The
twentieth century has seen huge changes in farming practices
and therefore in land management. In the 1920s, when farming
was in the doldrums and farmers had to scrape and save every
penny they could, many hedges were left untrimmed, fields
became dirty with weeds and brambles, cropping was largely
with spring-sown crops and stubble remained untouched for
weeks or months after harvest. Bad for farming by modern
standards, but great for wild-life of all sorts.
Then came the war, with huge pressure to produce as much
food as possible, leading to new machines, modern tractors,
the combine harvester, improved varieties of corn and intense
encouragement through grants and subsidies to increase production.
Farmers rose to the challenge: land was drained, woods,
hedges and hedgerow trees were removed, ditches were cleared
out or filled in, and the phrase "prairie farming" entered
the dictionary. Good perhaps for farming efficiency, but
less so for wild-life.
Next
came the European Economic Community and the Common Market
(now the European Union) which led to food surpluses, beef
mountains, butter mountains, wine lakes and so on, which
in turn took minds off production at almost any cost. Instead
we started to learn a new vocabulary with words like "conservation,"
"habitat," "green," "wild-life corridors" and so on.
Here
at Thurlow we have been spared the extremes of intensive
prairie farming for two reasons. First, the owners throughout
this century have all been interested in nature and wild-life;
and secondly, they have all been keen sportsmen,
loving their shooting and their hunting. As a result, no
woods have been removed and many more have been planted.
Where too many hedges and ditches had been removed, a programme
of replacing them has been put in place, with about fifteen
miles being planted in the last ten years.
Click on the image to see a map of the Estate woodlands
