Round here in the Marches Scots pines are often said to have been planted by the drovers, who carried pine cones with them from North Wales and planted them in clumps near inns so that drovers in the future would know that there had been a welcoming inn there thirty years before.
... and! drove routes were bringing Welsh cattle eastwards for centuries. Sheep in any quantity from the foundation of Cistercian sheep walks. Perhaps the drove ways made the most of non-taxable common land?
I think the drovers would have had to go quite slowly and let the cattle graze as they went, and would have tended to stick to the hills and commons where possible and avoid turnpike roads at all costs. They must have been a serious nuisance to farmers, I think.
Just a possibility - a long shot, I know - but the drovers will have met up with their Scottish counterparts in the English Midlands. Might there be a possibility that they brought cones with them at request?
... and! drove routes were bringing Welsh cattle eastwards for centuries. Sheep in any quantity from the foundation of Cistercian sheep walks. Perhaps the drove ways made the most of non-taxable common land?
I think the drovers would have had to go quite slowly and let the cattle graze as they went, and would have tended to stick to the hills and commons where possible and avoid turnpike roads at all costs. They must have been a serious nuisance to farmers, I think.
Just a possibility - a long shot, I know - but the drovers will have met up with their Scottish counterparts in the English Midlands. Might there be a possibility that they brought cones with them at request?