Page 20 RAIN October 1981 ----------- --------------- - FOR·EIGN ----- -- ---- ------------------- --- - The Theft of the Countryside, by Marion Shoard, 1980, 272pp., inquire for price from: Maurice Temple Smith Ltd. 37 Great Russell St. London, England WCl If present trends continue, we may as well imagine Kansas wheatfields as the setting for future English novels. Marion Shoard describes how moors, heaths and hedgerows are being indiscriminately plowed into farm land. Agribusiness is taking over the British landscape because farming is immune from otherwise progressive planning restrictions and economic incentives are available to maximize food production. Things aren't out of control yet, but Shoard is worried. She tells us about what we have to lose and what the threats are. The book is worth reading for the beautiful descriptions of English landscape features alone: Hedges in Cornwall ... consist of stonefaced walls filled with earth, with a drainage ditch .on either side, and on top a carpet of thick turf and wildflowers (brightly colored · cranesbills, stitchworts, campions and harebells) crowned by gorse and hawthorn bushes. Juxtapost::d against these bucolic images are specters of cleared fields filled with heavy machinery. For agribusiness, wildlifesheltering hedgerows are an obstacle. Plowing is much simpler in undivided fields. Furthermore, subsidies make farming in marginal areas profitable: grants and subsidies provided three-fourths of farm income in hill and upland farms just a few years ago. England's planning system, "the envy of much of the world," gives absolute ownership and development rights to the state. The system of public rights-of-way over private land includes those wonderful footpaths all over the countryside, as well as rights to pasture animals,·collect wood, and quarry minerals. The land buyer has freeholding rights. Anyone contemplating land-use changes such as buildings; mining or engineering must apply to the local planning authority. Farming and forestry, however, are exempt. The laws were written in the days when farmers were believed to be the best custodians of the land: These days, farmers are capitalizing on the arcadian mystique of farming to do as they please-largely industrilizing the countryside. A quote from the 1978 Farmer's Weekly exemplifies their arrogance: ACCESS Lost Country Life, by Dorothy Hartley, 1979, 374pp., $14.95, from: Pantheon Books 201 E. 50th St. New York, NY 10022 The histories we're used to tell nothing of the day to day life of people like us; only the royalty and warriors are indulged. I'm always curious about the life ordinary people lived, how they produced their clothing, what tools they used, what their homes and families were like. This is the 'domestic history" of a country and Lost Country Life explores these aspects of mediaeval England. Hartley describes the people you never read about in textbooks. England was largely feudal, and the members of the feudal systems are fairly well accounted for, but on the fringes existed people whose life and work are still unrecorded. All over the land they came and went, as varied and unpredictable as a crop of colored fungus on a tree stump . ... There are signs of these people all over the land; some in village's abandoned because they became befouled . .. '. Chronicle keepers account for them by abstraction. They are the 'survivors From Lost Country Life Landscapes will change as they have done to meet the needs of succeeding generations. And conservationists will inherit something new and interesting to protect. Local planning boards can recommend that farmers not destroy hedgerows, but cannot enforce it. If the freeholder refuses to comply, the board can pay the freeholder an annual fee (much like the sums paid American who fled,' the 'remnant who took to the woods' or were 'driven off after the battle.' All wars produce a backwash of weary men seeking solitude and peace, and mediaeval wars made many hermits. Not professional hermits, seeking discomfort in deserts, but simple tired men who built themselves serviceable huts by some spring of fresh water, and lived as best they could on small snared game and the plants which necessity had taught them to use. Her outline is curious, but very enjoyable. She begins with a description of the people and the roles of feudalism and the Church. Then she goes on to a month by month account of the "work of the year," followed by a description of the "commercial world" (trade, travel, markets, etc.). Luckily there's ·an index included if you need specific information on, say, hersels (more than a herd of sheep) or Sops-in-wine ("clove pinks" a favorite garden flower of the time) or snaHles (a substitute for the bit in horse bindings). Besides being a good read, this book is laced with mediaeval poetry, reproductions, and descriptive line drawings. Fans of the Foxfire books and other folk-life collections will love this one. -CC farmers to keep their land fallow in years of oversupply), buy the land back (usually at a · higher price), or give up. Shoard recommends revision of the Planning Act to regulate development of farms and forests. People can still act to save pastoral England, and Shoard is confident that people will act once they are aware of what's. going on. Her well-balanced account provides the valuable information needed. -TK
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