Britain: An official handbook > 1977

Visibility
Soil and
Vegetation
Fauna
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 5
In fine, still weather there is occasionally haze in summer and mist and fog
in winter. Fogs have become less frequent and less severe in recent years as a
result of changes in fuel usage and the operation of clean air legislation.
Many parts of the surface of highland Britain have only thin, poor soils, with
the result that large stretches of moorland are found over the Highlands of
Scotland, the Pennines, the Lake District, the mountains of Wales and in
parts of north-east and south-west England. In most areas the farmer has
cultivated only the valleys and the plains where soils are deeper and richer;
villages and towns are often separated by uplands with few if any habitations.
With the exception of a few patches of heath and forest, almost the whole
of lowland Britain has been cultivated, and farmland covers the area except
where there are urban and industrial settlements. Elaborate land drainage
systems have been developed through the centuries to bring under cultivation
the fertile soil of the low-lying fenland of Lincolnshire and part of East Anglia.
With its mild climate and varied soils, Britain has a diverse pattern of
natural vegetation. When the islands were first settled, oak forest probably
covered the greater part of the lowland, giving place to extensive marshlands,
forests of Scots pine on higher or sandy ground and perhaps some open moor¬
land. In the course of the centuries the forest area was progressively diminished
and, in spite of planting by estate owners in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries and the establishment of large forests by the Forestry Commission
in the past 50 years, woodlands now occupy only about 8 per cent of the surface
of the country. The greatest density of woodland occurs in the north and east
of Scotland, in some parts of south-east England and on the Welsh border.
Yet much of Britain appears to be well wooded because of the numerous
hedgerows and isolated trees. The most common trees are oak, beech, ash and
elm and, in Scotland, pine and birch. The number of elm trees, especially in
southern England, has been severely reduced since the late 1960s by ‘Dutch’
elm disease.
There are various types of wild vegetation, including the natural flora of
woods, fens and marshes, foreshores and cliffs, chalk downs and the higher
slopes of mountains; the most widespread is that of the hilly moorland country,
which consists mainly of heather, grasses, gorse and bracken, with cotton
grass in the wetter parts. Most of Britain, however, is agricultural land, of
which over a third is arable and the rest pasture and meadow, a varied semi¬
natural vegetation composed of indigenous grasses and flowering plants.
Farming land is divided into fields by hedges, stone walls or fences and,
especially in the mixed farms which cover most of the country, presents a
pattern of contrasting colour. The removal of hedges to facilitate mechanical
farming has resulted in a more open landscape in certain parts of the country.
The cool temperate climate of Britain and the even distribution of rainfall
ensure a long growing season; streams rarely dry up, grassland is green through¬
out the year with many wild flowers from spring to autumn; in most years
there is scarcely a month in which some flowers may not be found in hedgerows
and sheltered woodland glades.
The fauna of the British Isles is, in general, similar to that of north-western
Europe, though there are fewer species. Some of the larger mammals, includ¬
ing the wolf, the bear, the boar and the reindeer, have become extinct; but red
deer, protected for sporting reasons, flourish in the Scottish Highlands and on
Exmoor in the counties of Devon and Somerset, roe deer are found in Scotland