around the city of Valencia, probably the largest in the Mediterranean, consisting of more than 10,000 hectares, irrigated by eight channels. In the huerta of Valencia, the search for new crops began when hemp went into decline. This was not an easy task, due to the role played by hemp in the rotation system. Initially, hemp was replaced by maize or potatoes, or simply by an extra crop of wheat. In the first third of the twentieth century, however, onions, tomatoes, peppers and monkey nuts became important crops. Eventually, rotations were modified and wheat gradually lost its importance. Thenceforth, huerta agriculture was based on a moderately wide range of high-value market crops; farmers, at the same time, rejected certain crops like beetroot and tobacco because they made them too dependent on manufacturing firms, which not only were the main purchasers of the crops but also controlled the seed supply. Some of the vegetables produced were sold on the international markets. Tomatoes, onions, green beans and melons, alongside oranges, were the most important exports. European and North American demand was decisive for the expansion of these products, but in addition farmers who had been working the huerta for a long time, had always interacted with local markets,

1 2. n e w c ro p s i n t h e c r i s i s o f m e d i t errane an agri cu lt u re Table 12.4. Different varieties of onions grown in the huerta of Valencia around 1910.

Position in the international markets

Resistance to transport

Compatibility with rotations

Winter white

Not well liked; oriented towards the domestic market

Low

Compatible with summer vegetables

Liria

Well liked in the UK

Medium

Harvested in summer

Winter onion (‘De grano’)

Well liked in European and American markets

High

Summer harvest and resistant to prolonged storage

Variety

Source: Estudio sobre la cebolla, 1940: 8-10.

so they had the technical know-how to adapt quickly to external demand. Local and international markets thus reinforced one another. The fact that the products were directed towards two different markets was also reflected in the choice of plant varieties: they used several varieties of each plant, depending on demand and also other criteria such as the aptitude of different types for travel and the place held by each variety in crop rotation cycles. Table 12.4 illustrates the different varieties of a widely-sold product. Similar data could be shown for tomatoes exported to Europe and consumed internally. The assessment of the United States Tariff Commission in 1929 has general applicability: Owing to the smallness of the farms practically all of the work can be done by the farmer and his family. Valencia onions are produced from locally grown seed sown broadcast in small, carefully prepared seed beds ... The crop is grown under irrigation and requires a large expenditure of hand work. Ploughing is done by horsepower, but shallow cultivation is done by hand ... The cost of fertilizer and of water for irrigation usually constitutes the only cash charge against the crop.6 The possibility of mobilising low-cost intensive labour was an important factor, but was made doubly significant by the farmers’ know-how, which made it possible to apply price premiums to Valencian products: Valencian onions, for instance were sold in New York and other eastern US cities at a higher price than local varieties, not only for seasonal reasons, but because of their higher quality and good reputation7. In conclusion, the new productive models can be considered to have been fully consolidated by the first third of the twentieth century. While orange trees resulted in a uniform and stable landscape, the huerta areas were characterised

6 Onions. Report of the United States Tariff Commission to the President of the United States, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1929, p. 6. 7 Onions…, p. 30-31.

289

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s a lva d o r c al atay u d 

by diversity, across the territory and throughout the year. Table 12.5 compiles some of the new rotation cycles and compares them with the traditional ones. Of course we should keep in mind that at the local level, the range of possible crops would have been much wider than this table indicates.

IV. Final remarks What made this change in the agricultural regime possible? This is the key question. In order to answer it, five essential factors need to be taken into consideration. A) Technological learning. Producing the new crops required some technical processes with which growers were not familiar: grafting and pruning, the use of chemical pesticides, the adequate use of industrial fertilisers – employed in large amounts because of the intensive nature of cultivation – in different types of soil, and the mechanical know-how required to operate engines and water pumps. To a large extent, learning these things was an empirical process and the output of new crops grew slowly until the final years of the nineteenth century, when it gained considerable pace. The spread of knowledge essentially depended on the degree to which areas concentrated different crops. Later, publically-supported research and agricultural institutions intervened with the creation of the Granja Experimental (Experimental Farm) in Valencia in 1887 and the Estación Arrocera (Rice Research Station) of Sueca in 1913 (Calatayud, 2006). B) Hydraulic infrastructures guaranteed not only water supply but also the social capital for its collective management, something of great importance given the scarcity of water in the region (Ostrom, 1990: 137-145; Garrido, 2011). The creation of collective institutions made it possible to resolve the problems caused by inequalities among landowners. Paradoxically, collective management of water allocation and the absence of a market in water allowed individual growers to orient their production towards the market. In this case, the importance of social capital cannot be overestimated; other irrigation systems better endowed with water but not quite as socially articulated, like that in the Ebro Valley, never achieved the level of intensive cultivation seen in Valencia (Simpson, 1997: 199). C) Social structures and production systems had an impact on production choices but were not the only factor (Calatayud and Millán, 2010). The relationship between landlords and tenants eased the adoption of new productive strategies. Often, small land holdings were leased out to landless cultivators, who were willing to take on the labour-intensive tasks that this new agricultural regime involved. By accumulating

Onions / Potatoes Potatoes / Melon nursery Cabbages

Early potatoes

Annual without wheat

Annual without wheat

Biannual without wheat

Biannual without wheat

Source: García Gisbert, 1933; Durán, 1915; Navarro, 1927.

Wheat

Biannual with wheat

S O

Corn

Legumes

A

Melon

Melon

Broad beans for green fertilizer

 

Lettuce  

Lucerne

Corn / Late potatoes

Corn Rice nursery Fallow

A S O

Corn

J

SECOND YEAR F M A M J

Onions / Potatoes

Cabbages

Beans

D J

Wheat

N

Cauliflower

Melon / Pepper / Tomato / Peanut / Corn

Onions

 

Crop rotations since the end of nineteenth century:

Hemp

J

FIRST YEAR F M A M J

Fallow

J

Main crop rotation until the end of nineteenth century

 

Table 12.5. Crop rotations in the Huerta of Valencia

D

 

 

Wheat

Fallow

N

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know-how and improving the land, these tenants gained bargaining power, which gave them access to full land ownership during the first half of the twentieth century (Modesto, 2008; Garrido, 2013). D) From the second half of the nineteenth century, international markets played a crucial role, and producers in turn proved capable of responding adequately to the new demand because of their long experience in dealing with local markets. Exports, however, required new expertise; for example, the commercial structures of the two principal markets, Great Britain and France, were very different. Until well into the twentieth century, trade with Britain was carried on through British middlemen and shipping companies, while exports to France and the rest of continental Europe were channelled through a scattered network of small-scale Spanish distributors in Paris, Brussels and Berlin. E) Finally, the changes undergone by the agricultural sector had an impact on the industrialisation of the region. The crisis of the old production model in the nineteenth century involved the disappearance of silk manufacturing and has therefore been regarded as a sign that the path to industrialisation had failed (Giralt, 1978). However, it has been recently demonstrated that agricultural development encouraged a different industrial model, in two ways (Nadal, 1987). Firstly, the higher rural income levels boosted consumption, expanded interior markets and stimulated demographic growth. Secondly, increased demand for new agricultural inputs, such as fertilisers, small machinery and packing used for fruit transport, encouraged the development of the chemical, mechanical and wood sectors. Agricultural intensification and industrialisation thus become complementary processes.

Bibliography Acerbo, Giacomo (1934), La economia dei cereali nell’Italia e nel Mondo, Milano, Ulrico Hoepli. Ardit, Manuel (1993), Els homes i la terra del País Valencià (segles xvi-xviii), Barcelona, Curial, 1993, vol. I. Avance estadístico de la producción agrícola en España (1923), Madrid, Ministerio de Fomento. Aymard, Maurice (1964), Irrigations du Midi de l’Espagne. Études sur les grands travaux hydrauliques et le régime administratif des arrosages de cette contrée, Paris, E. Lacroix. Calatayud, Salvador (2002), ‘Tierras inundadas. El cultivo del arroz en la España contemporánea (1800-1936)’, Revista de Historia Económica, xx, 1, p. 39-80. Calatayud, Salvador (2006), ‘Semillas nuevas. Selección y transferencia de variedades en el cultivo del arroz (Valencia, 1800-1940)’, in Michèle Merger (ed.), Transferts de technologies en Méditerranée, Paris, P.U.P.S., p. 277-292.

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Calatayud, Salvador & Millán, Jesús (2010), ‘Las vías simultáneas del capitalismo agrario valenciano (1770-1900)’, in Ramon Garrabou (ed.), Sombras del progreso. Las huellas de la historia agraria, Barcelona, Crítica, p. 199-229. Corona, Gabriella & Masullo, Gino (1990), ‘La terra e le techniche. Innovazioni produttive e lavoro agricolo nei secoli xix e xx’, in Piero Bevilacqua, (ed.), Storia dell’agricoltura italiana in eta contemporanea, Venecia, Marsilio, vol. 1. Durán, Josep (1915), La topografía médica de Meliana, Valencia, Imp. de la Revista Valenciana de Ciencias Médica. Estudio sobre la cebolla valenciana de exportación (1940), Valencia, Ministerio de Agricultura. GarcÍa Gisbert, Carlos (1933), Cultivos de regadío de Levante, Madrid, Marin y Campo. Garrabou, Ramon (1985), Un fals dilema. Modernitat o endarreriment de l’agricultura valenciana (1850-1900), Valencia, IVEI. Garrido, Samuel (2000), ‘El conreu del taronger a la Plana de Castelló: agricultura comercial, propietat pagesa i treball assalariat (1850-1930)’, Estudis d’Història Agrària, 13, p. 201-227. Garrido, Samuel (2004), Canem gentil. L’evolució de les estructures agràries a la Plana de Castelló (1750-1930), Castellón, Ajuntament. Garrido, Samuel (2010), ‘Oranges or “Lemons”? Family Farming and Product Quality in the Spanish Orange Industry, 1870-1960’, Agricultural History, 84 (2), p. 224-243. Garrido, Samuel (2011), ‘Las instituciones del regadío en la España del este. Una reflexión a la luz de la obra de Elinor Ostrom’, Historia agraria, 53, p. 13-42. Garrido, Samuel (2013), ‘Improve and Sit. The Surrendering of Land at Rents below Marginal Product in Nineteenth-century Valencia, Spain’, Research in Economic History, 29, p. 97-144. Garrido, Samuel and Calatayud, Salvador (2011), ‘The Price of Improvements: Agrarian Contracts and Agrarian Development in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Spain’, The Economic History Review, 64, 2, p. 598-620. GEHR (1991), Estadísticas históricas de la producción agraria española, 1859-1935, Madrid, Ministerio de Agricultura. Giralt, Emili (1978), Dos estudios sobre el País Valenciano, Valencia, Almudín. Hansen, Folker (2015), La economía del cáñamo en la España suroriental, Alicante, Publicacions de la Universitat d’Alacant. Jaubert de Passà, François-Jacques [1844] (1991), Canales de riego de Cataluña y Reino de Valencia, Madrid, Ministerio de Agricultura, vol. ii. LatiÈre, H. (1908), Fruits et primeurs du Midi de la France. Production et commerce, Paris, Lucien Laveur. MartÍnez, José M., Reig, Ernest & Soler, Vicent (1978), Evolución de la economía valenciana, 1878-1978, Valencia, Caja de Ahorros. MartÍnez Catalá, Vicente (1896), Examen de las causas que han producido la pérdida de la cosecha de seda desde 1854, Valencia, 1896.

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Martini, Manuela (2000), ‘L’expansion d’une culture commerciale. La production du chanvre dans la plaine de Bologne au xixe siècle’, Histoire et Mesure, Productivité et croissance agricole, xv, 3-4, p. 377-397. Martini, Manuela (2003), ‘Réponses contractuelles à l’innovation dans la plaine de Bologne au xixe siècle’, in Gérard Béaur, Mathieu Arnoux & Anne Varet-Vitu (eds), Exploiter la terre. Les contrats agraires de l’Antiquité à nos jours, Rennes, Bibliothèque d’Histoire Rurale. Millán, Jesús (1999), El poder de la tierra. La sociedad agraria del Bajo Segura en la época del liberalismo, 1830-1890, Alicante, J. Gil-Albert. Millán, Jesús & Macia, Isabel (1993), ‘Especialización agraria y atraso industrial: el bajo Segura en el siglo XIX’, Ayudas a la investigación, 1986-1987, vol. vi, Historia, Alicante, Instituto J. Gil-Albert. Modesto, José R. (2008), Tierra y colonos. La gestión agraria del Hospital General de Valencia (1780-1860), Valencia, Publicacions de la Universitat de València. Morilla, Juan, Olmstead, A. & Rhode, Paul W. (1995), ‘Horn of Plenty: The Globalization of Mediterranean Horticulture and the Economic Development of Southern Europe, 1880-1930’, Journal of Economic History, 59, 2, p. 316-352. Nadal, Jordi (1987), ‘El desenvolupament de l’economia valenciana a la segona meitat del segle xix: una via exclusivament agrària?’, Recerques, 19, p. 115-132. Navarro Soler, Vicente (1927), Topografía médica de Benetúser, Valencia, Imp. J. Olmos. Ostrom, Elinor (1990), Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Palafox, Jordi (1983), ‘Estructura de la exportación y distribución de beneficios: la naranja en el País Valenciano, 1920- 1930)’, Revista de historia económica, i (2), p. 339-351. Peris, Tomás (2003), La terra de l’arròs i les moreres, Alzira, Bromera, 2003. Pinilla, Vicente & Ayuda, Isabel (2008), ‘Market Dynamism and International Trade: a Case Study of Mediterranean Agricultural Products, 1850-1935’, Applied Economics, 40, p. 583-595. Pons, Anaclet (1993), ‘Un huerto rodeado de secano. Informe sobre el cultivo del naranjo en el País Valenciano a fines del siglo xix’, Noticiario de Historia Agraria, 6, p. 37-58. RoncalÉs, Vicente (1998), ‘Propiedad y riesgo en los inicios de la expansión citrícola valenciana durante el último tercio del siglo xix’, Historia Agraria, 16, p. 183-208. Sanmartin, Adolf (1999), La participación de la nobleza en las transformaciones agrarias del siglo xix, El patrimonio del Barón de La Pobla, Valencia, Universidad de Valencia, vol. 1. Simpson, James (1987), La agricultura española (1765-1965), La larga siesta, Madrid, Alianza. Thirsk, Joan (1997), Alternative Agriculture: A History: From the Black Death to the present day, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Torres, Manuel de (1930), Una contribución al estudio de la economía valenciana, Valencia, 1930.

