English fen drainage permanently converted marsh ecosystems into geometric farmland

Evidence

The fen country of England, an extensive area north of London and Cambridge in the region of Peterborough, Ely, and Bedford, had been in the Middle Ages a region of marshes, meres, and meadows connected by open channels, affording pastures around its edges in the dry summers while almost entirely covered with water in the winters. In the seventeenth century, a period of drainage and reclamation of these marshes began that extended over the next three centuries, ultimately transforming the region into neatly planted fields of grain, sugar beets, and potatoes, separated by the geometric outlines of canals. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 293

Categorization

• XREF: The geometric-outlines-of-canals outcome parallels Columbus-era mapping and the mechanistic grid metaphor Merchant traces through the book — the land itself reshaped into the machine’s rectilinear form. — connects to: Drained marshland carries its whole lost community to extinction unnoted — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 573; Fen drainage transformed both ecology and inhabitants’ livelihoods through struggle — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 293
• ADDENDUM: The ‘neatly planted fields separated by geometric outlines of canals’ image dovetails with the trees-as-infrastructure piece’s graph of control over living landscapes.

Broader Connections

• Fen drainage transformed both ecology and inhabitants’ livelihoods through struggle #expands (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 293