Simon English
England Revisited

On fence post between plough + young trees 1/4 mile east of Rough Down Farm. 6 miles north of Newbury. 1 mile N.W. of Peasmore.

On a corner fence post carrying rabbit wire guarding a small plantation of trees. This is not the same wire fence that guarded young trees when I was here in 1971. I learn that that plantation failed and a new one planted in the middle of the field. These trees have a 6 foot wire fence round them which no doubt keep out the deer whose tracks and scat I can see on the plough. This also keeps out the predators that would play havoc when the enclosure is used as a pheasant release pen. The old fence was 3 feet at the most, not entirely impregnable to rabbits but easily jumped by deer.

The field had a crop of rape when I passed earlier in the year. I heard a lark singing and saw three leverets. On this visit the crop has been harvested and the field ploughed. Classically the plough was being followed by seagulls but a new sight for me was to see Red Kites among the opportunist flock feeding on unearthed worms. I remember my grandfather in the late 1950s trying a reintroduction scheme from Spain as the red kite had become so rare in this country, a victim of DDT and shooting.

Agricultural use of DDT has been banned and shooting birds of prey outlawed. From the re-introduction and feeding sites on the Welsh borders and the Chilterns the Red Kite has spread and is now not a rare sight with its distinctive outline against the sky. The gamekeeper here has seen as many as eighteen following the plough. At this population density there must be competition for food and his observation is that they have started to predate the leverets that they can see in their solitary forms in the long grass. So, as with badgers/hedgehogs, we tinker with the numbers of one species at the expense of another.

Watching the two huge tractors ploughing such a big field so quickly, I remarked on the change in power that occurred in the last 40 years. To which the farm manager remarked that this was nothing to what his grandfather saw in his life. He started with horses, and then used steam, before petrol driven tractors and combine harvesters came in. At the end of his working days diesel engines made ploughing with one horse power an illustration of how much agriculture had changed in one mans life.
Points 63 & 64