Clay
“While the mown part was just grass, where it was left long it was possible to tell what that grass was actually made up of, as lesser timothy, rye, meadow fescue, cocksfoot, sweet vernal and foxtail all put up their differing banners, and sweet white clover brought the bees beneath. Over by the oaks the elegant, sandy feathers of tall oat grass floated above the finer, reddish inflorescence of the common bent below, like the two lengths of pelt on a cat.
Once, right across the country, the mead...ows would have been scythed at around this time of year, the hay left to dry in long, fragrant windrows. Turned by hand, it would have been pitched up with forks onto a wagon and towed to the rick by horsepower.
The heavy horses have gone, most of the hedgerows grubbed up and the fields they encircled lost in the huge swathes demanded by agribusiness – as though the enclosures had never happened, but with no return of the land to common use. Now, mechanical balers leave neat packages of wrapped silage in their wake.MoreLess
Once, right across the country, the mead...ows would have been scythed at around this time of year, the hay left to dry in long, fragrant windrows. Turned by hand, it would have been pitched up with forks onto a wagon and towed to the rick by horsepower.
The heavy horses have gone, most of the hedgerows grubbed up and the fields they encircled lost in the huge swathes demanded by agribusiness – as though the enclosures had never happened, but with no return of the land to common use. Now, mechanical balers leave neat packages of wrapped silage in their wake.MoreLess
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