Page 148 - UNESCO_Zatec_2021_A4

demands on its quantity and method of processing
2.b6 CHANGE IN THE SIZE AND FORM continued to influence interest in the development of
OF HOP FIELDS IN THE CONTEXT OF specific mechanisation and processing technologies. It
MAJOR SOCIAL CHANGES maintained the concentration of local agriculture on the
production of this crop.
The nominated Saaz Hop Landscape, component part 01,
best represents a landscape of its type: it contains stable The original method of hop growing in the period before
locations of hop growing, which are documented in the these social changes is best illustrated by maps of the
landscape at all stages of their historical development stable cadastre from 1826–1848. The main difference
and are depicted on existing historical map materials. compared to the current situation, was the smaller scale
The extent of the areas used for hop growing and their organisation of the land for growing hops, where there
location in the landscape is more or less unchanged, were often different agricultural areas and areas without
especially in its epicentre below the Stekník Chateau. agricultural use between individual hop fields. The small
However, the internal structure of these areas and exact scale organisation of the land was based on different
external boundaries of individual hop fields have changed ownership relations and the way of growing hops
considerably during their historical development. The because there was a large number of small fields owned
following chapter focuses on describing these changes by individual farmers in the landscape. Growing hops
over the last two centuries. on pole trellises, in contrast to wire trellises, allowed
greater flexibility in the shape and size of the land, and
Changes in the internal structures of hop growing areas smaller areas could be used for such hop fields. Due, in
are due to at least two factors. They are the development contrast to the current situation, to the inhabitants being
2. Description changes that have affected farming methods. Not all to grow other crops in addition to hops. In addition to
of hop growing technologies and the socio-political
directly dependent on agriculture in the past, they had
the fields, there were many pastures in the landscape.
social and technological changes have been dramatic,
Sheep farms also testify to sheep breeding, one of which
but to some extent, they have always affected farming
practices in the landscape. The main development of
was also located near the village of Stekník and has
technology in modern history is the transition from the
20 century is also documented in Stekník. There were
original form of growing hops on poles driven into the been preserved. The breeding of bulls at the end of the
th
ground each year, to growing on more permanent pole also fruit trees and orchards in the landscape. Within the
148 and wire trellis structures. The gradual change to more land structure, some areas were not permanently used
or less monocultural management is also significant. for agriculture; they consisted of waterlogged soils in
Socio-political changes include changes in the structure terrain depressions, places where groundwater sprang
th
of ownership in the area since the 19 century and to the surface, and enclaves of stony soils, which are
especially the radical change of population in this part formed by protrusions of river terraces into the area
of former Czechoslovakia after 1945. Another significant of the river floodplain. Such places in the nominated
change was the liquidation of private property and property represent some locations north of the village of
business after February 1948. Related to all this were Stekník and south of the chateau, which were not used
changes in the organisation of management in an for hop growing in the past. In addition to the bottom of
effort to maximise centralisation, but also a significant the river floodplain, hop fields used to occur on smaller
interruption of continuity of generations of experience. plots of land on the surrounding slopes, such cultivation
However, the demand for quality Saaz hops and the occurred, for example, on the edge of the river terrace in
the southern part of component part 01.

Aerial photographs from 1938 are the first photographic
evidence of the structure of hop fields and document the
transition between the original cultivation of hops and
its current form. At the same time, they depict the state
of the landscape just before the post-war socio-political
changes. The first wire trellises appeared in the Žatec
region in 1846, and together with their introduction, the
areas of individual hop fields gradually increased. From
then, pole trellises and hop wire trellises were mixed in
the landscape for many decades. The structure of the
plots in the mentioned aerial photographs still largely
corresponds to the form captured on the maps of the
stable cadastre. Thus, farming was maintained on the
slopes, where hop fields remain in the form of hop fields
of wooden poles. Where ownership relations have made
it possible, the areas of individual hop structures were
Hand-picking hops in a pole hop field, Žatec region, early 20 century
th