Ecology of enclosure - Shirley Wittering

South Cambridgeshire has some of the richest arable land in
England and has been cultivated for millennia. By the turn of the
nineteenth century industrialisation and massive population
growth had resulted in an enormous increase in the demand for
food, which in turn led to enclosure. But this desire to plough
every available piece of land resulted in the destruction of many
valuable and distinctive habitats that had existed for centuries.
The Ecology of Enclosure breaks new ground in comparing the
effect of Parliamentary Enclosure with the findings of the
enthusiastic 'Botanisers' from Cambridge; this reveals not only
the effect of enclosure on the ecology of the land but also on
the people whose link with the land was broken.The first section presents a study of social and agricultural
life before enclosure, describing geology and climate; the
fold-course open field system of farming and the strict stinting
rules which governed how land could be used for grazing and stock
movement; and the crop rotation systems employed. The second part
describes the process of enclosure, including opposition to it;
the changes that occurred to the landscape and within village
communities as work in industry gradually replaced rural
occupations; the effects of fencing on movement; and of the loss
of common land
to the plough. The third section is an analysis
of the new study of Botany which the University of Cambridge was
enjoying in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries based on
their own records and a review of some of the specific effects on
the flora and fauna of the area.