(Continued)
On this heavy clay land drainage is all important and wet spots will not do. But instead of introducing expensive drainage schemes to catch up springs and wet patches, with the help of the Woodland Grant Scheme we have planted up small spinneys. Awkward corners of fields, which made life difficult for the large modern tractors, reversible ploughs and combine harvesters of today, have been planted up rather than taking out the hedge to round off the field boundary. Verges have been left uncut and headlands by hedges unsprayed to encourage the wild þowers; while the hedges are trimmed only every second year to provide cover for nesting songbirds as some protection against the increasing number of sparrow hawks, magpies and other predators.

During the depression of the 1930s and the war many of the woodlands became badly neglected. The move to intensive corn production saw most þocks of sheep disappear for a time, with the loss of any demand for sheep hurdles. So the old system of managing the ancient woods mainly of oak and ash changed. Instead of coppicing the hazel for hurdles and thus encouraging the re-growth of the hard woods, after the war we followed the recommended policy of clear felling and replanting with one row of hard woods and three rows of softwood between them as nurse trees. Unfortunately, the hard woods chosen were mainly sycamore, which was meant to become valuable for the demand for veneers (which never came) and beech, which is more suited to the lighter land. Fortunately, we realised this system was not ideal for our heavy land before it had gone too far. As they grew up, the evergreens killed off any undergrowth beneath them and when their roots penetrated the clay and reached the chalk in many cases they died before reaching any worthwhile commercial value. The sycamores and beeches too shaded out the undergrowth, the woods became cold and draughty, and wild life of all sorts suffered.