A nn e- L is e head-köni g 

13. Alternative Agricultural Production in Switzerland, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century Successes and Failures I. Introduction This paper aims at describing the conditions that permitted the emergence and development of an alternative agriculture in Switzerland. Initially introduced very gradually, some products still exist in our own time, whereas others have been less successful, either because of institutional bans or as the result of changing cultural practices. Our study covers a geographical area that includes the Swiss Plateau, the Pre-Alps and the Alpine regions lying to the north of the Alpine range, excluding the intra-Alpine region (Map 1). The object of our research therefore will be those agricultural products that largely contributed to shaping the Swiss landscape of today. First, we will consider the shift from arable land to pasture which, depending on the region, made possible new uses of milk for cheese production, mostly intended for foreign markets. Secondly, we will deal with fruit growing in German-speaking Switzerland, which became more and more in evidence in the grassland and fields of the lowlands, but also in the mountainous areas of low and medium altitude. This was characteristic as from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before finally becoming an autonomous culture at the very end of the nineteenth century. And lastly we will examine two alternative products, absinthe and snail gathering, that were developed at regional level, or even locally and were very successful for a time until, during the past century, their development encountered certain difficulties. It is of course true that the range of alternative crops was not confined to these four types of production: it was in fact quite extensive under the Ancien Régime. Hemp, flax, mulberry, hop, maize, straw, tobacco, etc. all played a part in the local economy, used either as such, or else as raw materials supplied for commercial production regionally, or even internationally. Some of these crops are no longer produced on a commercial basis because demand changed, or because they could only be developed within a limited area. Tobacco, which was grown in several Cantons, but was later to face unfavourable environemental conditions, is a case in point. Looking at the geographical distribution of farming specialisations in the early nineteenth century one is left in no doubt that Swiss farming output presented considerable regional differences. That certain products



* Translation by Judith Le Goff Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 295-313.

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DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119534

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Map 13.1: The Cantons and the main regions of Switzerland

received more attention than others also depended on cultural choice. In German-speaking Switzerland (mostly central and eastern Switzerland) during the Ancien Régime, before the popularisation of potato cultivation, fruit production was a major asset because of the nutritional value both as dried fruit, or as perry or cider, or a mixture of the two, until later also being commercialised in the form of fresh table fruit. In western Switzerland, by contrast, nothing of the sort occurred in areas where wheat was the main culture, not even in medium-altitude regions unsuitable for the cultivation of grain. In western Switzerland, viticulture prevailed on the shores of the lakes, which is quite the opposite of what happened along the shores of Swiss-German lakes, where fruit production prevailed. There the cultivation of the potato met with notable resistance before the end of the eighteenth century, much to the dismay of a Bernese patrician wishing to propagate this crop and who, in the 1770s, complained that Vaudois farmers wanted to eat ‘bread, bread and nothing but bread’ (Steinke 1997: 26). On the highlands of the bailiwick of Gessenay (Bern), the shift from arable to grassland and the specialization in cheese making meant that other farming activities were abandoned. Consequently, not only cereal crops – the amount of tithe on cereals (spelt) dropped by half between 1730-1740 and 1770-1780 – but also fruit growing became a thing of the past. When ‘after a very harsh winter nearly all the fruit trees were affected by hard frost and died […] no new trees were planted’ (von Bonstetten 1782: 45, 49).

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II. F  ull-fat hard cheese production in western Switzerland and the environmental, institutional and social conditions facilitating its expansion The expansion of dairy activities that led to the production of full-fat hard cheese, intended for export, took place in three stages between the sixteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. At each stage, it proved a factor of change, altering the appearance of the landscape and the agrarian structures. The first stage was quite protracted, stretching from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Cheese was manufactured in chalets on the Alpine pastures where the cows spent the summer months (estivage). The second stage was much shorter, covering the period from the 1820s-1830s up to the 1870s-1880s. The expansion of grazing meadows and increased stall-feeding accelerated the rise of lowland dairies, which were in competition with traditional production methods. As a result, Alpine cheese production began to decline. Phase three, beginning in the 1870s-1880s, reflected exogenous influences. The massive supply of cheap wheat coming from central and Eastern Europe as well as from overseas played a part in generalising cheese production throughout the country, both in the lowlands and the highlands. It also forced the mountain regions to reorient their productions. II.1 From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. A series of necessary prerequisites for producing full-fat hard cheese in the Alpine pastures

The emergence, in the sixteenth century, of the production of a full-fat hard cheese, of (relatively) large size and suitable for the export market, was for long limited to some Pre-Alpine areas of western Switzerland. And yet records dating back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries also bear witness to some forms of dairy production as a result of the conversion of arable land to grassland in several other Pre-Alpine and Alpine regions of medium and high altitude in German-speaking Switzerland. However, it was in the regions under the authority of governments formed of urban patriciates – Gruyère, Pays-d’Enhaut and Pays de Gessenay (i.e. Saanenland) on the one hand, and the Emmental on the other – that the new production of hard cheese emerged resulting from a combination of necessary prerequisites. In time, this led to the more traditional dairy products being supplanted: in particular, butter, sérac, and sour cheese (Sauerkäse), which were still being produced in considerable quantities in the easternmost regions of Switzerland, mostly where corporations and Alpine cooperatives continued to be the main form of ownership. Nonetheless, there is mention of the development of secondary cheese-making centres as far back as the Middle Ages in Appenzell, where private ownership of Alpine pastures prevailed, as well as in central Switzerland and in the Bernese Oberland, from where Sbrinz cheese was exported to cities in northern Italy from the seventeenth century onwards. In these latter

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regions, however, cheese production did not supplant traditional productions. In Canton Appenzell, cheese production co-existed with the production of butter and various low-fat cheeses, sold locally or exported to the Vorarlberg or Swabia up to the nineteenth century. In central Switzerland, the predominant activity continued to be cattle breeding and the export of cattle on the hoof. Commercial activity was considerably stimulated by the spread of a pastoral economy in western Switzerland. Demand surged in the lowland regions, a demand that was largely urban, domestic as well as foreign. The expansion of the specialization in cheese was the outcome of a series of institutional, environmental and economic factors: a form of ownership leading to the more rational farming of Alpine pastures; weak resistance to the increase in pastureland at the expense of cereal producing areas, first, and later of hay meadows for wintering livestock; a low, if any, seigneurial taxation; and the absence of barriers to the acquisition of Alpine pasture by outsiders, ‘people foreign to the commune’. All of these factors made it possible for the patrician families of Bern and Fribourg to invest in Alpine pastures as early as the sixteenth century, but above all in the seventeenth century, after the Thirty Years’ War, at a time when farmers were heavily indebted. This stands in striking contrast to some Alpine regions of central and eastern Switzerland, where high mountain pastures used to be mainly in the hands of associations of co-owners and corporations, or else were organized according to Statutes going back to the Middle Ages. Such Statutes banned outsiders from acquiring land and so considerably impeded the growth of speculative activities, because they limited access to high mountain pastures in proportion to the number of heads of cattle being wintered. Here family production remained mainly the rule. Localization of the high mountain pastures that could be exploited for the making of hard cheese also depended on a number of prerequisites. To begin with, altitude: hard full-fat cheese-producing regions generally lie at medium altitude, rarely higher than 1300-1500 meters above sea level, and the forests from which wood was required for producing large cheeses were more extensive there than at higher altitudes. The climate was more favourable and less variable there; hence less detrimental to dairy production in summer time than in higher Alpine regions, which tended to specialise instead in raising young cattle for export to Italy and France. Secondly, the close proximity to urban centres was crucial when it came to borrowing the capital necessary for investments in material (tools) essential to production, to the maintenance of high mountain chalets and for the setting up of an export trade in cheese. But, apart from these different factors, an advanced degree of division of labour played an important role. Indeed, to produce hard cheese large quantities of milk are needed, hence the necessity for the presence of a large enough herd of dairy cows (at least thirty cows). Tenured mountain farmers specialising in cheese production rented high mountain pastures and, if need be, also rented supplementary heads of cattle to complete their herd. Likewise, they secured the use of grassland in spring and in autumn in order

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to be able to feed their cows adequately. To provide for the wintering period, they purchased dry forage kept at different farms in the lowlands and on the Plateau. They would then move their herd from one holding to the next as the reserves of forage from the individual farms ran out – sometimes up to 10 and 20 times a year (Gutzwiller 1923: 19). There were, however, several crucial elements that made the full-fat hard cheese of Gruyère, Pays-d’Enhaut and Emmental into a much sought-after product. The improvement of cheesemaking techniques was often a lengthy process. This was facilitated by the transfer of know-how and by the heightened profitability of hard cheese compared to traditional productions, and the fact that, compared to butter, there was no ban on its export. Up until the sixteenth century, the main dairy product in Switzerland was séré (Zieger), that is to say whey or ricotta cheese, an early variety of low-fat cheese. However, from the middle of the fifteenth century, cheesemaking techniques began to change, probably due to the influence of Italian migrants who settled in Gruyère. The cheesemakers began resorting to rennet – which implies the possession of enough cattle to offset the loss of a large number of calves – and they benefited from a cooking temperature much lower than for séré (only 50-55° instead of 100°), and thus saving on wood1. Full-fat cheese was produced in the Gruyère region before this was the case in the Emmental where, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a wheel of cheese based on rennet was still described as only ‘the size of a plate, and unsuited for transport, as it contained excess liquid, and looked more like séré’. It was not until cheesemakers were hired in from the Pays-d’Enhaut to work on the mountain pastures of the Emmental that the process for producing hard cheese for export was improved significantly (Ramseyer-Hugi 1991: 33). Investing in cheese production and commerce with cheese proved profitable on many accounts. Firstly, this was because the taxes levied on grassland were much lower than those for cereal crops. In the bailiwick of Trachselwald (Emmental region), for example, tithes levied on meadows and hay were paid in cash according to a rate set already in the sixteenth century and thus accounted for a mere 1.6% of production in the middle of the eighteenth century, despite the increase in grass production (Häusler 1968: 137). Secondly, fat cheese production generated substantial profits compared to more traditional dairy products. Full-fat cheese, compared to butter and low-fat cheese, resulted in a profit which was 54% higher in 1622 and was still 40% higher in 17712. Unlike the butter market, tightly regulated and manipulated in favour of the urban consumer, there was no prohibition



1 Whole milk curds were heated to boiling point and contained proteins, casein, and albumin. However, it was a low-fat cheese because the cream was extracted and set aside (Morard 1999: 26-29). 2 Calculations based on Ramseyer-Hugi 1991: 34.

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3 00

relating to the export of fat cheese since it was to the financial advantage of the ruling families. This mode of production, which ultimately came to resemble a monoculture, had a significant impact on the way society operated from the middle of the eighteenth century. Small farmers lost their autonomy, as they were deprived of their alpine pasture rights. They also no longer possessed right of access to the commons, which from then on were leased out. Part of the population was forced to migrate as demand for labour had shrunk. Now, according to von Bonstetten, to achieve the same level of wealth, the richest cheesemaker [Hirt] needed only two servants, the ploughman four, and the winegrower eight (von Bonstetten 1782: 48). Opportunities for wintering the cattle having declined, the small farmer struggled to find a suitable place for wintering his own one or two cows. But, as cheese was produced essentially on the Alpine pastures, the trend was not simply to move from an intensive to an extensive use of land, but to increase the area dedicated to pasture even more by converting the medium-elevation meadows – the hayfields – into grazing land. Hence, the opportunities for wintering were still further reduced. This practice, which the Bernese authorities opposed strongly as from the second half of the seventeenth century, though to little avail, was practised elsewhere, in the Swiss Pre-Alps and the Alps, wherever indeed a market for landed property existed. II.2 From the 1830s to the 1880s: the increase in the acreage of grassland, the expansion of cheese production in the lowlands and the decline of a specialised regional product

The second phase was characterised by increased competition between cheese produced in the alpine regions and that coming from the dairies in the lowlands. Until then, Switzerland had been exporting probably about 1,500 tonnes of cheese produced on the high mountain pastures (estimation for the first decade of the nineteenth century). However, in this second phase, lowland farmers – who so far had been producing and supplying the dry forage needed for the wintering of cattle spending the summer up in the highlands – were no longer dependent on mountain cheesemakers. With the use of artificial grassland livestock could be stall-fed on a permanent basis and dairy production could be developed further. Cheese was produced throughout the year due to the increasing number of village dairies, where pooling the milk facilitated the production of large wheels of cheese (40-50 kg) which also possessed improved keeping properties3. Canton Bern is a case in point: from the opening of the first



3 In the nineteenth century, the requirements of customs duties in countries where cheese was taxed according to the number of cheese wheels and not according to their weight spurred producers to manufacture cheese wheels weighing 100 kg each, and sometimes even up to 150 kg (Moser & Brodbeck 2007: 136).

