Meadow maker

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The meadow maker (Wiskenmaker, Wieskemaker) is a profession that is no longer practiced today. His work can best be compared with that of today's landscape gardeners and builders. The main purpose was to redesign the site for agricultural use.

description

From the Middle Ages to modern times , the meadow makers were people who, above all in the Ravensberger Land , but also in other areas in the east of the Westphalian cultural area, made moist notched valleys (so-called sieves ) arable for agricultural use through soil work. For example, by demolishing the sharp edges of the Sieke, they created additional pasture and arable land. Both had become scarce in the area, which was already densely populated because of its fertile loess soils . Their situation is comparable to that of the Lippische Ziegler who also found no livelihood for themselves and their families in their homeland and therefore worked as migrant workers .

Effective range

There are also indications of their activities for the north of Germany: from Sudenburg and Oldendorf, many hundreds of so-called meadow makers have been moving to all parts of Europe, namely to Prussia, to Silesia, Poland and Russia, for years to create such meadows ... At the same place it can be read that they laid out 14,000 acres of irrigated sewage meadows around 1840 near Gifhorn . For use, reference is made to beekeeping as an example.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adolf Schüttler: The Ravensberger Land . Aschendorff, Münster 1995, p. 13.
  2. ↑ Die Maje - A people's paper for old and young in the German fatherland , Verlag von Kreidel & Niedner, Wiesbaden, third year, 1860, p. 333 ( digitized in the Google book search).

literature

  • Adolf Schüttler: The Ravensberger Land . Aschendorff, Münster 1995, ISBN 3-402-06348-4 .
  • Florian Herzig: On the value of the damp meadows, creation, use and destruction of the Sieke in the Ravensberg hill country. In: Kreisheimatverein Herford (Hrsg.), Kommunalarchiv Herford (Hrsg.): Historisches Jahrbuch für die Kreis Herford 2005 . Publishing house for regional history. Bielefeld 2004. ISBN 389534592X .
  • Gertrud Angermann: Country-City Relations, Bielefeld and its surrounding area 1760-1860 . F. Coppenrath, Münster 1982, p. 60; ISBN 3-88547-175-2 .