ABSTRACT
The first task that faced country-people in Britain was no less than the taming of a wilderness. In its original state the land was of no use for agriculture. In some places poor and in others rich, the soil produced vegetation that was either sparse and stunted or lush and rank, but nowhere was it ready and prepared for the farmer. The countryside we are accustomed to regard as natural is as man-made as a motorway or an oil refinery. The whole farm was laid out and run to suit the sheep, but only on the strict understanding that they devoted themselves to fertilizing the land for corn and grain. Trees and bushes were felled and grubbed up. Coarse swards were pared off and burned in heaps and their ashes mixed with the soil. The introduction of permanent cultivation, which was largely the work of the Anglo-Saxons, had amounted to a veritable economic revolution.
