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The most typical part of the Upper Vogelsberg (Hoher Vogelsberg) are its large forests. This area is enclosed by the Lower Vogelsberg, a characteristic landscape of hedges. Forests, meadows and fields are in transition. With decreasing altitude there are less forests and more fields and meadows. With the “overlapping” of different landscapes man has created a unique “natural parkland”.
Hedges protect agricultural land.
Hedges in the Vogelsberg protect agricultural land
For centuries farmers have “gathered” stones on meadows and fields and have arranged them as walls at the edges and they are still doing it today. The stones weather slowly, leaves between the stones molder, birds, small animals and the wind put seeds on it; hedges grow soon out of it: the hedges of the Vogelsberg.
Hedges protect the landscape from erosion which is very important at the slopes. Hedges protect the land from wind and storm and from drying out. The smaller the plots are, the denser the hedges were. There are hedges of blackberries, raspberries and black elderberries for men and birds.
More than 60 species (types) of birds live on rose hips, rowan trees, berries of the whitebeams, sloes and guelder roses.
In the 19th century after late periods of frost and cold people had to bottle sour sloes instead of cherries for their winter storage.
In the spring rape brightens the landscape with yellow splotches.
Agriculture
Next to the hedges that surround the Upper Vogelsberg in concentric circles sometimes there are a few fields with grains like oats and winter barley which are needed for feeding animals. Corn is also cultivated for fodder or used as silage. It’s similar to the grass cultivation. In the summer it is used as green fodder, in the winter as hay and as grass or hay silage waiting for further usage in the shape of bales wrapped up in film. Stored the barns the hay bales serve as straw in the stables and cowsheds.
In the spring rape brightens the landscape with yellow splotches. The harvested seeds are supplied to oilmills. There they are used to make industrial oil, because rape is often cultivated on fields that are not allowed for cultivation of human food production according to EU directive.
(Translated from German by Heidi M. Schneider)
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