18 JUNE 1994, Page 28

Farmed out

Sir: To this farmer The Spectator is a 'recre- ational' magazine. Such a judgment must partly depend on one's perspective. Even so, Dominic Lawson's classification of Farmer's Weekly as 'recreational' is alarm- ing (Diary, 28 May). If he only knows hobby farmers they would surely read the Smallholder or Horse and Hound. But if farming in the United Kingdom is no longer worth calling a business at all, the Common Agricultural Policy has done more damage than even I had attributed to it.

Neil Datson

Glebe Farm, Spelsbury, Oxford