Wood pasture is a historical European land management system in which open woodland provided shelter and forage for grazing animals, particularly sheep and cattle, as well as woodland products such as timber for construction and fuel, coppiced stems for wattle and charcoal making and pollarded poles. Evidence of old wood pasture management systems can be detected in many of the ancient woodlands of Scotland, such as Rassal Ashwood in Ross-shire, and at Glen Finglas in the Trossachs. The Dalkeith Old Wood, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch, where cattle still graze beneath ancient oak trees to this day is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)
Natural England's Environmental Stewardship scheme, defines Wood Pasture in its Farm Environmental Plan booklet, as a structure of open grown or high forested trees, in a matrix of grazed grassland, heathland and/or woodland floras.
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Famous quotes containing the words wood and/or pasture:
“Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds which are rare in this neighborhood, standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a hilltop.... These were the shrines I visited both summer and winter.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“On the bare upland pasture there had spread
O’ernight ‘twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread
And straining cables wet with silver dew.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)