Franztal 8

The last post sketched the layout of Franztal; this post will begin to fill in some of the details. We begin again with the entire paragraph at the center of our examination.

The village is laid out in the direction from northeast to southwest. The Iushanle forms the border between the village and the land of the Tatars; the distance to the opposite border of the village Chernigov is 7 versts. On the northwestern side of the village along the lane are the orchards, each of which is a dessiatine in area and is already planted with a considerable number of fine fruit trees. At the end of the orchards rises the tree grove, which offers a lovely sight from the village with its green-leafed trees. On the west the village borders on Großweide, on the east Pastwa, and it is 60 Werst from the county seat Berdyansk. The numerous ancient burial mounds (Mohilen) give the land, one might say, a warty shape. The surface is almost everywhere black soil, in places containing saltpeter, with a layer of gravel and quarry stone, which lies over a thread/strand deep and in places comes to light. Although the productivity of the land does not equal that of the Molochna, trees, grains, and food crops thrive here as well. Violent storms often destroy the corn/grain fields in rows.

orchards. The mention of plural orchards is significant, since it signals that the village did not have a common large orchard but that each landholder had his or her own smaller orchard. This is generally consistent with a directive issued by Andrei M. Fadeev, chairman of the Ekaterinoslav office of the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in South Russia (see further here), when he established the Molotschna Society for the Dissemination and Cultivation of Forest and Fruit Trees, of Sericulture and of Viticulture (more commonly known as the Forestry Society):

To advance orchard cultivation as a flourishing branch of the economy in Mennonite villages generally, and to distinguish them from other settlements of this region without the advantages and privileges granted to Mennonites, every householder is obligated to lay out an orchard behind his house of a size permitted by the local situation and his means. (Cornies 2015, 231)

It seems that the Franztal orchards adhered to the spirit of Fadeev’s order, if not its letter. According to the quote above, the orchards were supposed to be located behind their respective houses. In the Franztal community report we read, however, that the orchards were grouped together along the land (street) on the northwest side of the village. I suspect that Franztal’s location on the bank of the river necessitated this different arrangement. 

each … a dessiatine in area. A dessiatine (or dessiatina) is equal to 2.7 acres, or a square with sides of roughly 343 feet each. Twenty-four of these orchards would have spread across nearly 65 acres.

fine fruit trees. The Gemeindebericht does not specify the kind of fruit trees, but a 1836 letter from Johann Cornies, chairman of the Molotschna Forestry Society, provides a helpful list of five different classes of trees that were to be counted (Cornies 2015, 438; see a comparable list in Huebert 1986, 138).

1. Kernel fruit (apple and pear trees)
2. Stone fruit (plum, cherry, and apricot trees)
3. Mulberry trees, including those planted in orchards and hedges
4. Willows, in plantations and elsewhere
5. All varieties of other trees such as elms, alders, acacias, wild olives, maples, lindens, chestnuts, oaks, poplars, etc.

The first two categories were considered fruit trees. Although mulberry trees do bear fruit in the form of a berry, they were counted separately because they were grown for a different purpose: the leaves of the mulberry tree were fed to silkworms in an attempt to develop a silk industry in Molotschna. Note also that the mulberry trees were planted in orchards and in hedges. Thus we should probably imagine the Franztal fruit orchards as containing six types of trees: apple, pear, plum, cherry, apricot, and mulberry.

At the end of the orchards. The report began at the northwest corner of the village and thus presumably proceeds to the northeast. Thus it seems most likely that the next feature (below) begins at the end of the row of orchards.

tree grove. The Forestry Society was interested in more than fruit trees; other types of trees were also to be planted. Willows are included as a separate class in the list above, with another nine grouped in a second class. It is not clear why willows are separated out into their own category; perhaps it was because willows were planted in groves and elsewhere.

In contrast to the plural orchards, the report refers to a single grove. We should probably not make too much of this, since other sources mention that each landowner was responsible for his or her own forest plot. We also learn in these sources that the standard forest plot was a half-dessiatine in size, that is, half of the size of the standard orchard (see Cornies 2015, 228, 235, 270–71, 301, 306–8).

Before we move on to the rest of this paragraph, this is a good place to stop and learn more about the planting of trees in Molotschna colony. There are many sources we could consult, but we will focus on only one at this time: a report of the numbers of trees in Molotschna colony.

The report was published in the January 1852 issue of the Unterhaltungsblatt für deutsche Ansiedler im südlichen Rußland, which one might translate Bulletin for the German Settlers in South Russia  (the issue can be found here). The table of interest here appears in reduced form below but can also be viewed at a larger size here.

The top of the table was, unfortunately, cut off during scanning, so we cannot translate all the column headings with certainty. However, it is possible to make reasonable sense of most of them and to gain an idea of the number of trees in Molotschna colony as well as each of the forty-six villages existing in 1852.

