Field Patterns in Indiana

Abstract

U NLIKE their European colleagues,' geographers have shown remarkably little interest in the study of field patterns. In 1954 the authors of the chapter on Settlement Geography in American Geography: Inventory and Prospect commented that contrasts in settlement patterns in North America would repay careful investigation,2 but as examples of studies of field patterns they could cite only Broek's study of the Santa Clara Valley3 and an introductory college textbook. Since that time the only work I know which has dealt with field patterns il the United States has been Thrower's monograph on contrasting cadastral surveys in Ohio,4 and this used field patterns only incidentally to iliustrate ideas of size and orientation in relation to different survey systems. The lack of interest in field patterns may be partly due to the fact that they are extremely difficult to examine on the ground, and the United States Geological Survey did not begin showing field boundaries on its 1 :24,000 topographic maps until 1957.5 In aerial photographs, however, field boundaries are clearly visible, and Marschner's classic work Land Use and Its