11 FEBRUARY 1949, Page 15

Protective Hedges A surprising request has reached me for leave

to quote from a piece that I wrote a while ago about a2hedgeless England. The surprise was due to the source of the request. The passage, the lamentation was desired for inclusion in the journal of a breed society, the energetic Suffolk society which concerns itself with that handsome, well-mannered, long- lived, double-purpose breed, the Red Poll. The hedge, which is roundly condemned by the school which wants to make England into a sort of prairie province, where the corn is all in all, has always since the common fields were enclosed, proved a godsend to stock, as to small birds and its destruction is nowhere more thoroughly lamented than at the head- quarters of the Red Polls