CHEMICAL WARFARE
SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. Richards, states flatly that " selective weedkillers have been used all over the country on fields with only beneficial effects," when naturalists, botanists, and medical men have all expressed grave misgivings about the possible effects of chemicals on crops, plants and animal life. Mr. Ralph Wightman, in his book The Seasons, wrote: " There is the risk that scien- tists may not be completely sure of what they do." There certainly is. Your correspondent also says that he has not noticed the repellent stench of sprayed farmland. I quote Mr. Ralph Wightman again. " When a 'field of oats was being sprayed half a mile away the scent of that spray was an offence on the spring air. The danger is that the fact that I could smell this weedkiller meant that there were particles of it in the air, half a mile away from the phint where it was being used." And he adds: " There is something horrible about that chemical stench in a world which used to be so fragrant." It is horrible, and doubly so to those of us who have had head- cold symptoms from it. We are not all in- sensitive to smell, beauty, the balance of nature and the possible dangers of chemical- isation.—Yours faithfully,
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