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- Hallgren, Karin
(författare)
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Kåhlgårdh medh ett Päron trä uthi : Lantmäterikartor och Hallands landsbeskrifning 1729 som källa till landsbygdens köksväxtodlingar under 1600- och 1700-talet
- 2011
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Ingår i: Bebyggelsehistorisk tidskrift. - 0349-2834 .- 2002-3812. ; 61, s. 53-67
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The history of kitchen gardening in Scandinavia remains for the most part unexplored, due probably to a scarcity of source materials and to a failure to hit on any fruitful topics of investigation concerning these small and, economically, rather unimportant plots of land. The lack of research is apparent, for example, from conflicting opinions as to when enclosed kitchen gardens became common in the Swedish countryside. Some scholars maintain that permanent, enclosed gardens near the farmstead were already common in the Iron Age, even in modest circumstances, while others have claimed that such gardens only gained currency after medieval times and remained uncommon till the end of the 17th century. Till then, the argument continues, “kitchen gardening” was done in arable fields. Kitchen gardens are often recorded in historical maps. Can we tell from these maps how common such gardens were and how they were organised? To investigate this point, a study has been made of the early geometrical cadastral maps from between 1630 and 1655 (roughly 12,000 units) and all infield maps for 1700, 1725, 1750 and 1775 (respectively, 289, 184, 98 and 396 units). The cartographic material has been supplemented from Hallands Landsbeskrifning, a register of Halland farmsteads in 1729, from a number of parishes were selected for study. In the 17th century material, kitchen gardens figure in only 1% of the maps (100), while occurring in half the maps from 1700 and 70% of those from 1725. The proportion of maps showing kitchen gardens then drops to 50% in 1775. The question is whether this reflects actual conditions or whether kitchen gardens are underrepresented in the maps. Examples show the surveyors compiling the 17th century maps to have disregarded elements of the landscape. In all probability this meant the exclusion of many kitchen gardens, which, unlike hop gardens and mills, for example, are not mentioned in the instructions concerning items to be shown on the map. In the 18th century maps, kitchen gardens are commonest in the interior and west of Götaland. There they are included in more than 80% of the maps, whereas in most other counties the figure is less than 50%. The present study is based on a small amount of cadastral material and will be expanded. Comparison between the Halland maps drawn in 1729 and the particulars in Hallands Landsbeskrifning for the same villages shows both sources to contain a detailed description of the number of gardens but at the same time reveals a discrepancy concerning the number of gardens. This could be because the number was not evident, e.g. if a plot was shared by a number of people, or because it was not clear whether the cultivated plot should be counted as a kitchen garden, a garden or a hopyard. It is also possible that the data are not entirely simultaneous and that frequent changes occurred in the number and use of the cultivated plots. According to Hallands Landsbeskrifning, the kitchen gardens often included hops and trees, both fruit trees and trees of other kinds. Kitchen gardens with neither hops nor trees were exceptional in some parishes. Quite a number of maps also describe multipurpose arable land, but particulars of this kind occur less frequently than in Hallands Landsbeskrifning. Apart from fruit trees and hops, kitchen gardens could be used for grass production and hemp cultivation, but it is uncertain how common this was. The evidently widespread combination of different functions has caused attention to focus on the names applied to the different cultivated plots (cabbage patch, herb garden, hopyard, hemp land, grassplot). Another vital question yet to be answered is when enclosed cultivated land became common practice in the Swedish countryside. Further work on these topics will require additional studies of historical maps and written sources, coupled with garden archaeological investigations
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