We are flying, at about 70mph, through the Somerset Levels. If I were driving, we would be going a great deal faster; but mercifully my husband is a more reserved motorist with less flare for Formula 1 than I.
He has spent some time calculating the optimum speed for least petrol consumption. And now he is driving cheaply.
I keep my eyes open.Because I know that on this motorway, there is a secret about which almost no-one knows.
To see it, you must watch the earth.
It was the Greek philosophers who saw earth as one of the four classical elements. While your other three flighty elements were off being ethereal, it was earth which was the one which was heavy, pragmatic;associated with the material world.
And with good reason. Earth holds its shape throughout the ages. Every day, I walk on a great iron age earthwork, an encampment created thousands of years ago.
My motorway find is not as old as that but it causes even more excitement as I scan the fields, watching and waiting.
Every now and then, the motorway passes green ragged grazing land which has been left to livestock for a very long time.
It is usually some awkward shape, and access or drainage has prevented anyone from ploughing it into pristine, rich geometric dark loam.
Instead, like a problem child, the land has been left to amuse itself and its bovine tenants for centuries.
And so it bears the marks of a long-lost mediaeval practice: strip-farming.
The method evolved out of the Dark Ages. Once upon a time lords of the manor were not wicked grasping hoarders of other men’s money: or if they were, the system enforced a little fairness.
Every manor was surrounded by great open fields, without boundary. These usually rotated three crops. And in the interests of the villagers, the fields were divided into strips, each no more than half an acre.
At the beginning of each year a great village meeting would be held, and lots would be drawn for strips. No one family could get strips in one place: they were scattered, so everyone shared in good and bad land alike.
The village owned and maintained the expensive teams of oxen who worked the fields with the heavy ploughs. It made sense to share.
And in this way,’enough’ was not a stranger. Families were generally able to feed themselves and their families. Life was fair.
It couldn’t last. Populations increased, demand for land outstripped supply and pressure grew to merge the strips in the name of efficiency. And as land merged, the power of the landowner grew.
The strips disappeared, and with them equity.
But they’re not quite gone.
No: every now and then, as I hurtle through this ancient landscape, I see their shapes: strips of land a man dug and used for his family a thousand years ago or more. Their boundaries remain, raised at the edge of each great rectangle of land.
Why should these enchant us so? The knowledge that their work was not lost to time, their system remembered in the very ground we tread so that a 21st century pair of eyes can wonder?
The earth remembers, you see.
There is a coda to this tale:a means by which a 21st century man or woman can once more farm in strips.
I speak of the strips we, here in Britain,hire from the council to grow our own veg: the allotment.
All over there isles,fields are set aside and divvied up so that those who love to grow their own may do just that.
These days, subsistence farmng methods are enhanced with every modern convenience. This typically includes the rugged stainless steel fit–for–purpose tools of the moment.
Once, oxen were the preferred plougher of choice for your discerning peasant. But these days the enchantment of electricity means a rugged rotivator will plough even the most stubborn furrow.
But when it comes to convenience, it must surely be comfort in which the 21st century excels. The modern strip farmer has a small fortress all his own:a garden shed from which operations may be conducted.
And greater comfort has no strip farmer,than to open the thermos flask and pour a cup of well-earned tea.
Two methods separated by a thousand years: horticultural democracy in action. In each case, ordinary people empowered themselves by growing food.
Independence from a feudal lord was the ancient aim.
And these days – with all mod cons– we’re still farming for freedom.
But now it’s from a different quarter: prices which climb inexorably under the watchful eye of their corporations.
Kate Shrewsday 
I’ve never noticed them; I’ll start looking. Thanks!
Do- I’d be interested to see if there are any left around your part of the world, Tilly….
I love this: ‘The earth remembers’ That’s just what it feels like when you see the fields and the forts and tumuli.
Ancient and somehow familiar, Earlybird 🙂
There’s a lot to be said for the ‘old ways’! No allotment here, but our daughter has one. She derives great pleasure from it after a hard day at school. Are you on holiday? Have a good time.
Thanks, Nuvofelt 🙂 Yes, in Cornwall for a couple of days ….an allotment is the recipe for a life of sanity. Gardening steadiescthe soul…..
And especially in the hillfort that you walk in, Kate, the earth has remembered the banks and ditches which protected the settlement.
Oxfordshire is plentiful in strip fields as well. next time you go up M40 keep your eyes peeled.
Have a good holiday all.
Love, Dad
Will do, Dad. that’s Pseu’s country….
I know of what you speak!
The movie another year showed allotments, and garden sheds, and tea poured from flasks!
http://nrhatch.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/another-year/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilv0aVRJPps&feature=related
😀 There, Nancy 😀 proof that allotments are an integral part of life over here. Strip farming for the modern man…
I think this is wonderful, Kate. I have said for years that this is the answer, to rent a piece of land to use to feed the family or, preferably, to start Kibbutz-type farms in this country. However, there is so much dishonesty that I don’t know if it could work fairly!
Well, we managed to mess it up right and proper, the first time round, Denise. it would need a lot of fair minded politicians, local and national, to make it really count.
I love the thought of the land remembering, and, of course, it does. It just took Kate to tell me about it. The city we used to live in had plots you could rent from the park district. We never did, but, I know of a few who put by their winter’s tomatoes and beans and such with their rented plot.
I love to gaze at farmland as we travel – and, of course, the prairies as we see them.
Your Prarie post was wonderful, Penny, I so enjoyed it, especially knowing there are some preserved for posterity. And you, most of all, will know the joy of fostering even a small plot to grow something living in the heart of a city 🙂
“it made sense to share” – that is lovely in and of itself. Farmland and rolling rectangles are amongst my favorite sites to see.
I know, Tammy: a wonderful sight. I visited a great old manor in the heart of Cornwall today: and there are still maps showing how the surrounding land was divided and shared. Not Utopia, but it made ends meet. A sensible system gobbled up by time.
You are such an insightful teacher, Kate. I relish seeing the world through the lens of your words. Thank you.
Andra, thanks:-) The feeling is mutual. Every one of your posts makes me think in ways I haven’t before. Fun, this blogging business.
New ways of seeing the old – fantastic, Kate. The modern version of this “horticultural democracy” in the sprawl of cities is the shared community gardens nestled between and on the roofs of skyscrapers
There’s one just round the corner from the Tate Modern in London, BB, thanks for the reminder-must pop and have a look next time I’m up there.
I love flying over our Canadian prairies and seeing the patchwork of fields – each crop declaring its colour. The labour and risk that goes into each field, by a family, puts me in awe.
More and more tiny stands appear around our island, laden with fresh produce, sold under the honour system. Wholesomeness, not just for the physical. I like that and wish it for the world.
It is a system full of honour and respect, with nurture at it’s heart, Souldipper. And growing things-it does something to the spirit. I love it.
I loved “Another Year” and all that lovely harvest they would bring home, instead of just popping off to the green grocers. you are so right working the land is for balancing the soul.
wonderful contribution, these ‘invisible’ signs of the past to look out for
I only learnt about that a few weeks ago, but this post has helped me understand it in depth. It’s amazing that, in our own modern way, we are keeping the old traditions alive. And that we can see the land that was worked so long ago just makes you wonder…
It does. What signs will we leave behind, I wonder?