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cheese dairy in 1815, the number of dairies rose to 380 in 1848, and then to 639 in 1883. The grassland area in Switzerland was being extended partly at the expense of arable land, which is said to have declined from approximately 553,000 hectares at the end of the eighteenth century to approximately 300,000 hectares in the middle of the nineteenth century, and then on to 240,000 hectares halfway through the 1870s4. Cheese production in Canton Fribourg bears witness to the relative decline experienced in mountain cheesemaking compared to the production in the middle-altitude and low-altitude zones of the Canton. Over a fifteen-year period (1852-1867), production in the highlands decreased by 2%, while production in the lowlands increased by one quarter and in the medium-altitude region by one third (Ruffieux & Bodmer 1972: 250). The diminishing importance of mountain cheese production had a significant side effect: Alpine cheesemakers began increasingly to migrate, going to France, the Savoy, Piedmont, or Russia (Ruffieux & Bodmer 1972: 254-257). Migration contributed to the acceleration of the spread of Swiss production methods across a broader swathe of the European continent rather than the more limited expansion, which was the case in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to regions adjacent to the Swiss borders. II.3 From a ‘yellow’ Switzerland to a ‘green’ Switzerland: landscape changes from the 1870s-1880s and with a different use of grassland in the mountains and in the plains

Stage three in the history of cheese production can be ascribed to the rapid expansion of grassland. To a considerable extent it replaced land which had formerly been worked as arable subsequent to the collapse of cereal prices as from the 1870s. As a result of this reconversion, land for cereal crops was reduced by two-thirds between the middle of the nineteenth century and 1911, namely from about 300,000 hectares to 212,000 hectares in the early 1880s and to 106,000 hectares in 1911, before rebounding to 130,600 hectares under the impact of World War I. There was a boom in the number of lowland dairies. The decline in mountain cheese was evident everywhere and, although it was considered of better quality, it was less in demand because its price – given its higher production costs – was higher than that of cheese produced in the lowlands. The latter was cheaper because it was produced more efficiently. The increase in production was accompanied by an energetic campaign to enhance public appreciation so that it was to become popular with the poorer classes. Proportionally to total cheese production that of mountain cheese continued to decline in importance. In the 1880s, it accounted for one third of the total cheese output of Canton Vaud (Brugger 1968: 253). In 1913,



4 In the Canton of Zurich, arable land dwindled from 42,935 hectares in 1774 to 13,000 hectares in 1884.

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nationwide, the lowland dairies processed nine times more milk to make full-fat and half-fat cheese than the mountain dairies did. This large-scale reversal affected the alpine dairy industry badly, obliging mountain farmers to increase other activities, such as cattle breeding and fattening. But the structural response to the fall of cereal prices and the extension of meadows and pastures also impacted another farming activity. It facilitated combining grassland with fruit growing. While cheese export increased from an annual 3,260 tonnes (data for the 1850s) to 10,400 tonnes in 1870s, and to 41,000 tonnes in the 1901-1910 period, fruit exports (fresh and otherwise) registered a similar upward trend, with 5,800 tonnes, 24,900 tonnes and 74,500 tonnes respectively (Brugger 1978: 171, 235).

III. The emergence and development of fruit growing III.1 Only few traces of fruit growing to be found in the sources before the eighteenth century

Whereas cheese production is fairly well documented, it is difficult to find reliable evidence concerning the development of fruit growing on the Swiss plateau and in the lower mountainous zones for the sixteenth century. Fruit growing did not transform the existing main systems of land use before the latter half of the nineteenth century. As fruit growing was a secondary crop on the grassland and, even more frequently, on arable land, it is rarely mentioned in the traditional sources and often revealed only in the detail of a few local sources. Official enquiries focus primarily on the dominant forms of farming (arable land, vineyards, meadows, pastureland, and forests). Yet, in some regions, fruit growing played a primary role for daily consumption. This was the case, for instance, with perry, cider, or dried fruits, the last being used to replace bread in the absence of cereals or potatoes as late as the end of the eighteenth century, chiefly but not exclusively in the Pre-Alps of central Switzerland, known as the Hirtenland (Bircher 1938: 51-56). Some probate inventories in Zurich bear witness to the importance of dried fruits in the seventeenth century. They played an important role for the rural communities whenever potato and turnip harvests had proved to be disastrous. From the sixteenth century, a range of indicators reveal the existence of some occasionally sizeable fruit growing activity and this can be seen, for example, in the number of people recruited to harvest fruit in some abbeys in north-west Switzerland. In eastern Switzerland, in the chronicle written by Vadian at the beginning of the sixteenth century we note that in the regions around Lake Constance (Thurgau and St Gallen), cider and perry production was significant as early as the fifteenth century. This was regarded as quite comparable to what was produced in Normandy (gleich wie in Normandei) (Vadianus [1546] 1875: 2) and some farmers would produce as much as 1000-

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1500 litres of Most a year5, part of that production being sold on the regional market or exported (Hunziker 1936: 66-67). The new rapid expansion of fruit farming in the seventeenth century can undoubtedly be ascribed also to the fact that, in some regions, winegrowing had been abandoned in places where the climate had proved to be unsuitable for this type of cultivation, as would appear to emerge from some hospital account books. The infatuation of foreign elites with fruit growing played no less of a role in this development. Indeed, Swiss officers employed in foreign armies abroad, especially those serving in France, brought home nobler varieties of fruit trees than those already existing (Hunziker 1936: 48). III.2 The expansion of fruit growing since the end of the seventeenth century

It is difficult to quantify fruit production at the regional level during the Ancien Régime, because it did not depend exclusively on specific natural conditions – climate, quality of the soil, altitude – but also on the more or less favourable institutional environment and on the system of seignieurial tax collection. The tithes on fruits in mountain areas were often redeemed, and on the Plateau they were included among the small tithes (petites dîmes) that were levied jointly with other crops, for example flax, hemp, peas, beans, etc., but which, often and very early on, were paid in cash. When the tithes on fruits were levied in kind – which was rare – a serious risk of fraud existed, if we are to believe the complaints coming from the beneficiaries, frequently the parochial clergy. Besides, the growers’ own consumption remains a largely unknown quantity due to the lack of sufficient records. In the eighteenth century, there are far more numerous sources of information on the expansion of fruit growing and its role in the agrarian system. We find replies to enquiries made by economic associations, police regulations on fruit pilfering, various book-keeping records, narratives of contemporary witnesses, records of fruit tree plantations on commons, etc. The frequent obligation to plant fruit trees concerned all classes in society, including farmers on church estates and on estates belonging to urban governments. And some communal authorities were not to be outdone. In the regions of central and eastern Switzerland, sometimes citizens were systematically obliged to plant fruit trees on the common land. This occurred in Cantons Glarus, St Gallen, Zurich, Solothurn, etc., where access to communal land depended on the individual person and not on the possession of a specific farmstead (rights in rem). However, from one parish or community to another regulation differed considerably as to the types and the number of trees to be planted and to the duration of the right to the usufruct of the produce.



5 The German term Most stands for both cider and perry, because up until the beginning of the twentieth century, these two products were mixed in variable proportions.

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Among the sources that highlight the relevance of fruit growing, it is worth mentioning the tithe maps of some Cantons which reveal an unexpected element: the presence of fruit trees, sometimes a very significant one, in all sections of the then existing three-field system, an aspect we will return to later in this paper. Data for two communities in Canton St Gallen (Rheineck and Thal) show that in 1769, there were 22,680 fruit trees on their territory6, while a quarter of a century later, on the eve of the French Revolution, that number had increased to close on 27,000 (Steinmüller 2004: 311). Other regions of Switzerland also produced large amounts of fruit, as witnessed by the 350 inhabitants of Knonau (Zurich), who managed to harvest over 9,000 hl of various fruits in a good year (Fäsi 1765: 444). As pointed out by one of the investigators in the bailiwick of Kappel (Zurich) in 1764, fruit trees and their produce did not merely provide food and drink, but also generated an income for the farmer just as substantial as cattle breeding and, what is more, they earned him ready money7. In the years of hardship, the proto-industrial population considered that it was more economical to eat dried fruit than to buy bread. Dried fruit, therefore, was a substitute for bread at times when the price of cereals was high and a reserve in times when the lean season (période de soudure) had to be bridged. A contemporary referring to the 1760s stated that in his experience a lean period generally lasted two months. This explains the attention paid by state authorities, including those of Zurich, to dried fruits during the hard times in the eighteenth century and again in the 1840s. It is in fact likely that the rapid expansion of fruit tree cultivation observed towards the end of the 1770s was a reaction to the difficult times experienced earlier that decade. III.3 Planting fruit trees on arable land and in meadows: the role of tithe collection and lower returns

Fruit growing was not confined to the gardens surrounding dwelling houses; it often occupied all the ground available, including the arable land. This may be deduced, as early as the seventeenth century, from farm-leasing contracts which included the duty to plant high stem fruit trees even amidst agricultural crops, a feature noticeable in several Cantons, for example in those of Zurich and Zug, and especially Thurgau. In the eighteenth century, and again in the nineteenth century, the negative effects of this type of farming were considered to be of secondary importance compared to the advantages resulting from the collection of fruit and the additional revenue this generated. According to the economic calculations



6 Staatsarchiv St. Gallen, CEA/D iii.17. 7 Staatsarchiv Zürich, B ix 67, fol. 42.

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of contemporaries, then, there was no negative interaction between fruit trees and agricultural crops on the one hand and fruit trees and pasture on the other. The impact on the grain yield, it seemed, depended on how dense the plantation was. In the first few years after a tree was planted, its effect for grassland and sown fields tended to be limited and it would take several years for the size of the tree and the crown development to affect the product of the main crop in any way. In the 1830s, Pupikofer pointed out that with fruit trees in the middle of a field, the decrease in the yield of the cereal crops would amount to a mere one quarter to one eighth of the harvest, depending on how much space had been left between the trees when planted (Pupikofer 1837: 85-86). Besides, people at that time were agreed in acknowledging that the lesser return from cereal crops was abundantly offset by the high yield of fruit trees in the same way as the poor years were offset by the good ones (Meyer von Knonau 1844, vol. 1: 262). Undeniably, farmers tried to make sure that their trees would grow as tall as possible, so as to avoid excessive harm to the wheat or spelt crops (Fäsi 1766: 151). Surprisingly, in the sources no objection appears to have been made concerning the discrepancy between the specific time for the varying and necessary work to be carried out on the trees and the crops and then with regard to the moment of their harvesting. It was not until the early twentieth century that growing trees in the midst of arable land was systematically condemned. Regarding the contrasting interests of the farmers compared to those of the tithes’ owners in respect of the tithes on fruit grown on arable or grassland, no serious research has yet been carried out and one can only formulate hypotheses. It would doubtless have been more attractive for the farmer to pay the ‘small tithe’ for fruit (petite dîme) rather than the ‘great tithe’ for arable land (grosse dîme). For two reasons, firstly because it represented a lower percentage of the harvest, and secondly because its payment was often made in cash which would depreciate over time. Hence, the farmer’s interest in this complementary activity, which was less demanding than cultivating a vineyard in terms of the work involved, all the keener if there was little objection or resistance on the part of owner of the tithes. However, the position of the latter was less clear since his income from arable land would be lower and the risk of being defrauded greater since the harvest time of the different products of the land would not take place at the same time. In Canton Thurgau, it was only when tithes were bought back, during the Helvetic Republic, that owners of the tithes on arable land saw themselves wronged by the underevaluation of their lands on account of the additional planting of fruit trees. This ambiguity deriving from the simultaneous co-existence of two crops on the same land almost certainly explains the late development of fruit growing in regions where the strict rules of the three-field system continued in force until the end of the eighteenth century, and where the buying back of tithes took place very late in the nineteenth century.

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III.4 The impact of evolving agrarian structures in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century: the boom in fruit growing and the increase in the value of the fruit harvest due to adaptive transformations

The modification of agrarian structures in the eighteenth century was not without influencing the fruit production and the various uses it was put to, in particular the use of dried fruit as an integral part of the daily intake. The introduction of new crops from the end of the eighteenth century changed the food consumption patterns of the poorest classes. This was the case for potatoes, in Aargau, for example, or for maize in the Rheintal (St Gallen). The outcome was a change in the types of fruit grown. Whilst the population ate less dried fruit after the advent of the potato (as noted by the chairman of the Agricultural Society of Aargau in the middle of the nineteenth century), the same population nevertheless consumed more cider and perry, these beverages being cheaper than wine (Sandmeier 1851: n. pag.). Fruit growing did not lose its appeal but adapted to the changing demand. The result was less dried fruit and more cider and perry and later on, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the consumption of more fresh fruit. It is interesting to note that already in the eighteenth century consumers would distinguish between superior quality and medium quality perry. Thurgau perry was reputed to be superior to that of Zurich, because of the use of better methods of preservation, better pears and a more careful maintenance of the barrels (Fäsi 1765: 444). In Canton Thurgau in the 1860s, cider made from superior-quality apples was sold at the same price as that of wine of average quality. It is striking to what extent the main fruit growing regions – Thurgau, Basel-Country, the districts of Affoltern, Uster and the shores of Lake Zurich (Canton Zürich), the March district (Canton Schwyz) – impressed contemporaries in the latter half of the eighteenth century and in the first third of the nineteenth century. But observers agreed, early in the nineteenth century, that a number of new fruit growing areas had developed in the SwissGerman speaking regions, where this type of production had barely existed under the Ancien Régime. The increasing interest in fruit growing in Canton Lucerne, or later in Aargau derived partly from the abolition of seigneurial taxes, mostly tithes, and the removal of existing legal constraints. In their first stages the new fruit crops were mainly consumed by the farmers and their families because the trees grew slowly and there was no surplus production. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century, when arable land was converted to grassland that more fruit trees were planted and that these regions, with the improvement of transport, began to commercialise part of their production, The old fruit growing regions, for their part, had been exporting their production systematically to urban centres, to the neighbouring Cantons and to Southern Germany from the beginning of the century, or even from as early as the eighteenth century (Fäsi 1766, 1768; Hunziker 1936: 46). It is worth noting that the supply of fresh fruit was always very seasonal. In

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the 1870s, the supply of tart apples (Saueraepfel) on the weekly market in the city of Bern generally ran out around April or May and that is when dried fruits appeared on the market stalls to replace fresh fruits. Fruit growing gained in importance at the end of the nineteenth century, a fact well demonstrated by the relevant revenues compared to those from other productions. In Canton Zurich, taking into account the various uses of the fruit production (fresh fruits, domestic consumption, perry, cider, etc.), the average overall value (in Swiss francs) of the fruit harvest (apples, pears, cherries, plums and walnuts) for the years 1884-1887 was 22% higher than what was earned from wine and 14% higher than from what was earned from cereal crops. In fact, at the very end of the nineteenth century, this state of affairs drove some agricultural associations of western Switzerland, such as of Fribourg, to encourage the cultivation of fruit trees, since it was indeed ‘an important branch of rural wealth’ considering the ‘almost fabulous sums that some regions in foreign countries and in German-speaking Switzerland earn from selling their fruit’. But if the extension of grassland on the Plateau and in some low-altitude mountain areas increased the potential for planting fruit trees, two other factors significantly encouraged fruit growing. Firstly, there were the difficulties experienced by Swiss wine growers due to bad grape harvests in some alemanic regions and also their escalating difficulties in exporting wine to Germany due to the establishment of the German customs union (Zollverein) which led to farmers planting fruit trees in the midst of their vineyards. Secondly, we have the fact that in the long run fruit growing was far more profitable compared to other agricultural productions, Compared to the decade 18611870 (Index 100), the index of fruit prices in Canton Lucerne increased to 213 in 1901-1910, but that of milk and potatoes only to 127 and 125 respectively (Lemmenmeier 1983: 430). III.5 Fruit growing and the search for diversified outlets: the ascendance of pome fruits

