Enter the Forestry Commission Then the Forestry Commission arrived on
a scene virtually unchanged since the Lyrical Ballads were issued in 1798, complete with bulldozers and all the paraphernalia of modern clearance, to wake up "the sleep that is among the lonely hills," and fell some of the hanging woodlands for a parade ground of conifers to take their place. But the people of the Quantocks have revolted. The whortleberry- (Dorothy's " bilberry") pickers petitioned against the loss of their market and the residents of Holford and District against the threat to Hodder's Combe, among whose veteran oaks I have seen the red deer steal between shade and fountains of sunlight, the County Council has submitted a Tree Preservation Order and finally a society called the "Friends of Quantock" has been formed under the presidency of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Many of the villagers are reviving their grazing rights on the hills by buying a few sheep. Nothing can be healthier than this resurgence of local spirit in order to defend its native land.
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