Moving on The farmer used barbed wire to fence in his grazing land. The demarcations for a dairy farm are very different from the demarcations for an agricultural farm. The farmer would have been in deep trouble, if one of his young bulls had visited the neighbour’s cows, regardless of whether it was pure-bred or cross-bred. Nowadays, all livestock are identifiable by yellow ear-tags. The majority also wear collars with sensors and individual data. The farmer recalls that cows wore small metal ear markings, when he was young. When cows went into heat, he used to tether them and lead them all the way down the street to be mounted by the bull. Since the 1970s cows have been artificially inseminated instead of being sired. This grazing land is enclosed by hedgerows, which are protected by law. The farmers who first cultivated the heathland two hundred years ago marked out their claims by planting bushes. Brambles – the ‘natural’ predecessor to barbed wire – grew between the hedgerows, keeping the livestock in and unwelcome visitors out. The hedgerows could grow to prodigious heights. In the past the only way to trim them was to mount a ladder that was hoisted onto a cart and climb among the branches. It was hard work, but things have moved on since then. Now, he uses a tractor, a front-end loader and a chainsaw.