I HAVE often praised the farming practices of by-gone days in contrast to the intensive ones of today.

I do not want to go over the top, of course. I am all too aware of the bitter social injustice that was endemic in the Victorian countryside.

What I had in mind in my previous letter (HAS, Nov 30) were methods of cultivation and pasture that enabled wildlife to flourish and that were indeed environmentally sound and beneficial in all sorts of ways.

Many such methods quite possibly derived from those of the great monastic estates of the middle ages that were true models of land management as well as of social concern.

I also take my hat off to certain outstanding environmentalists of the 18th and 19th centuries, including farmers like William Ellis, farm workers like the poet John Clare and journalists like William Cobbett, whose ideas and practices were as full of ecological wisdom, insight and compassion as any you will come across today.

Had their voices been listened to, instead of those of big business and the agrochemical industry, our countryside – and our country – would doubtless be in a lot better state than they are.

Tony Kelly, Crook