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Please help wake up the people who manage the
churchyards near you so that they don't let
this opportunity slip by.
The convenor is Revd. Nigel Cooper,
c/o Diocesan Council for Social
Responsibility,
Buy Harl ings,
53 New Street,
Chelmsford, CM1 1NG.
BOTANICAL DATING
The technique of dating hedgerows (1) from the
simple formula
Age of Hedge = Number of Species
per 30 yards x 100
was tried out on hedges in the River Roding
Nature Reserve by members of the Essex Field
Club on 7th June, 1987. The results indicated
that we examined two different aged hedges.
The older one was aged at 900 years and the
other one was much younger.
The significance of this method has recently
been questioned (2) on the following grounds:—
1. Problems of identification
2. Difficulties over what species to include
3. Lack of evidence from historical sources