Ancient trees and farming

[pycoed]

My family owns land in Essex with unchanged hedgerows from around the Elizabethan times (so I am told), though the land was traditionally managed extensively with the grazing of cattle. Nowadays, it's meadow grass that is cut and collected once per year for fodder. In this time, the hedgerows have also been left to develop, and support a great thicket of blackthorn, hawthorn, rose, bramble, elder, and so on (they also support regeneration of oak, from the many healthy mature oaks we have). I cannot say that the same is evident in many other hedgerows around - scraggly, thin, waning hedgerows in marked decline, brought about by the aggressive management of the land.

 

The post-war era battered hedgerows. The promise of re-planting them was never fulfilled, and frankly by that point the damage had been done anyway. Centuries-old hedgerows ripped out cannot be replaced overnight - the complexity of the landscape will take many hundreds of years to even substantially recover, and as of yet that process hasn't begun - in fact, the reverse is evident.

 

Don't minimise the problem. A classic belittling tactic by those who look to project their own agenda onto others.

 

Well I agree with most of that except the pejorative bit at the end, but there is still no recognition that hedgerow loss is not solely due to agricultural changes. And what have hedgerows to do with your OP?

What also is the agenda you accuse me of pushing? (Oh the irony!)

 

My view is typical of lots of West Wales - lots of small stock & 1 dairy farm, none of which AFAIK is organic. If I was a few hundred feet higher I'd be able to see the Ammanford opencast areas - a few hedges lost there, but not to dastardly farmers (I am not a farmer by the way:001_smile:)

[SteveA]

I see plenty of crap hedges, or grubbed out hedges in a west Wales. It's not as bad as Dorset but it's definitely heading in that direction.

cheers, steve

[Kveldssanger]

Well I agree with most of that except the pejorative bit at the end, but there is still no recognition that hedgerow loss is not solely due to agricultural changes. And what have hedgerows to do with your OP?

What also is the agenda you accuse me of pushing? (Oh the irony!)

 

My view is typical of lots of West Wales - lots of small stock & 1 dairy farm, none of which AFAIK is organic. If I was a few hundred feet higher I'd be able to see the Ammanford opencast areas - a few hedges lost there, but not to dastardly farmers (I am not a farmer by the way:001_smile:)

 

Of course I have an agenda to push, but I am not trying to minimise an alternate argument by suggesting there are more 'impactful' issues out there.

[gdh]

Since reading this thread I've noticed just how many old trees there are in fields around here. There's some really nice old ones around the prince's estate and a lot of new ones been planted. I didn't take pictures of those because I didn't want to get in trouble.

 

Ironically the fields we had with trees on their own we planted completely with saplings but we still have a few around and a lot in hedges.

[David Humphries]

2 years on

 

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

*sighs in exasperation*

 

(Rarely) Not sure what else to say.....

 

?

[sean]

Really interesting but at times a saddening thread.

[fagus]

The irony is not lost that the grubbing out of hedges was government funded in the past and then lots of hedgerow replanting under stewardship schemes was also government funded. There has been lots planted and the new hedges have more species than the old Enclosure hedges. However the isolated trees do look forlorn.

"Farmers who supply the Co-op have made over 1,000 miles (1633 km) of hedgerows, which help boost the environment and protect local habitats.One-hundred devices have been planted on farms to encourage wildlife into their natural habitats, including the introduction of bird boxes, bee hives and beetle banks.

We might be learning.