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A conference paper about the productive structure of a sweet chestnut coppice woodland is presented. It presents an examination of the five areas of sweet chestnut coppice at Ham Street Woods National Nature Reserve in Kent, England which presented an age series, from 1 to 18 years, of even-aged deciduous woodland. It describes the population structure of even-aged plant communities in the woodland.

Humans play an important part in the dispersal of plant seed and other propagative material, either inadvertently or deliberately. We expand on this observation to demonstrate how the form of dispersal reflects different patterns of human interaction and relationship, and how the opposite is also true: that patterns of human exchange modify the properties of plant germplasm subject to further co-evolutionary selection. While these patterns are reported in the ethnobotanical literature for rural tropical and subtropical regions, there has been little work on comparable patterns for industrial and post-industrial Europe. We review the subject, and illustrate the issues with reference to recent data on the management of germplasm in British allotments in East Kent and West London. Résumé Que ce soit volontairement ou par inadvertance, les humains jouent un rôle important dans la dispersion des graines et autres organes de propagation des végétaux. Partant de cette observation, les auteurs démontrent comment la forme de dispersion reflète différents schèmes d'interactions et de relations humaines et comment, à l'inverse, les schèmes d'échange humains modifient les propriétés du patrimoine génétique végétal, soumis à une nouvelle sélection co-évolutionnaire. Alors que ces schèmes sont rapportés dans la littérature ethnobotanique pour les régions rurales tropicales et subtropicales, leurs équivalents dans l'Europe industrielle et postindustrielle sont encore peu étudiés. Les auteurs passent ce sujet en revue et l'illustrent en se référant à des données récentes sur la gestion du germoplasme dans les lotissements de l'Est du Kent et de l'Ouest de Londres, en Angleterre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During Tawney's century, Kent was London's principal coastwise supplier of grain. This trade was concentrated in the ports of Milton, Faversham, and Sandwich, and largely controlled by merchant-oligarchs living in them, who played a pivotal role in fostering the development of market integration and regional agrarian specialization. In periods of shortage, urban merchants prioritized their own commercial interest, and the subsistence needs of their own resident poor, at the expense of the county's rural poor, and in opposition to policies advocated by their guardians on the county bench. The regional politics of dearth need to be analysed at least as much in terms of vertical as of horizontal fissures in the social structure, and against the background of the politics of plenty, for over-dependence on the London market provoked protest from producers following good harvests and hardened their attitudes to the poor when the situation was reversed. Some forms of popular protest usually assumed to embody plebeian critiques of the failures of local justices should in fact be read primarily as expressions of the unity that often bound governors and their client-poor in opposition to the rival subsistence claims of other little commonwealths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the economic status of farmers in 1086 in Kent, England. It is reported that in 1946 and 1947 the "Economic Journal" published two contributions by R. V. Lennard which were aimed at constructing a comprehensive statistical picture of the holdings of the English peasants in 1086. Out of several surveys Lennard produced a league table indicating the relative size of land holdings in the various counties. His findings were in many ways unexpected, especially in the very low rating given to a number of eastern counties where the husbandmen had commonly been thought of as unusually prosperous, as well as free. Lennard did not explain the composition of his sample, but it can be readily reconstructed on his criterion. It contains 80 manors, or distinguishable parts of them, the majority either small or very small, none large by Kentish standards, only 20 of even moderate size, and more than three-quarters of them in lay ownership. On average they had between seven and eight villeins apiece, owning between 13 and 14 oxen; but the median was four villeins, and a quarter of them contained only one or two.

The article deals with protests and disturbances in Kent, England. From the economic history of Kent, it is indicated that popular disturbance was a fairly regular phenomenon in this period, frequently influenced but by no means governed by economic variables and that the typical disorder was small-scale, localised and customary, confirming rather than challenging the hierarchic structures and central norms of parish society. Thereafter the only recorded incidents of popular action worth mentioning involved limited town disorders during the parliamentary elections of 1640, and, about the same time, the first signs of the religious factionalism, which was endemic during the Civil War but all, were small-scale. Conflict between clothiers and iron-masters was probably inevitable. Economic factors influencing the size of English disturbances were the increasing level of poor relief and the low rate of taxation on the poorer classes. In Kent the Elizabethan machinery for poor relief was being widely enforced by the start of the seventeenth century, though it was not entirely effective.

This article presents information on practice of the migration in Kent, England. The complex phenomenon of migration possesses demographic, economic, and social significance. Long- or short-range movements of people influence the size and stability of populations, are the product of economic balances within a society, and are conditions and determinants of its social structure. Romney possessed innumerable local connections with rural and urban communities. Its busy market attracted buyers and sellers from the countryside and Romney men supplied credit facilities for farmers and tradesmen. Laborers traveled to the town, to carry and load, from as far away as 21 miles and the corporation employed skilled and unskilled labor of the region on their behalf beyond the town. Trade and commerce provided links with the nearby towns of Hythe and Lydd, with Romney butchers active in Hythe markets and its merchants and tradesmen engaged in both ports. For Hythe corporation, supplies for shipping and repairs were often brought from Romney. Shared interests in real property linked men from these towns and villages with Romney men in property transactions, and beneficiaries and executors of Romney wills were drawn from these environs and from the region beyond. Local worthies counted these towns within their sphere of influence and were accorded due courtesies by the various corporations.

The article reports on the significance of pattern on the ecology of chalk grasslands through a study of a site north-east of Sevenoaks in Kent, England. Several species of plants were studied including the Zerna erecta, Poterium sanguisorba, Carex flacca, Cirsium acaulon and Hieracium pilosella. An examination of the density and performance data of each species revealed three scales of pattern of the Zerna erecta. The main pattern is determined by the individual plant size, or clump size in the Zerna erecta's case. A correlation coefficients analysis showed that the larger scales of pattern were caused by the competition between the Zerna erecta and the other plant species. The community's pattern was also observed to be indicative of a "fairy ring" structural pattern of the Zerna erecta.

The article presents study on the preliminary account of vegetation in the River Itchen near Cheriton in Kent, South of England. The general survey of the vegetation was first observed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Freshwater Station as preliminary to the full biological survey of the river system. This project aims to record the biological conditions of unpolluted rivers. These were compared with the biological conditions of polluted rivers. Organisms are noted and compared, ecological conditions, phytoplanktons and algal vegetation were also reviewed. This study is part of a program that focused on the ecology of smaller streams which were not as popular as the studies devised for bigger rivers.

Ninth International Congress of Ethnobiology, University Of Kent, 13-17 June 2004 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]