The powerful impulse driving fruit farming was reflected in an increasing interest in this type of production but nonetheless that was to change quite substantially during the nineteenth century. The remarkable fall in demand for dried fruits from stone fruits (e.g. cherries and plums) was a severe blow for the cultivators of stone fruits. As from the 1840s, the bulk of the harvest of stone fruits in Cantons St Gallen, Thurgau and Zurich was used for the production of beverages or eau-de-vie, but the high price of Kirsch made it less competitive than eau-de-vie produced more cheaply from potatoes. Also, some Swiss regions experienced a sharp drop in the number of cherry trees, for a variety of reasons, notably through a recurrence of extreme weather conditions which destroyed their harvest and drove the farmers to abandon these trees. However, fruit growing exhibited distinct specific regional features and, by contrast, there were large areas specialising in black cherries which continued

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to exist until at least the middle of the twentieth century. In particular, as early as the eighteenth century, one such zone stretched from the south of the Black Forest, in Baden (Germany), to the Fricktal (Aargau), Basel-Country, the districts of Canton Solothurn on the north side of the Jura, and as far as Ferrette in Alsace. Nonetheless, the promotion of the cherries differed according to the region. It was either sold as fresh fruit in the markets, or dried and used instead of bread in the lean years, or processed to make Kirsch or jam. In the second half of the nineteenth century, fruit production underwent radical change. Not only did the number of stone fruit trees decrease, but also the ratio between apple and pear trees also changed. In the middle of the nineteenth century the number of pear trees still outnumbered that of apple trees in most German-speaking Cantons. For the producer, pears were more lucrative, because they were richer in juice than apples and perry was sold at a higher price than cider. Nevertheless there was a remarkable reversal in the numbers of pear and apple trees as from the 1860s, which two Thurgau censuses illustrate well (1859 and 1884). In 1859, pear trees represented 59.7% of the pear and apple trees and in 1884/1885 a mere 39.5%. Apple trees, on the other hand, increased from 40.3% in 1859 to 60.5% in 1884/1885. Various factors contributed to this reversal: the search for new outlets as a result of an expansion in fruit supply, new modes of transport and in particular the development of the railway, which altered the flow of produce, and then the need to grow robust fruit more suitable for export. Whereas in the 1850s six-sevenths of fruit production was still exported to neighbouring regions, thirty years later exports were sent to more distant countries and this clearly favoured apples, to the detriment of pears. Similarly, the diversity of the numerous strains that still prevailed in the 1860s-1870s began to be seen as harmful for the level of standardisation needed for export, not to mention that, in 1868, rival producers abroad deployed the better marketing strategies. ‘The English are much better at selling their cider. They sell it in bottles, which earn them more money than in Switzerland’. Subsequently, in order to respond more adequately and effectively to foreign competition, from Italy as well as from the United States, the number of varieties was reduced, which was as remarkable as the increase in the number of new species, designed to obtain better fresh table fruit. This strategy, however, was slow in developing, with rather mixed results even at the beginning of the twentieth century (Würgler 1955: 40ss).

IV. A  bsinthe and snails: examples of profitable alternative activities, which ceased to exist in the course of the twentieth century The growth of absinthe plants and snail gathering are two of the many alternative activities that have virtually disappeared during the twentieth century for very different reasons. Established regionally, they were certainly

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successful, but for varying periods of time. Absinthe wormwood was grown and commercialised from the last third of the eighteenth century, to be used as an aperitif8, and there is still no consensus on its origins (Berthoud 1969): its cycle was relatively short because of institutional bans, which drove it out of existence for nearly a century. Then, snail gathering, a centuries old activity combining gathering with breeding, was subject to major structural changes. These included de-christianisation resulting from a decline in the observation of the precepts of the Catholic Church, in particular during the Lent period with its fasting and abstinence; reduced demand from foreign Church institutions, to which a part of the Swiss production was exported; and a decline in popular consumption. IV.1 Absinthe

The near-extinction of absinthe spirits was the consequence of fierce opposition on the part of anti-alcoholic circles such as temperance campaigners from the second half of the nineteenth century. After a popular referendum in 1910 prohibition of the production and distribution of absinthe spirits on health and medical grounds was included in the Federal Constitution. In fact, the harmful effect of absinthe abuse was geographically limited to certain regions, and the Bernese government even claimed that elsewhere other strong drinks, such as schnaps (eau-de-vie) were far more damaging. There was a second reason, left ‘unspoken’, which was the fierce resistance from winegrowing milieus in western Switzerland, which were directly affected by the increasing competition from absinthe producers. This explains why the early bans on the distribution of absinthe were at the cantonal level, Vaud in 1906 and Geneva in 1907, and were therefore instituted before the Federal ban. The Valais government was quite explicit on the subject in 1908: ‘Vineyards provide a healthier beverage, but face competition from absinthe, which sells at a lower price’. Indeed, absinthe consumption was substantial in the Cantons of western Switzerland. With three-quarters of its production situated in the Val de Travers (Canton Neuchâtel), the volume of absinthe exports escalated during the nineteenth century. Initially sold locally, and through peddlers, absinthe consumption spread rapidly, and entered the market circuits of international merchants, in search of a product likely to fill in part the gaps left vacant by the doldrums of the lace market (Berthoud 1969: 641). At the end of the 1820s, some 150,000 bottles were sold abroad every year. At the beginning of the 1840s, the production had increased to 1,465 hl, 90% of which were exported. According to available data published by the Federal Customs Administration exports rose significantly from the middle of the nineteenth century (in the years 1852-1860: on average 2,819 hl



8 Pharmacists used to sell the elixir of wormwood as a remedy for fevers as far back as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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yearly; 1861-1870: 3,208 hl; 1871-1879; 3,386 hl), but with a considerable fluctuation from one year to the next. Absinthe exports peaked first in 1891 with 10,835 hl worth one million Swiss francs and then again in 1907 with 13,168 hl for a total value of 1.2 million Swiss francs. Exports reached an historical high in 1916 with 19,457 hl, worth 2 million Swiss francs. This was doubtless due to the necessity to liquidate all existing stocks after the ban imposed by the popular vote of 1910. The Swiss government took the remarkable decision to indemnify producers, manufacturers and employees who had been hurt by the prohibition, but denied the family members of the growers any compensation at all, since ‘they don’t suffer any significant losses’, in contrast to the growers themselves, the workers who produced the absinthe or the tradesmen. The indemnification provisions also provide an insight into the importance of this marginal form of agricultural production in Val de Travers at a time when absinthe production was booming. In fact, the cultivation of ‘grande absinthe’ (artemisia absinthium) and ‘petite absinthe’ (artemisia ponica) and hyssop, i.e. herbs used in the distillation of absinthe, was essentially undertaken by the family members of land-owning or tenant farmers and was labour-intensive since it required frequent hoeing of the soil. Harvest took place in June / July and the herbs were dried in the shade, in barns and lofts. The harvesting operations employed about 500 people in the early twentieth century. In 1908, the cultivation of plants covered an area of 37.9 hectares in 1908, compared to approximately 54 hectares in the early 1890s. A hectare of absinthe plants was worth 38% more than the same surface planted with grass, which explains the importance of producing absinthe for export, which amounted to nearly 62% of the production in 1910. IV.2 Snail gathering

Snail gathering ceased to exist for two main reasons: both supply and demand declined. On the supply side, the snail population dwindled as a consequence of over-gathering and, in addition, there was a major transformation in their habitat following the modernisation of agriculture, which severely reduced the concentration of edible snails in Switzerland. Snails were gathered mostly by the poor, the women and the children, but this activity contracted also because, from the end of the eighteenth century, this labour was very poorly remunerated. On the demand side, while eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources report that snail consumption was extremely popular in some regions of eastern Switzerland (Meyer 1986: 280-281), it declines during the first half of the twentieth century. Monastic institutions were the exception, although even their snail consumption was below the level of previous centuries when it could amount to tens of thousands a year (Wildhaber 1949). However, since it was not only a matter of satisfying local demand, snail gathering was accompanied by intense breeding activity to meet export

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demands. The activity represented an appreciable source of income for some local communities up to the end of the nineteenth century, in particular in Cantons Zurich, Appenzell, St Gallen and Graubünden, and to a lesser extent also Bern, Uri, and Ticino (Wildhaber 1949: 149). The main importers of snails were the neighbouring Catholic countries, namely Austria and northern Italy. Sporadic data indicate that for the Gotthard pass alone export to Northern Italy averaged 8.38 tonnes of snails per year in the decade 1720/21-1729/30 and 12.3 tonnes per year in the decade 1750/51-1759/60. In 1840 exports to Austria amounted to more than 90 tonnes. Customs statistics for the decade 1851 to 1860 show that on average the total Swiss export of snails amounted 46.2 tonnes yearly and to 39.2 tonnes in the years 1861 to 1869. The customs authorities, however, stopped making a separate mention of this trade as from the 1870s. The significance of this type of alternative activity can be seen in the fact that it was strictly regulated, sometimes as soon as the seventeenth century, one such rule being a ban on harvesting at certain periods of the year. As to religious institutions, many owned a snail farm, sometimes also producing for export, as was the case with the Capuchin monastery in Appenzell, which sold snails to customers as far away as Vienna. In the middle of the twentieth century, it was still engaged in this activity, but then only for its own private consumption.

V. Conclusion This contribution highlights two main types of farming production, both of which were influenced by the changes affecting the agrarian structures of the Ancien Regime. What stands out is that these two forms of production (dairy farming and fruit farming) were first limited to some specific regions but then expanded across the whole of Switzerland during the nineteenth century. The expansion of grassland, as well as promoting the planting of more fruit trees, also greatly increased milk production and fuelled the large-scale production of cheese in the lowlands. But producing more was not without its problems, since Swiss products faced stiff and ever increasing competition on foreign markets. This explains why, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, there was a move to increase the variety of produce, both for home and international markets – part of the milk being processed into condensed milk and dried milk powder – and the same may be said of fruit farming. Other, more local, types of farming production disappeared, because consumer habits were changing. Finally, still others failed to take hold on a permanent basis at all for want of a favourable natural environment. If tobacco growing was only successful in certain limited areas, it is precisely due to unfavourable climatic conditions and not because of government policy since, at the end of the nineteenth century, the customs duties even encouraged the use of Swiss raw materials.

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Bibliography Bircher, Ralph (1938), Wirtschaft und Lebenshaltung im schweizerischen ‘Hirtenland’ am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts, Lachen, Gutenburg. Berthoud, Dorette (1969), ‘La “fée verte”: pour une histoire de l’absinthe’, Revue suisse d’histoire, 19, p. 638-661. Brugger, Hans (1968), Statistisches Handbuch der schweizerischen Landwirtschaft = Manuel statistique de l’agriculture suisse, Bern, Verbandsdruckerei. Brugger, Hans [1978], Die schweizerische Landwirtschaft 1850 bis 1914, Frauenfeld, Huber. Fäsi, Johann Konrad (1765-1768), Johann Conrad Fäsis[...] genaue und vollständige Staats- und Erd-Beschreibung der ganzen helvetischen Eidgenossschaft, derselben gemeinen Herrschaften und zugewandten Orten, 4 vol, Zürich, Gessner. Gutzwiller, Karl (1923), Die Milchverarbeitung in der Schweiz und der Handel mit Milcherzeugnissen: Geschichte, Betriebsformen, Marktverhältnisse und volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung, Schaffhausen, Kühn. Häusler, Fritz (1968), Das Emmental im Staate Bern bis 1798: die altbernische Landesverwaltung in den Aemtern Burgdorf, Trachselwald, Signau, Brandis und Sumiswald, vol. 2, Bern, Stämpfli. Hunziker, Walter (1936), Der Obstbau in der Nordostschweiz: Beitrag zur wirtschaftlichen Landeskunde der Schweiz, Frauenfeld, Huber. Lemmenmeier, Max (1983), Luzerns Landwirtschaft im Umbruch: wirtschaftlicher, sozialer und politischer Wandel in der Agrargesellschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts, Luzern–Stuttgart, Rex-Verlag. Meyer, Thomas (1986), Handwerk, Hauswerk, Heimarbeit: nicht-agrarische Tätigkeiten und Erwerbsformen in einem traditionellen Ackerbaugebiet des 18. Jahrhunderts (Zürcher Unterland), Zürich, Chronos. Meyer von Knonau, Gerold (1844), Der Canton Zürich, historisch-geographischstatistisch geschildert […], St. Gallen, Huber, vol. 1. Morard, Nicolas (1999), ‘Le fromage de Gruyère, une invention récente’, Cahiers du Musée gruyérien, no. 2, Bulle. Moser, Peter & Brodbeck, Beat (2007), Du lait pour tous: portrait en images, documents et analyses de l’économie et de la politique laitières en Suisse au 20e siècle, Baden, hier + jetzt. Pupikofer, Johann Adam (1837), Der Kanton Thurgau, historisch, geographisch, statistisch geschildert […], St. Gallen, Huber. Ramseyer-Hugi, Rudolf J. (1991), Das altbernische Küherwesen, 2nd. ed., Bern, Haupt. Ruffieux, Roland & Bodmer, Walter (1972), Histoire du gruyère en Gruyère du xvie au xxe siècle, Fribourg, Editions universitaires. Sandmeier, Melchior (1851), Eine volkswirthschaftliche Frage: Ist es möglich, dass der Volkswohlstand in unserm Lande von Seite der Landwirthschaft wesentlich erhöht [...] werden kann? Aarau, J. J. Christen.

