Rabassaires, formiguers and caganers: comparing two nutrient balances c.1860 and c.1920 in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula

Understanding the replacement of the nutrients removed by harvests helps us understand the influence of humans on fertility. In this paper we compare two previous studies on the nutrient balance of the cropland area in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, which run circa 1860 and 1920. Although in this region livestock densities per cropland area were insufficient to balance the extraction of three macronutrients—N, P and K—, a diverse range of fertilising sources managed to reach equilibrium at regional level. The vineyard played a key role, not because of the great area occupied, but by its relatively low nutrient requirements. Albeit due to the availability of historical sources the scale of analysis differs, the comparison of the two cases shows two different steps of the Socio-Ecological Transition of agricultural metabolism. Finally, the results take us to consider the relationship between fertility and inequality in the highly polarized Catalan rural world at the late nineteenth century.