Flurzwang is the German name for a historical system of agriculture used in various places in Europe. It was an agreement or sometimes an order from the community, among all the owners of farmland or farming plots, or by the lord of the manor, for the cultivation of individual pieces of agricultural land in the community in areas using the three year crop rotation

Crop rotation

Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons.Crop rotation confers various benefits to the soil. A traditional element of crop rotation is the replenishment of nitrogen through the use of green manure in sequence with cereals...

 system. It was used between the late Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 until about the middle of the 19th century, or even much longer in some places. It typically resulted in dispersal of the ownership of property over the entire land of the community, the so-called Gemengelage (mixed location).

Reasons for its establishment

The aim was to prevent a farmer or property owner from gaining an advantage by harvesting earlier or cultivating other produce from what had previously been agreed upon. The agreements were also supposed to prevent damages to the land due to people walking or even driving onto the fields. In addition, they were to prevent theft of vegetables or other produce. As part of Flurzwang, land owners had to relinquish part of their land for pathways when the land was developed. Fenced fields were exempted from Flurzwang and special crops could also be grown on them. This was the case for wine growing, for instance. The owner of such a field had to pay compensation to the other farmers.

Obligations

Each farmer had to obey the agreed upon sequence for the crops in the crop rotation system and also the agreed upon times for the work (plowing, sowing and harvesting). Otherwise, it would have been necessary for a farmer to drive his wagon over neighboring fields to reach his own fields. No one could disobey these rules. The chairman of a farmers cooperative or of a village who was in charge of the Flurzwang was called Schulze.

End of Flurzwang

Flurzwang became questionable for the landowners affected after the introduction of clover

Clover

Clover , or trefoil, is a genus of about 300 species of plants in the leguminous pea family Fabaceae. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution; the highest diversity is found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, but many species also occur in South America and Africa, including at high altitudes...

 farming and later potato and beet

Beet

The beet is a plant in the Chenopodiaceae family which is now included in Amaranthaceae family. It is best known in its numerous cultivated varieties, the most well known of which is the purple root vegetable known as the beetroot or garden beet...

 farming. It was finally abolished during the liberation of the farmers, which happened in Germany, Switzerland and Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 as a result of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

from approximately 1803 to 1850.