diff --git a/docs/topics/settings.rst b/docs/topics/settings.rst
index e3b452419..0f2f99811 100644
--- a/docs/topics/settings.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/settings.rst
@@ -768,18 +768,6 @@ Default: ``+2``
 Adjust redirect request priority relative to original request.
 A negative priority adjust means more priority.
 
-.. setting:: REQUESTS_QUEUE_SIZE
-
-REQUESTS_QUEUE_SIZE
--------------------
-
-Default: ``0``
-
-Scope: ``scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.limit``
-
-If non zero, it will be used as an upper limit for the amount of requests that
-can be scheduled per domain.
-
 .. setting:: ROBOTSTXT_OBEY
 
 ROBOTSTXT_OBEY
@@ -866,7 +854,6 @@ Default::
     {
         'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.httperror.HttpErrorMiddleware': 50,
         'scrapy.contrib.itemsampler.ItemSamplerMiddleware': 100,
-        'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.requestlimit.RequestLimitMiddleware': 200,
         'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.offsite.OffsiteMiddleware': 500,
         'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.referer.RefererMiddleware': 700,
         'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.urllength.UrlLengthMiddleware': 800,
diff --git a/docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst b/docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst
index fbbdccfe8..1db93259a 100644
--- a/docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst
@@ -245,25 +245,6 @@ RefererMiddleware
 
    Populates Request referer field, based on the Response which originated it.
 
-RequestLimitMiddleware
-----------------------
-
-.. module:: scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.requestlimit
-   :synopsis: Request limit Spider Middleware
-
-.. class:: RequestLimitMiddleware
-
-   Limits the maximum number of requests in the scheduler for each spider. When
-   a spider tries to schedule more than the allowed amount of requests, the new
-   requests (returned by the spider) will be dropped.
-
-   The :class:`RequestLimitMiddleware` can be configured through the following
-   settings (see the settings documentation for more info):
-
-      * :setting:`REQUESTS_QUEUE_SIZE` - If non zero, it will be used as an
-        upper limit for the amount of requests that can be scheduled per
-        domain. Can be set per spider using ``requests_queue_size`` attribute.
-
 UrlLengthMiddleware
 -------------------
 
diff --git a/scrapy/contrib/spidermiddleware/requestlimit.py b/scrapy/contrib/spidermiddleware/requestlimit.py
deleted file mode 100644
index bd52576f7..000000000
--- a/scrapy/contrib/spidermiddleware/requestlimit.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,65 +0,0 @@
-"""
-Request Limit Spider middleware
-
-See documentation in docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst
-"""
-from itertools import imap
-from scrapy.xlib.pydispatch import dispatcher
-
-from scrapy import signals
-from scrapy.project import crawler
-from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
-from scrapy.conf import settings
-from scrapy.http import Request
-from scrapy import log
-
-class RequestLimitMiddleware(object):
-
-    def __init__(self):
-        self.max_queue_size = settings.getint("REQUESTS_QUEUE_SIZE")
-        if not self.max_queue_size:
-            raise NotConfigured
-
-        self.max_pending = {}
-        self.dropped_count = {}
-
-        dispatcher.connect(self.spider_opened, signal=signals.spider_opened)
-        dispatcher.connect(self.spider_closed, signal=signals.spider_closed)
-
-    def spider_opened(self, spider):
-        self.max_pending[spider] = getattr(spider, 'requests_queue_size', self.max_queue_size)
-        self.dropped_count[spider] = 0
-
-    def spider_closed(self, spider):
-        dropped_count = self.dropped_count[spider]
-        if dropped_count:
-            max_pending = self.max_pending[spider]
-            log.msg('Dropped %d request(s) because the scheduler queue size limit (%d requests) was exceeded' % \
-                    (dropped_count, max_pending), level=log.DEBUG, spider=spider)
-        del self.dropped_count[spider]
-        del self.max_pending[spider]
-
-    def process_spider_output(self, response, result, spider):
-        max_pending = self.max_pending.get(spider, 0)
-        if max_pending:
-            return imap(lambda v: self._limit_requests(v, spider, max_pending), result)
-        else:
-            return result
-
-    def _limit_requests(self, request_or_other, spider, max_pending):
-        if isinstance(request_or_other, Request):
-            free_slots = max_pending - self._pending_count(spider)
-            if free_slots > 0:
-                # Scheduler isn't saturated and it is fine to schedule more requests.
-                return request_or_other
-            else:
-                # Skip the request and give engine time to handle other tasks.
-                self.dropped_count[spider] += 1
-                return None
-        else:
-            # Return others (non-requests) as is.
-            return request_or_other
-
-    def _pending_count(self, spider):
-        pending = crawler.engine.scheduler.pending_requests.get(spider, [])
-        return len(pending)
diff --git a/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py b/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
index 724f24237..4f0071a96 100644
--- a/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
+++ b/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
@@ -194,8 +194,6 @@ REDIRECT_MAX_METAREFRESH_DELAY = 100
 REDIRECT_MAX_TIMES = 20 # uses Firefox default setting
 REDIRECT_PRIORITY_ADJUST = +2
 
-REQUESTS_QUEUE_SIZE = 0
-
 # contrib.middleware.retry.RetryMiddleware default settings
 RETRY_TIMES = 2 # initial response + 2 retries = 3 requests
 RETRY_HTTP_CODES = ['500', '503', '504', '400', '408']
@@ -220,7 +218,6 @@ SPIDER_MIDDLEWARES = {}
 SPIDER_MIDDLEWARES_BASE = {
     # Engine side
     'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.httperror.HttpErrorMiddleware': 50,
-    'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.requestlimit.RequestLimitMiddleware': 200,
     'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.offsite.OffsiteMiddleware': 500,
     'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.referer.RefererMiddleware': 700,
     'scrapy.contrib.spidermiddleware.urllength.UrlLengthMiddleware': 800,