Tie best view—and it is a very spacious one—to be
found in my neigh- bourhood is to be enjoyed from the top of an abrupt chalk mound rather than hill ; and beneath your feet are some of the most characteristic chalk flowers. You still have to overcome war-time barriers to reach the top ; and there seems to be no probability that the ring of barbed wire will ever be removed. It will foul the place till it rusts into nothing- ness a generation or two hence. The obstruction, which is ugly and even dangerous, is typical of hundreds of beautiful places throughout Britain. No scheme, so far as I know, "whether local or central, is in existence for cleansing the country. We willingly perpetuate one of the evils of war. The campanula and partridge in Bedfordshire have to contend with rolls of rotting wire, as the burner roses and wild iris in North Devon. We read perpetual pleas for National Parks and reserves and the preservation of rural England and Wales from all manner of threats ; but this form of desecration goes quite unmentioned as well as practically disregarded.
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