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14. Considerations on Hemp and Alternative Agriculture in Italy, France and Russia from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century I. Introduction Extensive cereal growing and meat production have been characteristic products of mainstream agriculture in the history of western societies. When prices grew stagnant in the grain market, farmers managed by switching to new crops and growing methods, that is, to ‘alternative farming’; these choices eventually determined innovation in production and processing. Within this framework, the fall of wheat and meat prices did not necessarily result in an overall slowdown, but could on the contrary be a force actually pushing towards diversification and more effective use of available resources. Cereals and meat could for example yield ground to industrial crops, such as hemp and flax, dairying or horticulture. Nor this has been a temporary trend. Once the normal conditions of grain profitability returned, the experience encouraged advances in the form of more complex rotations, innovative use of labour potential, and wider supply and access to the market (Thirsk, 2006). Historical evidence shows however a more complex picture. Mixed agriculture, for instance, far from resulting from external shocks, has been for centuries the most common form of soil use. Farmers tended to produce a wide range of outputs including cereals, textile fibres, vines, vegetables, and livestock. Eventually they adapted the overall mix to actual market requirements. Enlarging the variety of crops was both a risk-reduction strategy, compensating for diverging price trends and production outcomes, and a means to self-sufficiency, as the case of mainstream agriculture in the eastern Po Valley, based on the so-called ‘piantata’ (Scarpa, 1963). The actual mix of production chosen hinged on a complex range of factors. Environment, social conditions of production, the organization and division of labour, institutions, skills, tradition, commercial networks, and external demand all played an important role. Drawing on these categories of analysis, this paper aims to verify empirically whether industrial crops can actually be considered alternative crops, taking hemp as a case study. In doing so, the study focuses on the three major European producing areas (Western France, Eastern Po Valley, and Central Russia), testing whether, and to what extent, the development of the textile plant in early modern and modern period can be linked to major offsets of the cereal market, and whether, on the other hand, the crisis of hemp production in the

Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 315-343.

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late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the result of any long-term rise in grain prices. Wheat prices display broadly similar tendencies in the selected regions. They showed continuous growth all through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries until the end of the Napoleonic wars; a more or less sharp drop in the decade following the collapse of the French Empire; and a new expansion between the 1830s and the 1870s. Thereafter France and Italy suffered the consequences of the so-called ‘agrarian crisis’, whereas in Russia wheat prices kept rising until World War I (see Figures 7-12 1-6). Hemp production in Western France continued to expand up to the 1880s and, in North Eastern Italy and Central Russia, until the first decades of the twentieth century. Regional case studies have been selected because of the relevance of the local hemp crops within diverse economic and social frameworks, and asymmetrical exposure to market forces. These aspects allow us effectively to test the existence of a correlation between long-term falls in wheat prices, and expanding hemp cultivation. In fact, the presence of this fibre within traditional field rotations made it easier for tenants to shift from one crop to another, making hemp a particularly favoured alternative when the cereal market was in decline. Secondly, the structural differences in economic and social conditions between the selected regions helped isolate them from each other, which makes it easier to test for the presence of the correlation. Finally, the chronological span, from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, encompasses the main ups and downs of wheat prices (see Figures 14.8-14.13) and the considerable development of hemp cultivation through the entire eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well as the subsequent general crisis of hemp production in the world market. The article is divided into three sections. It reconstructs the origins of hemp production in each region and its evolution over time, the factors that marked the sector’s development and crisis and any correlation between trends of wheat prices, and those of hemp harvests. The conclusion presents a comparative synthesis of the results.

II. Hemp and Sharecropping. The Eastern Po-Valley There has been extensive research into the history of Italian hemp growing. A number of mainly regional studies – we refer e.g. to the works of Giacomina Caligaris for Piedmont, of David Celetti for North-Eastern Italy, of Roberto Finzi, Carlo Poni and Agostino Bignardi for central Italy, and of Anna Dell’Orefice for the Southern Italy – have systematically traced the origins, growth, and final crises of hemp cultivation, and manufacturing. Among other aspects, they highlighted how the textile crop played a central role in Italian rural history. While drawing on insights from these works, the focus here will be on the province of Bologna, the major Italian hemp-producing region. We will examine, in particular, the factors that explained why this

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choice continued to be made through hard times, so that hemp survived as a mainstream crop until the mid-twentieth century. Hemp was traditionally a keystone of the regional economy. The quality of the raw material enjoyed international reputation. Naval dockyards and shipyards preferred Bolognese fibres to all others. Bolognese yarns and cloths were exported to the rest of Italy (Poni, 2005: 1-16), Northern Europe1, and to the whole Mediterranean area (Marcelli, 1962: 323). Up until the 1930s hemp retained remarkable market strength, even though its cultivation had been reduced to marginality in most Western countries (Sessa, 1934: 669). Hemp was common in Central Italy already in ancient times. Until the early fifteenth century, however, the fibre was mainly used for home consumption or marketed within regional networks (Sorbelli, Bologna: 1910). Farmers and artisans alike made sheets, cloths, ropes, and bags from hemp. As such, the plant fitted well into traditional rural life. It did not change the usual crop rotations based on cereals and legumes, nor did its output exceed the limits set by local needs. Cultivated in small plots, usually located near the cottage, hemp was tended by women and children among their other tasks. As it was spun and woven during the winter, it occupied people who would otherwise have been left unproductively idle (Andreolli, 2005:1-16). In the early Renaissance, merchants, in response to the needs of the booming shipping industry, began selling hemp fibre in the ports of the nearby Adriatic. By the fifteenth century growing demand for hemp to produce ropes and sails had already triggered the expansion of planting, and transformed this crop from a secondary activity into a promising business. Now closely linked to one of the most important and rapidly growing industrial sectors of the time, the fibre became item of international trade (Neppi, 1899: 193). The market was promising, yet complex and highly competitive. To deliver adequate quantities, peasants had to increase productivity, which they did by inserting hemp into a three-year crop rotation with wheat (Zangheri, 1957: 503). This, in turn contributed to profound innovations in mainstream agriculture. The expansion of industrial crops showed that overall yields could be enhanced by introducing different methods of cultivation, eventually stimulating product and process innovation. It also highlighted the benefits of new rotations, of intensive manuring, and of deep plowing (Tanari, 1881: 164, 167-170). Extensive hemp plantations were however radically different from the traditional ones in scale, scope, and organization. They required heavy investment to build canals, retting pools, and warehouses, and needed large cash advances for buying fertiliser. This crop also became a very labour-intensive option: a large work force was needed to plough the fields, and for sowing, harvesting, and retting. Hemp tended therefore to be cultivated on big estates,



1 Bolognese hemp reached the Baltic, where it was preferred to Nordic and Russian fibers for its smoothness and elasticity; see Landeshauptarchiv Schwerin (hereafter LHS), 2.11 – 2/1, 207, 305, 1203, 1211, 1562, 3035, Auswärtige Beziehungen.

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usually run on the basis of sharecropping contracts, the most common form of rural lease in the region2. The introduction of large-scale hemp cultivation profoundly altered the inner relations between capital and labour. The choice of this crop in fact proved a particularly advantageous option for the proprietor, one that substantially increased his share of overall revenue (Poni, 1963; Mirri, 1970; Iradiel, 1978). All things being equal, enlarging the area under hemp raised both the added value and the variable costs. Farm income under sharecropping was split evenly between landowner and sharecropper, but although direct costs were borne by the peasant, extensive hemp cultivation worked against the landholder. Managing the work force, in particular, turned out to be a challenging problem. The most labour intensive tasks like ploughing, sowing and harvesting were concentrated in a relatively short time-span, and, as a rule, they overlapped with other field tasks. Any disruption of the production process, such as a reduction of available time by bad weather, increased the amount of labour needed beyond the capacity of the rural family. Hiring day-labourers then became a necessary, but also risky, alternative. Failure to take that step put the harvest in danger, and the tenants at risk of eviction. But employing an external work force meant paying salaries. If the tenant did not have the cash he needed, he was forced to turn to the landowner for an advance on the future harvest. At the end of the year, the landholder was required to pay back the loan, leaving the landlord with a higher share of the added value (Finzi, 1998). Any unforeseen event such as higher labour costs, a drop of hemp prices or new taxes would have transformed the advance into a debt. Once indebted, the landholder had to comply with the proprietor’s every whim, losing ever more added value, and ultimately becoming economically and personally bound to the landlord (Finzi, 1984: 472-488). Expanding hemp cultivation, sharecropper indebtedness, and the soaring profits of agrarian capitalists worked as tightly integrated variables (Poni, 1970; Biagioli, 1991). Innocenzo Malvasia, in his writings on agriculture, farming, and field management at the beginning of the seventeenth century, had already outlined those mechanisms, explaining clearly why landowners should expand hemp cultivation to the full (Finzi, 1079; Avellini, 2007; Malvasia, 1609). Analysis of nineteenth-century accounting documents confirms that hemp was not just a profitable agricultural option, but also a strategic tool of labour management in the hands of the landowner, as the plant presented the double characteristic of giving the proprietor maximum revenue while leaving the landholder with a net loss. Table 14.1 brings together the contrary effects of hemp growing on labour and capital. It also explains why the hemp question remained central to the eternal struggle between sharecroppers and proprietors, the former striving to hold back the spread of the plant, the latter using all possible mean to promote its expansion. By way of conclusion,

2 Archives Nationales (hereafter AN), F/12/502, Notes sur le chanvre de Bologne.

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the continual development of hemp planting shown in Table 14.2 and in Figures 14.1 and 14.2 is a sure sign of rural capitalism’s long-term success in this part of the Italian peninsula (Celetti, 2009: 33-78). The evidence shows no correlation between trends in wheat prices (Figures 14.1, 14.8 and 14.9) and those of hemp cultivation (Figure 14.2), and it is clear that in the context of the relations of production that shaped the local agricultural economy, the textile plant did not expand as a result of cutbacks and crises in the wheat market. Rather it succeeded mainly because landowners worked to enlarge the surface area devoted to this crop.

Table 14.1. Production, revenue and sharing of the added value between land-owner and land holder (Average of the years 1866-1870, in lires).

Crop

Costs/hectare Total

Revenue/hectare

Land LandTotal owner holder

Net Product/hectare

Land Landtotal owner holder

Land Landowner holder

Hemp

735.29

233.21 502.08

961.50 480.75 480.75

226.21 247.54

-21.33

Corn

224.15

69.34

154.81

359.50

135.35

110.41

24.94

Clover 162.00

47.25

114.75 485.00 242.50 242.50 323.00

195.25

127.75

Wheat 378.06

136.91

241.15

177.04 140.64

36.40

555.10

179.75

277.55

179.75

277.55

Sources: C. Poni, 1963: 85-87, Tables 14.8 and 14.9 and author’s calculations. Table 14.2. Annual Hemp Production. Province of Bologna (1819-1852)

Year

Quintals

% var. Year

Quintals

% var.

Year

Quintals

% var.  

1819

64,937.40  

1831

70,921.20

47.65

1843

103,820.20

1820

48,622.10

-33.56

1832

81,382.50

12.85

1844

99,921.60

-3.90

1821

74,653.50

34.87

1833

67,615.20

-20.36

1845

63,912.90

-56.34

1822

52,988.60

-40.89

1834

64,784.60

-4.37

1846

103,053.80

37.98

1823

59,446.20

10.86

1835

68,439.60

5.34

1847

56,491.70

-82.42

1824

77,987.80

23.78

1836

60,714.80

-12.72

1848

102,177.20

44.71

1825

80,024.20

2.54

1837

89,114.10

31.87

1849

77,401.00

-32.01

1826

75,250.50

-6.34

1838

83,580.20

-6.62

1850

68,307.40

-13.31

1827

64,453.30

-16.75

1839

83,480.90

-0.12

1851

92,032.90

25.78

1828

60,957.30

-5.74

1840

87,643.60

4.75

1852

97,509.80

5.62

1829

67,436.70

9.61

1841

90,978.40

3.67

1853

1830

37,124.20

-81.65

1842

72,680.80

-25.18

1854

Source: M. Martini, 2000: 395 and author’s calculations.

   

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Figure 14.1. Price of hemp (black) and wheat (grey) in Bologna, 1871-1914 Sources: Ministero dell’Agricoltura Industria e Commercio (hereafter MAIC), Movimento dei prezzi di alcuni prodotti agricoli, Roma 1881 and 1915; author’s calculations.

Figure 14.2. Hemp production in Bologna, 1580-1914 (quintals) Sources: Celetti, 2008; Capasso, 1994 and author’s calculations.

This is all the more evident when we note that hemp production kept expanding even as the difference between hemp and wheat market prices was gradually being reduced (Figure 14.1). Rather than an alternative crop, textile fibre emerges as a mainstream agricultural option characteristic of the province from the early fifteenth century down to the Second World War, a choice deeply rooted in local relations of production, and with little, if any, correlation with cereal price trends.

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III. Hemp and Farming. The Généralité of Tours There is still no comprehensive study on the history of hemp in France. It appeared in ancient times, when it was used above all for rope making (Hoefer, 1850: 132). After the fall of the Roman Empire, it remained a widespread, but marginal crop, limited mainly to local needs and consumption (Catalogue Exposition, 2000). As in many European countries, its production grew rapidly from the seventeenth century onwards, chiefly in response to naval demands (Créateur, 1998: 30-37). The new market conditions pushed up production and at the same time increased territorial specialization (Pigousset, 1984: 1-7). In certain areas hemp became an important product, sold to navy arsenals and shipyards, while in others it remained a secondary crop (Renouard, 1885: 353-540). In its search for readily available strategic resources the French government took surveys of hemp cultivation from the late seventeenth century onwards3. It emerged that the main production regions were Brittany, Picardy, Champagne, the Soissonnais, Burgundy, Dauphiné, Haut Valentinois, Bresse, Poitou, Anjou, Maine, the Nivernais, Berry, the Gâtinais, and Auvergne. Picardy, Normandy, Brittany, Poitou, and Anjou furnished the Atlantic ports. Aquitaine and Languedoc sold chiefly to the naval dockyards at Marseille and Toulon. Alsace was linked to the Atlantic shipyards, even though most of its production was taken up by local demand and by the shipyards on the Rhine (Monguilan, 1989: 35-53). At the beginning of the nineteenth century the overall picture had changed little. The enquiry of 1811 on the state of the Empire identified 25 areas of intensive hemp production, with average harvests of more than 4,000 quintals a year (Table 14.3)4. Table 14.3. Départements producing more than 4,000 quintals annually (1811)

Aisne

Escaut

Lot et Garonne

Sarthe

Aube

Ille et Vilaine

Oise

Somme

Cote d’Or

Isère

Puy de Dôme

Stura

Côtes du Nord

Marengo

Bas Rhin

Trasimene

Ems Superieur

Meurthe

Haute Saône

Haute Vienne

Total Production (Quintals)

317,900

Value (Francs)

25,452,000

Average Production (Quintal)

12,716

Source: Ministère de l’Intérieur – Situation de l’Empire en 1812 and author’s calculations.





