15 AUGUST 1941, Page 14

SIR,—Mr. Bates makes some wild statements. I challenge him to

say precisely and exactly which of my ideas originated " east of the Rhine." As far as I know the greater number of them were distilled from the sweat, blood and tears of many years of effort on the soil of my Dorset farms and woods. My criticism of Dartington Hall occupies exactly one and three quarters of a page out of seventeen

pages of packed writing: the chapter is not therefore "larger, attack" on that experiment, unless by drawing a picture of anc,_ht, way of tackling the problem of remaking rural England, one based not on theories or sentiment but on seasoned experience and proven example, this be so.—Yours, &c., Rots Gamma:: a. Springhead, Fontmell Magna, Shaftesbury.