Към въпроса за системите на земеделие в практиката на българите
On the Question of the Systems of Agriculture in the Practice of the Bulgarians

Summary/Abstract: The systems of agriculture are indicated as an important element in characterizing the agricultural culture of the Bulgarians. They are closely related to the agricultural tools, the crops bred, the knowledge and practice obtained. The author disputes the assertion that during the Early Middle Ages Bulgarians used the cutting of timber and burning as a system of agriculture. The use of burning after timber had been cut is considered as a means of obtaining new arable land. The principal data used as proof are founded on an analysis of the toponymies of Bulgarian ethnic territory. The single-field system is pointed out as the oldest and lowest agrotechnical standard in the practice of the Bulgarians. Remnants of it were still to be found in isolated mountainous regions in the first decades of the 20th century. The transition towards the two-field system, which gradually took place from the 15th to the 19th century, was a qualitatively new stage; it was due to the growing needs of agricultural products. This system was a basic one for the 19th century and the first half of the 20th and was connected with the gradual increase in the areas taken up by the new crops: haricot beans, potatoes, maize, etc. The so-called market gardening system, introduced in the vegetable growing districts around the large consumer centres by market gardeners who worked abroad in the 19th and 20th centuries, is considered the most perfect. These market gardeners also worked in Central and Eastern Europe.

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