[Leica] English landscape

[lrzeitlin at aol.com]

Beautiful as it is, the English landscape is hardly man made. Human 
enabled, perhaps. Two thousand years of sheep grazing significantly 
altered its appearance. In rural England, Wales, and much of Scotland 
almost every plot of land supports a herd of herbivores that consume 
most shrubs and tree shoots. The forests fabled in Robin Hood legends 
have been decimated to support the needs of industrialization and 
shipbuilding. In fact the major reason for the English presence in 
North America in the 1700s was to obtain a supply of native timber to 
replace the vanished forests.

Beautiful, yes. Natural, no. In the Snowdonia hills there is a fenced 
enclave designed to exclude grazing animals. The hundred acre tree and 
shrub festooned interior looks nothing like the surrounding manicured 
fields.

Here is a crude P&S picture of our back yard a few years back. The 
little white blobs are our gardeners.
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Grazing+sheep.jpg.html
Larry Z
- - - -
Yes, of course, England does not have anything like the Himalayas or 
even the Alps. But no other country has the kind of beautiful, man-made 
landscape as the English countryside.

Cheers,
Nathan