3 See e.g. the Enquête sur les chanvres preserved at the Archives Départementales des Bouches du Rhône C 2360, or the Mémoire sur les chanvres d’Alsace (1757), Mémoire sur les chanvres (1766), Mémoire sur les chanvres en France et les chanvres d’Alsace (1777), Projets pour la culture et l’encouragement de la culture du chanvre (1779), Sur la culture du chanvre en France (1793) preserved at the AN, Mar, D3 24. 4 AN, F 10/412, État des cultures de lin et de chanvre. Recensement des chanvres, all aiming to define the conditions and perspective of hemp cultivation in France.

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dav id ce le t t i  Table 14.4. Uses of French Hemp (1811)

Quintals Percentage 200,000 250,000 151,809 601,809

Manufacture

Value of the Raw Material (Francs)

Added Value (Francs)

Value of the finished product (Francs)

33.23

Ropes

16,000,000

11,600,000

27,600,000

41.54

Cloths and yarns

20,000,000

18,400,000

38,400,000

25.23

Fine and mixed cloths

12,144,720

29,060,496

41,205,216

 

 

 

100.00

/

Source: Ministère de l’Intérieur - Situation de l’Empire en 1812 and author’s calculations.

Output at that time reached 601,809 quintals. The fibre was used mainly to produce sailcloth and ropes; only one-quarter of production went to weaving fine or mixed hemp and linen cloth (Table 14.4). Until the end of the seventeenth century domestic production more or less sufficed for national demand. As late as 1690-1691, the harvests of Auvergne, Touraine, and Brittany met the needs of the Brest and Rochefort naval dockyards, local artisans and other Atlantic shipyards. But by the next decade, France had to turn to imports to satisfy its needs (Rey, 1840: 3). Baltic (Pourchasse, 2006: 390; Beaurepaire, 2010: 501)5, Russian6 and Italian7 hemp flowed into the country, to make up for structural shortages (Rey, 18340: 1). After the Napoleonic era, the decline of warship construction, competition from cheaper Asian fibres and, by mid-century, the gradual replacement of sail by steam power caused demand for hemp to wane, which in turn gradually turned the textile plant into a marginal crop (see Figures 14.3 and 14.4; Boulen, 2012: 19). The old administrative unit known as the Généralité de Tours (carved up after 1789 into the Départements of the Maine-et-Loire, Indre-et-Loire, and Sarthe) emerged however as a bright exception in a dismal picture. In that area in fact, hemp showed remarkable strength and competitiveness all through the late nineteenth century, whereas at the national level a crisis had already been reached in the early 1870s (Figures 14.3 and 14.4). The reason for this difference could be only partially attributed to the region’s higher productivity, somehow compensating for its falling monetary earnings; neither can it be found in diverging trends of wheat and hemp prices (Figures 14.5 and 14.6). It is rather to be sought once again in the peculiarity of local economies, and specifically in the particular role that the plant played as a source of agricultural



5 AN, Mar, B1 48, Commerce avec la Baltique. 6 AN, B/1/84, fol. 298 Mémoire et proposition de commerce avec la Russie; AN, AE/B/I, fol. 213. 7 AN B/1/ 502, Notes sur le chanvre de Bologne.

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and manufacturing income. To understand the nature of this link we have to go back to the origins of local hemp cultivation. Although grown since the Middle Ages, the plant until the seventeenth century was used only for local consumption, and to satisfy the needs of village artisans, rope-makers, and weavers. In 1660s Charles Colbert de Croissy, brother of the renowned Controller-General Jean-Baptiste Colbert, visited the Généralité in search of ways to increase strategic production to meet the needs of naval industry. He was favourably impressed by the region’s potential. He pointed out its advantages of climate and soil. He stressed the opportunities presented by the abundance of water supplies, labour, and skilled farmers. But above all he underlined the synergies between agriculture, and manufacturing. Farmers would earn extra income by spinning and weaving their own fibres. This, in turn, would help them overcome the difficulties of labour and capital-intensive cultivation, and the plant would ultimately find a permanent place in the local economy. He therefore proposed to support the development of yarn and cloth manufactures so as to get peasants to fit hemp into their normal crop rotations. Part of the raw material would be sold to naval dockyards, part of it spun and woven at home. Industrial revenue would round out agricultural income. Hemp and hemp-related activities would thereby become more profitable than any other crop. On 3 March 1667 the inhabitants of the Généralité were officially granted permission to manufacture hemp yarn, and cloth, a decision that really did constitute the starting point for the long-term development of the sector. The production of raw fibres, and textile production soared year after year. Agriculture and manufacturing, market and farm consumption had been tied into a virtuous cycle of mutual support. After fifty years, hemp production was so deeply rooted in the territory that the demands of agriculture, cottage industry, and the naval dockyards were easily met by harvests. These surpluses opened new industrial opportunities. By 1730 three manufactures were founded to produce a hemp cloth called bougran using only yarns spun in the region. In those years a new survey led by Charles Pierre de Savalette confirmed the progress made by the entire hemp sector. Yields were abundant. Spinning wheels and looms were present in almost every household, and shops supplied high quality, competitive cloth (Boulen, 2012: 19). A further step forwards was granted with the creation in 1761 of the local Agricultural Society. Its secretary, François Louis du Verger, fully committed himself to supporting the development of better agricultural practices. He was convinced of textile’s potential to generate extra income for a large part of the population. It is therefore not an accident that the first surveys promoted by Du Verger dealt precisely with hemp, and were meant to stress its positive effect on the whole rural economy. They pointed out the benefit of sowing the plant in open fields, in a three-year crop rotation with cereals. Wheat gained from cleaner and richer soil, hemp from a fully reconstituted soil structure. Hemp and cereal rotation gave higher cereal productivity than any other

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option. A journal sown with hemp yielded 200 kilograms of raw fibres, which corresponded to 160 kilograms of yarn, and allowed a gross revenue of 256 livres. After having paid the rent and the taxes, a landholder working according to a methodical scheme made a net profit of about 50 livres, which, in turn, would make an essential contribution to the well-being of a rural household. All the more so, as the survey pointed out, in that even when leases allowed landlords to take hemp as part of the rent, they also guaranteed that a fair part should be left to the peasant, allowing him to spin and weave both for home consumption and the market. In the Généralité, hemp therefore actively contributed to household budgets (Gouget, 1907: 4). The enquiry of 1789 confirmed the advances made in the sector. In Maine, more than 7000 weavers grew hemp on a regular basis. Most of them used their own yarns, and brought the cloth to government registry offices (bureaux de marque) where it was inspected prior to stamping. Overall production was valued at more than 4 million livres, which made the region’s industry the second most important in the country, after Brittany (15 million livres), but ahead of Anjou (3 million livres). The economic significance of the sector was obvious. Its social relevance, however, was by no means less so. Widespread hemp cultivation and engagement of the local population in spinning, weaving, and in a whole range of related activities such as cleaning, grinding and transporting, made it a breadwinner for many. All this gave hemp, and hemp-related activities, a position that endured long after the textile plant ceased to be a competitive option (Gouget, 1907: 4). The crises of the late 1780s and early 1790s, the Revolution, and the related upheaval and political transformations did not harm the sector. On the contrary, in those years it set out on a new path of growth that was consolidated during the Napoleonic period. Revenue from the ‘manufacture’ rounded out incomes, compensated cyclical fluctuations of other crops and contributed to stability and relative wellbeing of the entire local society8. Though hemp cultivation was particularly well established in the Maine region, the overall trend there much resembled the national pattern. French hemp cultivation, in fact, kept growing all through the first decades of the nineteenth century, reaching its peak in 1841 with more than 176,148 hectares. By 1852 however, the surface area it occupied collapsed to 125,357 hectares on the national level, and by 1862 to just 100,000 hectares. Even if this was partially made up for by higher output per field, the trend nevertheless clearly shows a sector in a terminal crisis. Competition from imported fibres, the widespread use of cotton and the substitution of steam for sail reduced demand. Falling hemp prices reduced profit margins. Farmers reacted by looking for other options, and cut the area devoted to hemp cultivation by half over twenty years (Figures 14.3-14.6). This was by no means the case however in the old Généralité de Tours (Brouart, 2010: 49). In the Department of the Sarthe, one of the three new

8 AN, F 10, 412, Etats des productions de chanvre et de lin, 1811.

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Figure 14.3. Hemp cultivation in France, 1875-1897 (hectares) Source: Annuaire Statistique, 1875-1900. Solid line: Départment of the Sarthe; dashed line: Indre-et-Loire and Maine-et- Loire

administrative areas carved out of the Old Regime intendancy, 3000 hectares were sown with hemp in 1811, 8000 in 1837, 10,500 by 1856, and 12,000 by 1866 when there were 6000 active looms, and 60 % of the male population was involved in weaving. Every weaver thus counted on the work of at least ten spinners, which underlines the number of people engaged in hemp related activities, as well as the role of women and children in the sector. In the Department of the Maine-et-Loire, the crop was grown on 6851 hectares in 1837, 7710 in 1852 and 9552 in 1862. In the Indre-et-Loire the plant kept expanding until 1852, when it occupied 2585 hectares. At the eve of the First World War the three Departments accounted for more than 23.3 % of the national production, the area under hemp had shrunk a little, but this was made up in part by higher productivity (Figures 14.3-14.6). Questioned in 1893 on the reasons for such a contrasting trend, the local Agricultural Society pointed to several factors, including tradition, know-how, infrastructures, networks of domestic and international markets, and the active role of the Society itself. Above all, however, it stressed the importance of the synergies between agriculture and manufacturing within an agrarian context dominated by independent producers and medium-sized farming. Hemp allowed full use of the family work force, partially compensating high production costs by using unpaid labour on a large scale. Shrinking domestic demand and falling prices in national and foreign markets were then balanced by earnings from domestic spinning and weaving. Farmers did not sell only raw fibres but also yarns and cloth. Giving up hemp cultivation would have greatly affected total household revenue, endangering an otherwise solid and resilient equilibrium. Higher incomes, possibly obtainable from other crops,

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Figure 14.4. Hemp production in France, 1875-1897 (quintals) Source: Annuaire Statistique, 1875-1900. Solid line: département of the Sarthe; dashed line: Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et-Loire.

Figure 14.5. Hemp prices in France, 1857-1903 (Francs/kg) Source: Annuaire Statistique, 1875-1900. Solid line: annual prices; dashed line: 5- year moving average.

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Figure 14.6. Wheat prices in France, 1857-1903 (Francs/quintal) Source: Annuaire Statistique, 1875-1900. Solid line: annual prices; dashed line: 5-year moving average.

and actually achieved by the upward trend of wheat prices after 1895, would have in fact been at least offset by a fall in revenues previously obtained from the sale of yarns and cloth. The case study shows that even in the French case the choice to grow hemp, and the long-lasting presence of the plant among traditional local crops, cannot be explained by declining trends in wheat prices. This option must rather be analysed as part of a much more complex set of economic and social variables. These elements, acting together, pushed the boundaries of the actual profitability of hemp beyond the limit set by comparative prices of alternative harvests. The use of self-produced hemp for domestic spinning and weaving, in particular, emerges as a central factor explaining the fibre’s success as well as its resistance to external downward trends and shocks. This had already become a relevant aspect of hemp growing in the seventeenth century and it greatly helped fix the cultivation of the fibre in local economy and society. Hemp became the cornerstone of a complex production system that was only disrupted when the market for domestic natural fibres, and rural economies in general, were drastically transformed after the First World War (Le Cherlès, 1998: 182).

IV. Hemp and Serfdom. Western Russia Hemp appeared in Eastern Europe and Russia well before it was noticed in the western part of the continent. In the Second Century B.C., the plant was already widely present around the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea, along the

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course of the lower Don and Volga rivers and on the shores of the Black Sea (Hehn, 1984: 188). The latter emerged in the high Middle Ages as a leading hemp producing zone and an active exporter of fibres to Europe and to the Near East (Skrzinskaja, 1968: 4-45). The city of La Tana (modern Azov) grew to become the principal centre of hemp exports to Italy and Spain, maintaining its position until the mid-fifteenth century, when the Turks cut it off from the maritime shipping routes that linked it to the Mediterranean9. Black Sea hemp continued to supply Ottoman naval dockyards. Its persisting importance was incidentally underlined by early nineteenth-century French attempts to open a land trade route to import fibres from Azov, and bypassing British sea patrols10. From Southern Russia and Ukraine, the plant spread to the north and westward. In the ninth century hemp was widely cultivated in the whole region between the Volga, Oka and Don rivers, both east and west of Moscow, already foreshadowing the geography of production in Early Modern, and Modern times (Table 14.9). Hemp, however widespread, was mostly grown for domestic consumption and local markets until the early sixteenth century, when traders started exporting fibres to Europe in response to pressing demand from booming naval industries in the West. Specialized trading centres arose to link growing demand to scattered supply. The clearest example is that of the city of Valogda. That centre was strategically situated at the centre of the road and river networks linking Archangelsk, Russia’s main northern harbour at the time (Delavaud, 1912: 313-332; Kraatz, 1983), to the chief areas where raw hemp (Nizhny Novgorod and Simbirsk Governorates), and linen (Vladimir Oblast’) were grown (Volkov, 1983: 194). The influence of thriving international trade became ever more pronounced during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it absorbed the bulk of Russian fibres, transforming national production into a largely export-oriented sector. Seeing a good chance to make money, landlords began growing hemp extensively, using three-year crop rotations, thereby reproducing models already tested in sixteenth-century Central Italy, and in late seventeenth-century Western France. Meanwhile, the sector became more regionally concentrated within relatively restricted areas, aided by both a favourable environment, and the presence of a vast servile population11. The governorates of Kaluga, Kursk, Mogilev and Orlov, extending west of Moscow to what is now the Ukrainian frontier, and those of Simbirsk



9 AN F/12/502, Notice sur le commerce de Odessa; Id., 514, Rapports de voyage de Odessa au Levant. 10 AN F/10/412, Manière d’approvisionner par la Mer Noire le port de Toulon en mâture, chanvre et cuivre, 10 pluviôse an 12 [31 January 1804]. 11 Sources point out that although hemp was widespread across the entire territory between Smolensk and the Black Sea, it was grown most intensively in central Russia, whereas flax was concentrated much more in northern Ukraine and the Baltic area (Anon., 1778; Kessler, 2014; Mironov, 1992: 457-478).

