You really are in the wrong group here. You should repost to
uk.business.agriculture. On the principle that I already said that, and
you didn't, you don;t know how to so I have x-posted this post. However
bear in mind that some posters do not x-post so a valuable reply my not
appear on sci.ag.


Gilgamesh writes
I noticed that many of the old field boundaries are curved in a sort of
backward-S shape. The only book I could find in the library says this is
characteristic of enclosed strips which were ploughed by oxen (If I read
things aright, that means any time up to about mid-18th century), but gives
no explanation beyond the suggestion that it made them easier to turn.

That is often correct.

Well, with a single-bottom plough, that does'nt make sense to me, unless you
plough in one direction only.

ER, no. They were ploughed in lands. So the animals start to turn when
they are out of the furrow making the plough turn, and equally swing
wide coming in. These small changes add up each time you go round so the
field gets a 's' shape. This can still be seen when you have students on
cultivations in small fields.

An acre is already an 11-mile walk - would
anyone willingly double that to 22 miles?

Only if the land is very sloping.

The logical layout would be the
classic furrow long by stetch wide acre, although the land hereabouts is
relatively light, so you might well be able to plough more than an acre in a
day (Is it just coincidental that an acre is usually quoted as much as a
skilled man with a scythe could reap in a day?

I have seen both 'definitions'. I doubt either are more than piecework
estimates. Chains, poles, perches and furlongs are very old
measurements.

The field layouts for
Champion Country were probably set before the Black Death, when reaping was
done with a sickle)

Reaping was still done with flint sickles in parts of scotland in the
start of the 30C.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.