L’evolució del paisatge en les hortes valencianes i les estratègies productives subjacents (segles xvi-xix)

The landscape of the market gardens evolved greatly during the Ancient Regime. From the outset, the irrigated surface increased considerably as a result of expanding old medieval hydraulic systems –resulting in more compact market gardens– and creating new ones. The most remarkable change, however, was the agricultural intensification achieved with the dissemination of crops already known in medieval times (among which the mulberry and rice stand out) or arrived from America, such as corn and beans. Thus, a new landscape of flight and soil was formed , combining a tree of mulberry trees and spoiled fruit trees or aligned in the lintels of the fields with various seedings, among which –wheat, corn and rice cereals – always maintained a hegemonic role that would not be sensible to interpret as a symptom of delay. The consolidation of diversified and highly productive rotations by surface must be related to: a ) novelties in the operational mechanisms used to prorate flow and other changes experienced by the enti-ties that grouped irrigators; b ) the productive and reproductive strategies applied in small peasant farms. These family units were increasingly oriented towards intensification and diversification, achieved thanks to being able to water regularly. Both –intensive rotations and productive diversification– at-tenuated the impact of natural risks and the negative effects of commercial speculation and hereditary subdivisions. They led to the survival of increasingly smaller farms in which the commercialization of crops and the lease of land played an increasingly important role.