ACCESS TO NATURE.
[To TUB EDITOR OF no "SpecTrros."]
SIR,—I have read your remarks in your last week's article entitled " The State as Land Speculator." It is no doubt hard for the townsman to be told on his arrival in the country that he " must not set foot beyond the highway" —the highway no doubt 'nearing " paths " as well as "roads"; but whilst holding no brief for "sportsmen and their desires," I would submit that there is another class who deserve consideration—namely, the occupiers of the land. Only those-who have cognizance of the condition of things in the neighbourhood of large towns, more especially. London, know how the occupier suffers from the ravages of the town dweller when he takes his walks abroad. What to the latter seems a trivial matter—such as a gap in a hedge or a gate left open—means often real and pecuniary loss to the farmer, and the new small-holder cries out far louder than the old farmer, being less accustomed to bear such inflictions and more tenacious of his rights of ocenpiership. Hunting conditions probably inflict on the occupier similar and perhaps worse inconveniences, but when hounds and horses have gone their way gates can be shut and fences mended, whereas no one knows the day or the hour that some townsman, probably oblivious of doing any harm, has by leaving a gate open allowed cattle to injure both themselves and the crop to which they have thus been given access. It is the fashion to hold up to scorn and derision the occupa- tion of the gamekeeper, but I remember well, in the late 'eighties, during the period of the economies rendered neces- sary both to the landlord and tenants by reason of the agricultural depression of that day, that on a certain estate in Yorkshire the tenants, hearing that it was proposed not only to discontinue preserving game, but no longer to employ gamekeepers, unanimously offered to pay the necessary wages, believing that it would be cheaper to do this than suffer the certain loss which would ensue from trespass over their holdings in the absence of any gamekeeper to assist them. I merely write to call attention to one aspect of the question of " Access to Nature," an aspect which, with the increase of small-holdings will, in my opinion, become more aggravated to the occupier than ever it was under the "sportsmen's" regime which appears to be drawing to a close.—I am, Sir,
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