1 4 . Co n s i d e r at i o n s o n He m p an d A lt e rnat i ve Agri cu lt u re

and Nizhny Novgorod, bordering on the linen region of Vladimir, to the east of Moscow, contributed more than half of Russian production in the mid-eighteenth century (see Table 14.9)12. Though intense, this trend did not change the traditional role of the plant within peasant communities, nor its use in domestic consumption. On the contrary, traders made use of peasants’ spinning and weaving skills, and fitted their activity into broader commercial networks, extending the country’s overall production of raw hemp and diversifying textile supply with linen and finished products. Specialised growing existed side by side with marginal village plots, and on the parts of estates occupied by peasants, where fibres were produced and transformed for direct use by the household. Having drawn home manufacturing into the market, merchants gradually organised it on a proto-industrial basis, concentrating weaving and finishing in shops and buying yarns directly from home-spinners (Besset, 1982: 197-219; Kotilaine, 2005: 611). Thus by the early eighteenth century hemp offered an extremely attractive business opportunity for landowners, entrepreneurs and traders alike. It also played a central role within peasant communities, as spinning and weaving provided an integral part of agricultural income, contributing substantially to households’ subsistence; and local textile workshops offered genuine opportunities for work (Tichonov, 1960: 3-15; Hellie, 1999). Even though expansion of the sector was export-driven, the long-term success of Russian hemp cannot be fully explained without taking into account both the peculiar characteristics of the servile economy and the role of the textile fibre within the village and the household economy mentioned above (Soloviev, 1989). Serfdom was the backbone of Russian agriculture for it granted that there would be a large and inexpensive labour force available in areas of low population density. This, in turn, allowed export-oriented, labour-intensive cultivation to develop (Kivelson, 2006). Low labour costs proved essential to marketing primary goods in distant places, and in conquering international markets despite high transport costs (Kula, 1993), whiles the vast amount of land available and the characteristic organization of servile landed estates, made it possible to enlarge hemp cultivation without threatening food crops and endangering the equilibrium of food production (Hellie, 1999). But hemp was much more than just an export-oriented crop, nearly mono-cultural in nature. Serfs lived concentrated in villages on big estates, where, as was usual in the feudal system, they worked partly on the landlord’s estate, and partly on village common fields and their own family plots. The latter two types of cultivation were intended for subsistence production, as well as to produce the surplus needed to pay taxes and dues, and buy goods in the market. In this context, domestically produced items

12 Seed hemp production can be taken as a proxy for overall hemp production, as fibres and seeds were normally harvested together.

329

330

dav id ce le t t i 

like yarns, cloth and ropes were consumed in the household, exchanged and sold, significantly increasing, in the latter instance, peasant cash reserves (Khromov, 1950). This aspect became all the more important from the early eighteenth century onwards, when serfs’ conditions began to deteriorate. Plots left to the communities were reduced to the minimum, while taxes rose, rents soared, and landlords demanded cash payments, rather than just labour or a share of the crops. Spinning and weaving then became vital to household economic equilibrium, as proved by the fact that fibre harvested in village, and private plots soon exceeded domestic needs, significantly increasing the total hemp available, and making it possible to produce of a whole range of items, from linen to ropes, from sail-cloth to garments, to be sold on the market through various networks (Khromov, 1950). At the lowest level peddlers exchanged a vast array of utensils, tools and garments for hemp items that were then sold in local and regional markets and fairs. At the middle and higher level, merchants collected fibre or yarn to be woven into cloth in local workshops, managed mainly by merchants, but sometimes also by the local nobility. Home spinning and textile workshops became a distinctive trait of a changing serf economy. By the end of the early modern period there were an estimated 310,000 weavers and more than a million spinners working in the provinces of Western Russia, manufacturing 140,000,000 arshins13 of cloths a year (Kahan, 1986: 78). As a rule workshops employed a limited number of weavers, normally no more than 10 to 12, usually serfs. They used yarn produced by domestic spinners, who were mainly women and children. By the end of the eighteenth century the country could count on 318 shops and 29,303 weavers. Most of this production went to Archangelsk and to the harbours on the Baltic, where it was sold to trading companies and shipped westwards. Hemp, and hemp-related products, counted among the most significant items in the Russian balance of payments by the early eighteenth century; this in turn confirms the importance of the sector for the national economy. Hemp, in other words, contributed greatly to giving the country the currency needed to pay for imports from Europe or its colonies. Thus Russian hemp was exchanged for American tobacco, the two items forming the backbone of early trade relations between Muscovy and the United States (Tables 14.5-14.7; Khromov, 1950; Fredrickson, 1956: 109-125). The wide availability of hand-spun yarns not only encouraged trade; it also stimulated the creation of Western-styles workshops. Russian Tsar Peter the Great (ruled 1682-1725), in particular, imitated the French manufactures royales in an evident attempt to limit the import of medium- and high-quality cloth from Western Europe, and to promote the emergence of a modern textile industry. State textile manufactures, the so-called Khamovnye Dvory, 13 The arshin is an old unit of measurement of length corresponding to 71.12 centimeters.

1 4 . Co n s i d e r at i o n s o n He m p an d A lt e rnat i ve Agri cu lt u re

in Moscow, Yaroslav and Saint-Petersburg represent the clearest and most effective examples of this policy. By the time Peter died, they had become real factories, occupying more than 1900 weavers, working on 842 looms and producing as much as 1.2 million arshin of cloth yearly. Soon private entrepreneurs were lured into this fast-growing market. Ivan M. Zatrapeznov and the Savajacobov family in Yaroslav, for example, bought public workshops, founded new factories and diversified the original business by imitating western products. Immigrants played an important role, especially the Dutch and Germans. The latter contributed actively to developing the sector, investing in plants in and around Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, transferring technology and know-how, spreading European taste and fashion and linking Russian and European markets more closely (Sneghirev 1947). Production included ‘Silesian’ bleached cloth, hemp cloth for sails, uniforms, and bags, mixed cloth of local flax and hemp, and Persian or Turkish cottons. Production rose all through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; it went mainly to the domestic market but was also exported to Europe and North America, where its main competitive advantage was its low price, rather than its quality, as confirmed by Western merchants who insisted continually that Russian spinners, weavers and bleachers could not match Western standards (Kahan, 1986: 78). In this regard, there was never a negative correlation between hemp production and grain prices: both moved upward until the First World War. As we have seen, a multitude of factors encouraged hemp production even when

Table 14.5. Composition of Russian Exports (% of value), 1710-1795

1793-1795

1710

1769

crops

37.8

50.5

43.1

hemp

34.4

18.8

20.2

flax

3.3

11.3

12.6

linseed and hempseed

0.04

3.5

3.4

 

grains Livestock products

2.9

16.9

6.9

50.4

12.5

18.1

5.1

4.5

4.2

9.8

12

13

10.2

tallow hides forest products industrial goods iron linen textiles Source: Kahan, 1986: 168

3.3

331

332

dav id ce le t t i  Table 14.6. Exports of Hemp from Russia in shippounds (136 kilograms) Average for each period

Years

Exports from Baltic Ports

Total Exports

Exports from St.-Petersburg

1720-1724

42,354.40

 

 

1724-1729

79,623.00

 

 

1730-1734

68,776.40

 

 

1735-1739

84,674.00

 

 

1740-1744

202,259.20

 

 

1745-1749

117,020.60

 

 

1750-1754

145,659.40

 

 

1755-1759

176,376.20

1760-1764

134,001.00

188,954.00

 

 

1765-1769

145,463.80

184,732.60

130,096.60

1770-1774

189,111.80

248,818.40

162,905.40

 

1775-1779

212,174.60

 

179,916.20

1780-1784

224,607.00

 

187,216.80

1785-1789

223,880.00

 

186,992.70

1790-1794

259,300.00

 

219,821.80

 

208,837.70

1795-1799 Source: Kahan, 1986: 177-179.

Table 14.7. Value of exports from Russia to America (in thousands rubles)

Hemp Year

Total Russian Exports

Total

1827

209,792.00

26,270.00

2,561.00

14,974.00

1828

173,171.00

23,507.00

2,731.00

–

1829

188,274.00

15,873.00

1,236.00

8,980.00

1830

235,369.00

17,463.00

386.00

–

1831

227,265.00

17,688.00

1,333.00

12,633.00

1832

228,298.00

19,419.00

1,327.00

–

Hemp exports to the US.

Hemp Exports to GB

1 4 . Co n s i d e r at i o n s o n He m p an d A lt e rnat i ve Agri cu lt u re Table 14.7 (Continued)

Hemp Year

Total Russian Exports

Total

Hemp exports to the US.

Hemp Exports to GB

1833

218,794.00

19,536.00

2,086.00

11,506.00

1834

199,826.00

18,614.00

919.00

–

1835

–

–

–

–

1836

250,451.00

20,151.00

2,899.00

–

1837

230,340.00

24,304.00

1,023.00

15,701.00

1838

181,111.00

28,794.00

886.00

 

1839

313,078.00

32,604.00

969.00

10,408.00

1840

–

–

–

–

1841

74,817.00

7,411.00

412.00

4,141.00

1842

72,262.00

6,388.00

464.00

–

1843

71,209.00

5,548.00

3,362.00

2,857.00

1844

80,514.00

6,730.00

141.00

–

1845

78,802.00

6,322.00

206.00

3,029.00

1846

88,392.00

6,826.00

61.00

–

1847

134,112.00

7,395.00

287.00

4,019.00

1848

75,937.00

6,275.00

148.00

–

1849

83,381.00

7,479.00

275.00

4,097.00

1850

83,133.00

6,555.00

132.00

–

1851

94,073.00

7,325.00

185.00

4,226.00

1852

100,050.00

6,695.00

298.00

–

1853

137,406.00

9,398.00

271.00

6,645.00

1854

53,521.00

–

–

–

1855

–

–

–

–

1856

146,771.00

7,953.00

505.00

–

1857

–

7,871.00

211.00

–

1858

136,487.00

7,692.00

333.00

–

1859

149,395.00

8,964.00

255.00

2,251.00

1860

165,183.00

8,039.00

33.00

–

Source: Kirchner, 1975: 144.

333

334

dav id ce le t t i  Table 14.8. Hemp production in Europe and Russia (1903-1912)

Country

Hectares

Percentage

Quintals

Percentage

Qx/ha

Russia

686,197

72.14

3,440,579

63.03

5.01

66,917

7.03

297,049

5.44

4.44

Total Russia

753,114

79.17

3,737,628

68.47

4.96

Italy

79,477

8.36

795,000

14.56

10.00

Hungary

65,192

6.85

587,954

10.77

9.02

France

17,214

1.81

147,266

2.70

8.56

Japan

13,518

1.42

94,893

1.74

7.02

Serbia

14,025

1.47

67,025

1.23

4.78

5,678

0.60

19,035

0.35

3.35

Russia As.

Romania Bulgaria

3,015

0.32

9,769

0.18

3.24

TOTAL

951,233

100.00

5,458,570

100.00

 

Sources: Capasso, 1994: 13 and author’s calculations.

Figure 14.7. Hemp and Flax Prices in Russia, 1711-1801 (index: 1710=100) Source: Mironov, 1986: 217-251 and author’s calculations. Solid line: hemp; dotted line: hemp seeds; dashed line: flax

prices were falling on international markets, and, once again, its growth was linked more to the place and role of the entire ‘hemp sector’ in Russia economy and society than to the immediate price differential between alternative crops (Khromov, 1950). Its importance in home consumption and local markets and its role in the equilibrium of village and household finance, contributed to hemp’s success as much as its insertion in global trading networks. Late

1 4 . Co n s i d e r at i o n s o n He m p an d A lt e rnat i ve Agri cu lt u re Table 14.9. Hemp Seeds Production – 1795 (Governorate – Chetverti and percentage of the total)

Province

Yield (chetvert’)

% total

Province

Yield (chetvert’)

% total

Vologoda Province

47,000

1.37

Polozk Governorate

51,602

1.50

Voronezh Governorate

82,464

2.40

Pskov Governorate

59,254

1.73

Irkutsk Governorate

33,620

0.98

Revel Governorate

5 400

0.16

Caucasus Governorate

4,054

0.12

Rjasan Governorate

93,366

2.72

269,124

7.84

Sankt Petersburg Governorate

16,234

0.47

36,000

1.05

Saratov Governorate

137,648

4.01

6,852

0.20

Simbirsk Governorate

239,202

6.97

Kursk Governorate

257,996

7.51

Smolensk Governorate

153,632

4.47

Mogilev Governorate

246,000

7.16

Tambovsk Governorate

84,810

2.47

101,278

2.95

Tobolsk Governorate

21,904

0.64

Nizhny Novgorod Governorate

180,270

5.25

Tula Governorate

156,000

4.54

Novhorod-Siverskyi Governorate

75,390

2.20

Ufa province

78,710

2.29

Olonets Governorate

4,860

0.14

Karkhov Governorate

90,000

2.62

Orlov Governorate

772,810

22.51

Chernikoiv Governorate

31,844

0.93

Pensen Governorate

85,318

2.48

Yaroslav Governorate

10,888

0.32

3,433,530

100,00

Kaluga Governorate Kiev Governorate Kostrom Governorate

Moscow Governorate

 

 

 

total

Source: Kessler, 2015: http://ristat.org/ – (1 chetvert’ = 209,91 L.)

