English: Farm barns and bales near Tring Station. In the comparatively recent past combine harvesters would cut the wheat, remove the grain and leave the straw and chaff on the field where it would later be burnt. The fires often spread and did other damage and the practice has been made illegal. Straw is now baled. Sometime this is as “naked bales” a few of which can be seen in this picture, and more are probably stored in the barns. Others bales are automatically wrapped in plastic to keep the straw dry. The fate of the straw bales in this picture is not known but there are power stations fuelled by straw, such as the one at Ely http://www.eprl.co.uk/assets/ely/overview.html. – Note: the plastic ones are silage bales, not filled with straw.