Letter: Heal our ruined countryside

Sir: One hundred thousand country people visited London to try to persuade the rest of us that if hunting with hounds is banned the countryside will no longer be maintained as we know and love it, and that a whole traditional way of life will be lost for ever.

One would have more sympathy with them if they had shown as much concern when intensive farming first hit the countryside - when fields were scarred by huge "factory" sheds built to incarcerate the animals which had previously roamed there. With the advent of factory farming the jobs of stockmen and farm hands were lost and farming methods which had evolved over generations, enabling men and animals to live in harmony, were abolished almost overnight.

There were no protests from the hunting folk until their pleasures were threatened.

JOAN HAGGARD

Harpenden, Hertfordshire