Bocage

Bocage may also refer to a small forest, a decorative element of leaves, or a type of rubble-work, comparable with the English use of "rustic" in relation to garden ornamentation.

By 2006, the Petit Larousse definition had become "(Norman word) Region where the fields and meadows are enclosed by earth banks carrying hedges or rows of trees and where the habitation is generally dispersed in farms and hamlets."

In southeast England, in spite of a sedimentary soil which would not fit this landscape, a bocage resulted from the movement to enclose what were once open fields.

The enclosures common in the bocage countryside favoured sheep husbandry and limited English cereal grain production, and as a consequence of this policy, the rural exodus was amplified, accelerating the Industrial Revolution.

The German army also used sunken lanes to implement strong points and defences to stop the American troops on the Cotentin Peninsula and around the town of Saint-Lô.

[8] Almost all of lowland Ireland is characterised by bocage landscape, a consequence of pastoral farming which requires enclosure for the management of herds.

In the more fertile areas these usually consist of earthen banks, which are planted with or colonised by trees and shrubs; this vegetation can give the impression of a wooded landscape, even where there is little or no woodland.