The pollarding and shredding of trees were widespread and common practices in Britain until the eighteenth century. Trees were an important source of fodder and their branches were regularly lopped so that sheep and cattle could eat their twigs and leaves. The branches could be used for firewood and other purposes. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the practice of pollarding was becoming increasingly rare, and it had virtually died out by the mid-twentieth century. In Europe, by contrast, pollarding remains common in several Mediterranean, Balkan and Scandinavian countries. Pollarding is still practised in many tropical areas for the production of fuel and fodder. In this paper we trace the development of ideas about pollarding in British agricultural, estate management and forestry literature c1600–1900. We examine how pollarding, which was a traditional management practice of long standing at the start of our period, was increasingly vilified so that by the end of the eighteenth century, many foresters and agriculturists saw it as a symbol of the profligate use of resources.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0956793303001018

Pollarding Trees: Changing Attitudes to a Traditional Land Management Practice in Britain 1600–1900

Traditional Ecological Knowledge from the internet? The case of hay meadows in Europe

Conflicts over the conservation of biodiversity, changing patterns in land use, pollution, climate change, public access and increasing demands for food and energy security lead to the creation of policies designed to reconcile interests and promote society's objectives. This book examines the origins and evolution of the institutions that determine the use and management of land and the delivery of ecosystem services, through private property rights, markets and public policies. Divided into five accessible parts, the book provides detailed coverage of the institutions, property and governance of the countryside, historical models, governance under sectoral policies and alternative approaches. It is carefully developed to meet the needs of anyone studying or interested in agricultural sciences, countryside management, rural environment and geography. Students, lecturers, policy makers, managers and consultants in these areas will find this a valuable resource.

The Governance of the Countryside: Property, Planning and Policy

Changes in the woody composition of Wytham Woods since 1974 are described, related to national trends in broadleaved woodland, and used to suggest the impact of future changes such as from ash dieback disease (Chalara fraxinea). Data on the tree and shrub layer from 164 permanent 10×10 m plots distributed in a grid acrosstheWoodsarepresentedfrom1974,1991, 1999and 2012,onspecies occurrence,regeneration,contribution to the canopyand basal area. Variations in the current and past composition and structure of the Woods are relatedtopastforestrymanagementandnaturalsuccession/disturbanceprocesses.Theselargelymirrorchanges shownbyother surveysatanational level.Fraxinusexcelsiorhasbeenincreasingin prominenceacrosstheWoods since 1974, but its future is uncertain because of disease. The species most likely to increase if there is a severe decline in F. excelsior at Wytham appear to be Acer pseudoplatanus, Corylus avellana and Quercus robur. There are benefits from linking long-term studies at one site to wider less detailed surveys in order to explore the general applicability of the results.

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Changes in the tree and shrub layer of Wytham Woods (Southern England) 1974–2012: local and national trends compared

Japanese gardens in Edwardian Britain: landscape and transculturation

Georgian landscaping is conventionally studied as an example of high culture, in terms of the history of art, literature and aesthetics. We take a more down to earth view and look at landscaping as an example of estate management, in terms of such topics as farming, planting, leases and rents. We do not pretend that the study of estate management offers a sort of ground-truth for understanding landscaping. Terms like ‘rent’ and ‘estate’ are of course no more eternal, nor less ideological, than terms like ‘picturesque’ and ‘landscape’. We will not neglect high culture, indeed a central theme of the paper is how the aesthetics of painting helped frame estate management. Even a casual reading of the literature on ‘improvement’ in the eighteenth century reveals a complex overlapping of not just economic and aesthetic issues but moral and political ones too. And the point of this paper is to reinsert landscaping and estate management into this complex.

Charles Watkins

Papers

Picturesque Landscaping and Estate Management: Uvedale Price at Foxley, 1770–1829