If you look at the almond pics PLB has linked and other recent pics of cornfields and roadsides, you will see close up what you can see if you google map many, many agricultural regions in the US.  Myself, I randomly chose an area near Springfield Illinois.  If you then google map Peter Edwards coordinates in the UK, the imagery is very, very different.  In the US it is endless fields of grain (or whatever, with apologies to Katharine Lee Bates), with little in between (which I also remember from my childhood, when my family camped all across the US - mind-numbingly boring travel).  In the UK there are hedgerows and other breaks between the fields.  

I'm sure there are many arguments why such practices are not possible in the US - loss of valuable crop land (as has been posted), homes for vermin, different agricultural practices and equipment, loss of line of sight, etc.  Still, even a few of those breaks would be beneficial.  Up here in New England there are still large expanses of fields and waysides with wildflowers, especially goldenrod in the fall.  Makes for a nectar flow that runs long from spring well into summer, stops for 4 - 6 weeks and then picks up again in the early fall (or late summer these days).  Of course, this is because all of the next-generation farmers moved west after the Civil War, where they could plow soil without hitting boulders every six inches, letting the land here go fallow and recover.

Not sure where I was going with this when I started, other than 1) the visual difference is large, 2) it would seem that even some breaks in the fields would be beneficial to pollinators, other critters and the land itself, and 3) it would just look nicer.  

Back to my coffee.

Bill
Claremont, NH

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html