The wide column is, of course, where the village name is recorded. Working horizontally across for the first village listed, Halbstadt, we see the following columns:

Heading	Translation	Number
1. Maulsbeerbäume	mulberry trees	7,734
2. Gehölzbaume	wood trees	15,202
3. Obstbäume	fruit trees	6,563
4. Maulsbeerbäume	mulberry trees	152
5. Gehölzbaume	wood trees	1,014
6. Obstbäume: Veredelte	fruit trees: cultivated	—
7. Obstbäume: Unveredelte	fruit trees: wild	120
8. Maulsbeerbäume	mulberry trees	4,220
9. Gehölzbaume	wood trees	961
10. Maulsbeerbäume in Hekken	mulberry trees in hedges	36,093
11. ??? Birnbäume überhaupt	??? pear trees overall	113
12. ??? den in allen Anlagen	??? in all gardens (?)	3,846
Summa	total	76,018

Leaving the first two columns aside for the moment, columns 3–5 are treated as a single group, and the bottom half of the word Dorf- appears above them. This implies that these columns list the counts for trees within the village, including the orchards. By process of elimination we can thus surmise that columns 1–2 recorded trees outside the village, presumably in the tree groves. 

Columns 6–9 are likewise grouped together, but we cannot read the heading so do not know where this group is located. Columns 6 and 7 list two types of fruit trees: literally refined and unrefined. Presumably the latter term refers to wild fruit trees (see Cornies 2015, 197), which tells us that the former are fruit trees that have been cultivated and probably crossbred to increase productivity. 

Column 10 records the number of mulberry trees planted in hedges. All we can say about column 11 is that it relates somehow to pear trees. Why they were singled out is unknown. Column 12 is even more obscure, but it seems to refer to trees in gardens, although Anlagen can also mean enclosure, installation, or promenade (lane?). 

The final column is self-evident, but it also confirms for us that columns 1–12 lists trees in different parts of the village and its land, since the numbers for 1–12 added together equal the number in the final column.

Thus we know that in 1852 the village Halbstadt had 76,018 different trees in and around it. Mulberry trees in hedges accounted for 47.5 percent of all the trees, with mulberry trees in other spots adding up to another 15.9 percent. Wood trees in all locations accounted for another 22.6 percent. Only 8.9 percent of the trees were fruit-bearing. (The final 5.1 percent are the unknown trees from column 12.)

Of course, our real interest here is with Franztal, which appears in line 29 (it was the twenty-ninth Mennonite village established in Molotschna). Halbstadt was established in 1804, Franztal in 1820. Thus it is not surprising that Franztal had over fifteen thousand fewer trees than the older village.  The numbers for Franztal are as follows:

Heading	Translation	Number
1. Maulsbeerbäume	mulberry trees	10,090
2. Gehölzbaume	wood trees	18,115
3. Obstbäume	fruit trees	8,413
4. Maulsbeerbäume	mulberry trees	5
5. Gehölzbaume	wood trees	—
6. Obstbäume: Veredelte	fruit trees: cultivated	18
7. Obstbäume: Unveredelte	fruit trees: wild	1,211
8. Maulsbeerbäume	mulberry trees	640
9. Gehölzbaume	wood trees	—
10. Maulsbeerbäume in Hekken	mulberry trees in hedges	21,416
11. ??? Birnbäume überhaupt	??? pear trees overall	416
12. ??? den in allen Anlagen	??? in all gardens (?)	76
Summa	total	60,400

In Franztal as in Halbstadt, mulberry trees in hedges were most common (35.5 percent); all other mulberry trees accounted for another 17.8 percent. Franztal had a higher percentage of wood trees (30.0 percent) than Halbstadt and nearly double the percentage of fruit trees (16.7 percent).

More can be learned from this particular report, as well as from other articles and reports contained in the issues of the Unterhaltungsblatt für deutsche Ansiedler im südlichen Rußland. This post barely scratches the surface, but even so this brief look enriches our understanding of the orchards and wood groves that the Gemeindebericht references: they were home to roughly sixty thousand individual trees. Beyond that, this also helps us to appreciate how radically the Mennonite settlers transformed the treeless landscape of the Russian (Ukrainian) steppes.

Work Cited

Cornies, Johann. 2015. Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies. Volume 1: 1812–1835. Translated by Ingrid I. Epp. Edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

German Original

Die Kolonie ist in der Richtung von Nordost nach Südwest angelegt. Der Juschanlee bildet die Grenze zwischen ihrem und dem Lande der Tataren; bis zur entgegengesetzten Grenze am Lande des Dorfes Tschernigow beträgt die Entfernung 7 Werst. An der nordwestlichen Seite der Kolonie der Gasse entlang befinden sich die Obstgärten, welche je eine Dessjatine Flächeninhalt haben und bereits mit einer beträchtlichen Anzahl von edlen Obstbäumen bepflanzt sind. Am Ende der Obstgärten erhebt sich die Gehölzplantage, welche von der Kolonie aus mit ihren grünbelaubten Bäumen einen reizenden Anblick gewährt. Gegen Abend grenzt die Kolonie an Großweide, gegen Morgen an Pastwa und ist von der Kreisstadt Berdjansk 60 Werst entlegen. Die vielen alten Grabhügel (Mohilen) verleihen dem Lande sozusagen eine warzige Gestalt. Die Oberfläche ist fast überall schwarze Erde, stellenweise etwas salpeterhaltig, mit einer Unterlage von Kies und Bruchstein, welche über einen Faden tief liegt und stellenweise zum Vorschein kommt. Obwohl die Erträglichkeit des Landes derjenigen an der Molotschna nicht gleichkommt, so gedeihen doch auch hier Bäume, Getreide und Futterkräuter. Heftige Stürme zerstören oft strichweise die Kornfelder.