Aspen Bibliography

Hydraulic Technologies and the Agricultural Transformation of the English Fens

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Environmental Review

Volume

7

Issue

2

First Page

165

Last Page

178

Publication Date

Summer 1983

Abstract

To the zoologist or ornithologist whizzing by train through the English fenland north of Cambridge the landscape presents a dreary aspect. Endless plains are broken only by the straight lines of ditches and canals in geometric patterns imposed as if by a cookie cutter on the black soil dough of the flattened earth. The silence is interrupted only by the clacking of the wheels or by the blast of the whistle as the train approaches a cross road. In spring sharp ears may catch the song of a Reed Bunting or Sedge Warbler; in winter a practiced eye may spot the now rare Stonechat. A few willows or alders dot the horizon and the traveller occasionally glimpses a fen farmer plowing the rectangular fields of wheat, oats, and rye.1

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