Hedgerows

The hedgerows in the countryside are among the most threatened features of our environment. They are disappearing at an alarming rate because they are little more than a hindrance to the arable farmer and so in cereal growing areas such as South Lincolnshire they are under severe attack from agricultural mechanisation and misguided methods of management. Those that remain are in many cases being vandalised by the farmers who are supposed to care for them in their role as guardians of the countryside and the main culprit is the flail cutter which destroys wild life and leaves in its wake a trail of shattered stems. 

The flail cutter consists of a revolving chain-like structure housed inside a metal cowl and mounted on a tractor. The rotation of the flails chips and chews unwanted growth on hedges but leaves them in a most untidy and unsightly state and the site looking like a plant battlefield. The maintenance of hedges is a costly business and regarded by many farmers as a financial liability and an unproductive use of labour and so this machine is used as a faster and cheaper alternative. The timing of the cutting operation is crucial and usually takes place in midsummer (July) or in autumn (October) but whichever time is chosen, the long-term damage to the vegetation and animal life is unavoidable and can be clearly seen. 

The word hedge is of Anglo-Saxon origin and its derivation is a little complicated because there are three words that give rise to our modern usage. Haeg, meaning hurdle, hecg referring to a territorial boundary, either dead or planted, and hega, a living or border boundary. Hecg has given rise to our modern hedge, hega is the origin of the modern haw as in hawthorn while haeg is the basis for hay, as in the numerous place names such as Hayling. It is sometimes said that the word hedgerow referred at one time to two hedges with a track running between them but that is a usage that does not apply today. There also appears no good reason for distinguishing between hedge and hedgerow which can be regarded as synonymous and are used as alternatives. 

Most of the hedges in England date from the period of the Enclosure Acts passed mainly between 1720 and 1840 when wages were low and hedge laying was a cheap alternative to fencing but some are much older and represent Saxon land boundaries while others are the last remaining pieces of centuries old woodland. Their decline is however evident. In 1993 it was estimated that about 330,000 miles of hedgerow remained in Britain but was reducing at the rate of 5% a year due to removal and neglect and now stands at 280,000 miles. 

Hedges traditionally served two purposes, as a barrier to the movement of livestock and as a means of marking out the boundaries of a property, and from prehistoric times until the end of the Saxon period in the late 9th century, farmers were faced with the additional problem of protecting their livestock from wild animals, particularly wolves. Today, whether our hedges are ancient or modern, they are important not just for bio-diversity but also for farming, landscape, cultural and archaeological reasons. They also have a rich ecology, especially those formed by hawthorn and colonised over the years by herbs, shrubs and trees that have become important habitats for the refugees from cultivated fields, a sanctuary for birds and mammals that would otherwise be bereft of cover. They are especially important for butterflies and moths, farmland birds, bats and dormice. Indeed, hedgerows are the most significant wildlife habitat over large areas of lowland and are an essential haven for a great many woodland and farmland plants and animals. Over 600 plant species, 1,500 insects, 65 birds and 20 mammals have been recorded at some time living or feeding in hedgerows. The flail cutter is their worst enemy because there will inevitably be loss of life in whatever season it is used. 

In 1998, a farmer started flail cutting the hedge alongside his field on the corner of Mill Drove and the Dyke road on the southern edge of Bourne during May. It had been full of plants of all varieties with a predominance of hawthorn in full blossom but all that was left along one side was a row of stumps about three feet high and a roadside verge churned into mud by the machinery. Passers-by were aghast at the damage that had been caused during the height of the nesting season but fortunately the work was halted by a protest from nature lovers who paraded along the road with signs proclaiming "Protect the countryside from the farmers" because the operation was undoubtedly killing off song birds and their fledglings sheltering in its dense branches. 

Frogs, rabbits, mice, voles, shrews and a multitude of insects are also at risk and although fewer are in danger in the autumn and winter, there will always be a high mortality rate among these creatures as their habitat is decimated in such an abominable way. The hedgerow around this field was flail cut again the following year but this time in September and there is little doubt that the loss of life in this tiny part of nature's kingdom was considerable while the cracked and crushed branches, indiscriminately smashed and split by this powerful machine, may take many years to recover and the present appearance of the hedgerow bears witness to this annual act of vandalism. 

Hedgerows further west along Mill Drove in Bourne have already been denuded in recent years by the Arnhem Way and Mountbatten Way residential developments which opened in June 1996 when roads were named after military places and personalities from the Second World War and although this is a most worthy honour, it would have been some recompense had these names remembered the songbirds and plants that the new streets displaced and which gave such delight to those of us who walked this way. The hedges along both sides of the road at this point for a distance of one hundred yards were once alive with yellowhammers in spring and summer but they were ripped out to make way for the new homes and the birds disappeared with them. 

New legislation is now in force to protect important hedgerows in the countryside by controlling their grubbing out through a system of notification. The regulations have been introduced in a bid to halt the large amount of hedgerow removal over the last thirty years and although this has slowed down to 2,200 miles a year throughout the country, it is still cause for concern. In practice, this means that landowners must notify the local planning authority if they want to grub out a hedge with a maximum penalty of £5,000 for unauthorised removal. All of this is very worthy but difficult to monitor and it also ignores the problem of the flail cutter that is causing so much damage to the hedges that remain. While this terrible machine is allowed to operate, our wildlife which looks to the hedgerow as a habitat will remain at risk. 

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