WE are past the peak of environment hysteria.’ This might sound like a Conservative politician today, but it’s a land agent quoted in Farmers Weekly in 1973. I’d gone through my old farming magazines because we appear unable to hold a discussion about land management without using the prefix ‘re-’: re-store; re-cover; re-generate; re-wild—all as part of our great post-Brexit re-form package. It suggests that we’re trying to regain the past, which strikes me as an ambition to follow carefully.
By all means learn from previous causes and effects, but the past can bask in a sunlit glow. That’s why I enjoy reading old contemporary writing, for real-time reactions, hopes and fears. I wanted to know what language, if any, was used to discuss environmental issues in the year we joined the Common Market.
Among such perennial headlines as ‘Government is taking risks with country’s food’ and ‘Kill off badgers to halt spread of TB’, finally an article called farmers to ‘Take the lead on land use’. The aforementioned agent argued that ‘there are two primary land uses, farming and forestry’ and that ‘if these two uses were integrated, then secondary uses such as recreations and tourism would fall into place’.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning