'Essen' landscape: small farmer villages on the edge or in the middle of large arable fields surrounded by closed strips of planting to keep animals away. Deciduous forest at the coversand-ridges.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223666144_Some_crit...

With regard to the Pleistocene sandy areas, the emphasis is put on the essen (ancient plots of arable land, also called plaggen soils or enkeerd soils).
https://tinyurl.com/y38x56kf

Plaggen soil or plaggic anthrosol[1] is a type of soil created in parts of northwest Europe[2] in the Middle Ages, as a result of so-called "plaggen" agriculture on marginal podzol soils.

In order to fertilize the fields, pieces of heath or grass including roots and humus ("plaggen") were cut and used as bedding for cattle. In springtime, this bedding, enriched with slurry was then spread over the fields near the village as manure. The long term practice of this form of agriculture created a rich agricultural soil to a depth of between 40 cm and over 1.50 m,[3] unlike modern arable soils, which tend to be just 30 centimetres deep. The raised fields give rise to a typical landscape with sharp breaks in elevation and are called Plaggenesche in Germany or Es in Dutch. This form of agriculture stopped around 1900 with the introduction of fertilizers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaggen_soil

Overview of Dutch landscapes with open field system and plaggen soils
http://users.bart.nl/~leenders/hgt/26-2b.html

Sand landscapes occupy about half of the territory of the Netherlands. Apart from an insignificant amount of Tertiary deposits, these sands are of Pleistocene and Holocene age. They include Saalian push moraines, Weichselian cover sands and Holocene drift sands. To these geological landscapes, cultural variants should be added such as the essen, i.e. a landscape with plaggen soils, and reclaimed lands (e.g. former moors).
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16.7125J

Huitenga: NEDERLANDS-ENGELS WOORDENBOEK VOOR LANDBOUWWETENSCHAPPEN:

ES II,
(Ned.) arable land of a Saxon village //in Drenthe, etc.//;
(hist.) open field; unenclosed arable land of a Saxon settlement;
zie ook ES-GROND.

ESGROND,
(Ned.) sandy soil that has been improved by long-continued manuring with heather-sod compost.