335

336

dav id ce le t t i  Table 14.10. Hemp Growing in the Eastern Po Valley, Généralité of Tours, Western Russia: summary and comparison

Eastern Po valley

Généralité of Tours

Western Russia

Historiography

adequate

a few serious studies, some local history

unfrequent studies

Origins

Ancient times; small plots for home consumption up to the 15th century

Ancient times; small plots for home consumption up to the 17th century

Ancient times; small plots for home consumption up to the 15th century

 

naval industry; state initiatives; exports to Italian, French naval Spanish and French industry ports

serf labour; exportoriented produce

production relations within sharecropping

proto-industrial spinning and weaving on tenant and independent farms

proto-industrial spinning and weaving within servile forms of production

advanced yarn production

cloth manufacturing

cloth manufacturing

Course of development

to early 20th century

to the 1860s

to early 20th century

Grain prices

1820-1870: rising; 1870-1899: falling; 1900-1914: rising

1816-1870: rising

1750-1790: rising; 1820-1870: rising

Factors of crisis

falling hemp falling hemp prices; prices;more more competition competition from from other fibres other fibres (early (early 20th century 19th century)

falling hemp prices;more competition from other fibres (early 20th century)

Negative correlation with grain prices?

no evidence

no evidence

Factors of development

no evidence

1 4 . Co n s i d e r at i o n s o n He m p an d A lt e rnat i ve Agri cu lt u re

nineteenth-century Russian hemp growers also profited from external factors, such as their increasing productivity, the disappearance of many competitors from the world market, and, last but not least, the development of a textile industry that saw hemp as a viable alternative to cotton (Kahan, 1989).

V. Conclusions This article tackles the historical question of whether hemp – a textile fibre that can logically be considered a substitute for wheat – was actually an alternative to cereals in times of major market disruption, along the lines of Joan Thirsk’s model of ‘alternative agriculture’. This interpretation is tested by analysing the evolution of hemp cultivation in three European regions, where both hemp and wheat were widely cultivated in the early modern and modern periods, to see whether there was any negative relation between grain price trends and the surface area given over to hemp growing (Table 14.10). The cases examined here show no evidence of such a link. On the contrary, they emphasize that the choice to grow hemp can be explained only taking into account a vast, and heterogeneous range of factors, including simultaneously local production relationships, the role of the fibre in domestic and international trade and the extent to which it fitted into agriculture, domestic manufacturing, and industry and into home consumption. Which, in turn, emphasizes that although prices were certainly important to producers’ decisions, they nevertheless remained only one of the many factors determining the actual production mix.

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Annexes

Figure 14.8. Wheat Prices in Milan, 1701-1860 (lire/moggio) Sources: de Maddalena, 1974, and author’s calculations.

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Figure 14.9. National Wheat Prices in Italy, 1860-1907 (euros/quintal) Sources: ISTAT, Serie Storiche, Prezzi alla produczione dei principali prodotti venduti dagli agricoltori (1861-2010), and author’s calculations.

Figure 14.10. Wheat Prices in Paris, 1797-1869 (francs/litre) Sources: Micheline Baulant, 1968: 520-540; Hoffman, 1996 and author’s calculations. Solid line: values; dashed line: 5-year moving average.

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Figure 14.11. Wheat Prices in Lunéville (Meuse), France 1855-1909 (cents/hl) Source: http://eh.net/database/wheat-prices-in-france-1825-1913/ Solid line: values; dashed line:10-year moving average.

Figure 14.12. Wheat prices in North Dvina, Russia, 1710-1870 (grams of silver/kg) Source: http://gpih.ucdavis.edu/Datafilelist.htm#Europe

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Figure 14.13. Wheat price index, Russia, 1711-1914 (index: 1711= 100) Source: B. Mironov, 1986: 217-251 and author’s calculations

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15. Conclusion. Agrarian Crises and Alternative Agriculture1 Researchers from across Europe attended this conference at the Villa Emo, near Treviso, to discuss current agricultural crises and the prospects for “alternative agriculture”. Among the significant results, it was suggested that a “world history” approach might help us to better understand the problems under consideration. The conclusion reached was that we need to move beyond the idea that the “alternatives” that made it possible to overcome a series of “agrarian crises” had been identified and developed solely within agriculture itself. It is obvious that in the present-day world – where the role of agriculture has diminished as other sectors like industry, finance and computer technology have grown – the situation of the agricultural sector as a whole has become particularly complex. But it is also true that in the past, rural activity, investments and even the choice of crops were no less influenced by general circumstances; as the conference confirmed, the decisions made were not just responses to the needs of a single monolithic “agriculture”. In his Introduction, for example, Jean-Pierre Poussou drew on Joan Thirsk’s classic study of “alternative agriculture”, to urge a renewed focus on “protoindustrialization” and stressed that researchers, from Franklin Mendels to the Göttingen group and its followers, have emphasised that agricultural activities have long been closely bound up with manufacturing activities. Taking up the assumptions implicit in this approach, other historians spoke of “polyvalent”, multi-purpose activity in the countryside, suggesting that proto-industry could occur in unsynchronized fashion, as protoindustrie décalée. This raised issues that link up with other themes analysed in the Treviso conference. In other words, the conclusions suggest that we should revisit and modify the idea that processes like “original accumulation of capital” and the “transition from agriculture to industry”, were entirely coherent and spontaneous processes; we also must move beyond the idea that we can set out a European model for such developments that is entirely unrelated to events elsewhere in the world. This is the lesson that this writer drew from the conference. From the Treviso discussion it was clear that a somewhat overlooked French school of historical research focussing upon what it calls l’appel des marchés can help us understand what happened in many different parts of Europe and beyond. In other words, if we focus solely upon price changes, population growth and the ‘original’ characteristics of a specific region at a specific historical

* Translation by Judith Le Goff Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-twentieth centuries), ed. by Gérard Béaur, Rurhe 16 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 345-349.

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DOI 10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.119536

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period, there is a risk we will leave aside other factors in other places that need to be considered in order to fully understand what was happening. One consideration fundamental to any analysis is clearly the Marxian concept of ‘relations of production’, which influence a region’s social and institutional ability to react to external factors. It is also clear at this point that we must turn to other lines of research as well. Climatology for example, brings in factors that undoubtedly influenced agricultural decisions and crop choices; as when climate change made vineyards possible in medieval England or in modern-day Denmark, or when seas advanced or retracted and thus influenced farming by expanding or shrinking the available agricultural land in what are called phases of ‘marine transgression or regression’. One other fruitful line of enquiry invites us to consider more closely the history of diet, of what Fernand Braudel’s material history of culture identifies as les habitudes alimentaires. Anne-Lise Head-König reminded us of the structural explanation of choices in agriculture, which are not just a matter of the production of grain and meat. True, within Europe these products have been fundamental elements of diet over recent centuries, but their role has not been quite the same in Asia, where rice and a mainly vegetarian diet posed the problem of food production rather differently, with far from insignificant consequences for the process we designate as the Industrial Revolution. As Head-König points out, in Switzerland, alpine and valley cheeses developed according to the country’s orography, but it was no accident that they were also closely bound up with the production of cereals, fodder crops, milk and fruit. However, this situation could then be threatened by the vicissitudes of climate and disease – phylloxera, for example, which undermined the viticulture so essential to the rural economy of certain Swiss cantons. Of course, the discussion did not overlook how heavily agriculture has been affected by such issues as varying soil types, the importance of agricultural production for urban markets with their hefty spending power, technological innovation in a given period or socio-economic conflicts. For example, in the countryside around the rich city of Antwerp, two main factors stood in the way of capitalist agricultural development under small-scale peasant land ownership: poor soil and the absence of significant technological innovation. In his analysis, Michael Limberger depicted an urban society in clear contrast with a surrounding countryside marked by economic management that was labour rather than capital-intensive. Gabriel Jover Avellà identified a similar contrast on the island of Majorca, where over the period 1650-1750 landowners showed keen interest in developing olive oil production by making use of important technological innovations, an activity which widened the already substantial gap between small-scale peasant ownership and commercial-style agriculture. In many parts of Europe, international demand for agricultural produce that could yield ever-growing profits was decisive, and it would be wrong to view these regions solely in terms of subsistence agriculture. There are, in fact,

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many cases which require more nuanced analysis. As Antoni Furiò showed, although the Moriscos responsible for intensifying agriculture in Valencia during the Middle Ages were later expelled, the area given over to growing sugar, rice and saffron as export crops made it possible to compensate for income lost through inadequate cereal production. Even the Black Death did not deal an irreparable blow to wool production there – in fact, sizeable exports of raw material continued to supply Venice’s woollen industry. As for France, many areas during the Early Modern period show how alternating crops (vines, hemp, fruit, flowers) once they proved highly profitable, challenged the dominance of cereals. Indeed, this sometimes resulted in over-production, thus providing evidence that supports the conclusions of Wilhelm Abel rather than those advanced by Ernest Labrousse. Such speculative – or, rather, market-based – agriculture attracted both lay entrepreneurs and religious houses (for example, Dijon’s Hôpital Général, studied by Tim Le Goff), as well as specialist farmers searching to improve their lot. There is no doubt that the expansion of the eighteenth century and the resultant price rises served to stimulate such choices. In the case of the Dijon region, for example, vineyards and wine production became a serious competitor to cereal cultivation. But as the same interplay between different crops existed in previous centuries, one is forced to conclude that external variables (such as war and foreign competition) must also have had a decisive influence in those earlier periods. In her paper comparing hemp and winegrowing in the years 1688-1697, Caroline Le Mao provided us with a good example of this, outlining how certain events forced clear choices that increased the growing of an industrial crop, hemp, essential for making ships’ canvas and rigging and closely linked to the economics of warfare. Similarly, an international situation which induced policies could lead either to the domestic production of quality wines or to the cultivation of a plant like tobacco, a new consumer product in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Paris market was supplied by neighbouring areas – for example, Montreuil during the seventeenth century, or the Brie region, which as JeanMichel Derex has shown was a source of fish. And specific market demand could give a decisive impetus to growing certain crops – for example vines and, above all, fresh fruit, as we saw from Hervé Bennezon’s precise figures on the potential earnings from raising peaches, a luxury fare at the time. And as profits increased and market expectations were met, two specific phenomena emerged: the migration of entire families from the city centre to outlying agricultural areas, and the rising wealth of the better-off farming families, who might even hope to rise into the nobility. The raising of flowers and garden vegetables were forms of agricultural specialisation that had a decisive impact on regional and urban policies, which still await in-depth study. From the Early Modern era onward this sort of horticulture became a defining characteristic of a city like Paris, noted for the refined taste of its affluent consumers. However, the French capital was not the only town to generate such activity, so it is important

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to make inter-regional comparisons. Recent French historical research has emphasised how the Paris basin was characterised by the presence of large agricultural concerns that attracted massive capital investment. However, this was not the only area in the country that saw agriculture develop in a way that was not determined solely by subsistence economics. Even in a region like Brittany, where fertile land was hard to come by, Emmanuelle Charpentier has emphasized the importance of the Breton ‘Golden Belt’, where, indeed, it was precisely the ungrateful soil that made farmers turn to specialist crops as a valid alternative to cereal production. Nor should we overlook the fact that as secularisation, industrialisation and trade increased during the course of the nineteenth century, horticulture and floriculture underwent a boom – not only as economic and agricultural activities but also as expressions of social ideology. Gardens were no longer the enclosed parks of aristocratic or religious houses but became places of social pleasure, the setting for strolls within the world of nature. Plants and flowers were studied with a new enthusiasm; it is no coincidence that the Impressionists so often took them for their subjects. Indeed, the study of plants – their cultural role – emerged alongside their exploitation as a food source. And as Nadine Vivier pointed out in her paper on the Seine valley in the nineteenth century, all of this involved not only the scientific study and identification of new plants, but also more specialist markets for horticultural produce, more exhibitions where they were put on display and, last but not least, improvements in communications and transport. Railways, after all, made it possible to supply people with delicate plants and flowers from hundreds of kilometres away. From the ninetieth century onwards, globalisation meant that European areas were faced with tough international competition; in the silk industry, for example, the result was an economic process far from painless. As countries like China, India and Thailand entered world markets with their massive production of raw silk, they inevitably undermined the European silk industry which, until the crisis of pébrine in the second half of the nineteenth century, had held its own in the face of competition from the old Asian silk industry. This issue gets some airing in Salvador Calatayud’s paper on the cultivation of mulberry trees in Spain. There, as in the Po valley, mulberry plants had long been a basic part of peasant farming and economic policies, but with the growing importance of such Asian giants as Japan and China the sector began to lose its significance. It is not however possible to come up with a definitive answer to the questions posed by Gérard Béaur: Why were some areas able to make the necessary transformations and others not? Why did some manage to adopt responses that are broadly covered by the term ‘import substitution’? Too many variables come into play in the explanation of historical events; as Rosa Congost points out, these cannot be reduced to matters of soil quality, social conflict between small- and large-scale landownership, or the role played by urban markets. This brief survey, therefore, merely raises matters which, given the complexity of the social and institutional structures underpinning

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rural life and agriculture, could hardly have been resolved conclusively at the Treviso conference. But what those discussions did highlight is how, when looking at the modern world, one sees that the discovery of new plants like rubber and jute, or the introduction of substitutes such as the sugar beet might undermine previous structures of production. Thus David Celetti’s study of hemp showed, with its long-term focus, how this crop ran up against a new competitor in jute. This ultimately changed the traditional balance in the division of agricultural land between food and industrial crops, the products in this instance used in producing textiles or naval supplies. It is, moreover, no accident that the existence of rubber plants changed the focus of French colonisation and led to the exploitation of new geographical regions such as Indochina. Agricultural choices, therefore, depend upon the interplay of a series of factors, including trade, the emergence of new markets and the industrial transformation of produce. As Niccolò Mignemi reminded us, it was the production of citric acid on an industrial scale that was decisive for southern citrus fruit groves, particularly those in Sicily. Citric acid put the island into a framework of industrial agriculture predicated upon satisfying large-scale consumer demand, a model which, for better or worse, is the most up-to-date form of capitalist agriculture. One might also cite the history of sugar, which, as Sidney Mintz shows in his classic study, was initially obtained by the rather complex procedures needed to refine cane. But when the sugar beet was introduced, it became possible to refine sugar on an increasingly industrial scale. Eventually, that industrial scale of production meant that sugar would have a massive impact on various aspects of our lives, resulting in the excessive calorie intake and obesity that are a veritable scourge of the modern world. So once again we come back to the question of how far we have truly explored the alternatives open to agriculture. And, as illustrated by the case of sugar, even when agriculture does explore such alternatives, is it correct to say that they result in the ‘best of all possible worlds’?

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