Talk:Ridge and furrow

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The ridge and furrow topic deserves much more consideration. I offer a brief outline of my understanding.

In the UK the measurements were one chain (22 yards) wide by one furlong (220 yards)which is exactly one acre. This was the area that could be ploughed by one man with one horse and a plough in one day. Hopefully this could be done in eight hours which was regarded as all that could be expected from a horse in one day allowing for breaks for rest and food and the day light hours. Hence man and society came to adopt an eight hour day as reasonable although actually the man was required to prepare the horse and tackle before the eight hour day started and he was also expected to care for the horse and tackle after the days work was done by the horse. Probably there were other expectations from womenfolk.

Selective breeding of the horses gave rise to several large breeds of heavy horses that were good for this work.

Rubble was often burried in the furrows and this was happening in the eleventh century. By the seventeenth century unglazed ceramic pipes were laid in trenches in the furrows to facilitate drainage. These pipes drained into open ditches which were usually near the hedges.

"Hedging and ditching" was an annual maintenance task on farms. Materials were grown on site. Thorn bushes could be "laid" to make the stock proof barrier and ash grew quickly and straight and was cut and might be "laid" which allowed some growth to continue or cut out and driven in as a supporting post.

The system of ridges and furrows and land drains seems to have evolved by trial and error over the centuries and made an major contribution to sustainable systems of land and water management. Currently there seems to be renewed interest in this whole subject of managing the water table as well as the surface water, salinity and acidity. Such things are absolutely critical to harvesting solar energy organically. 01:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)124.168.2.147Jo