NATIONAL PARKS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIRS I have read with much sympathy- Mr. Lennard's letter in your last issue on the disfigurement of the Mawddach valley around Tyn-y-groes by the activities of the Forestry Commission because I have employed much of my spare
time for some years past in making a detailed geological map of that beautiful country and have come away each year with a heavy heart at the further destruction of the old woodlands that has taken place after my last visit. To give an example, in June this year I found that the trees of the lovely woods of oak, ash, &c., above the left bank of the Mawddach near the Gold Mines had been ringed, and soon their gaunt skeletons will stand, and stand for years, as in many other places in this region, as an ugly memorial of the beauty that has gone. The Commission does not even remove the eyesores it has created.
The changes that the Commissioners are producing are not merely a matter of the effect on the scenery, although that is serious enough, for there is another aspect which, I fear, has received too little consideration. There is no game preservation in this area, and the country people and visitors have been free, perhaps not legally but certainly in practice, to wander anywhere through these woodlands, and one of the delights of visiting the district was the privilege of rambling through and picnicking in the woods with their charming sunlight effects and carpet of ferns and other under- growth ; and the woods could be entered at almost any point over the more or less decrepit stone walls. When the Com- missioners replant them with conifers a very efficient barbed- wire fence protects the boundaries and access to them is confined to such public-tracks as they maintain, for the ground outside the actual track soon becomes an impenetrable thicket. Many of the paths shown on the Ordnance Survey 6-inch and 25-inch maps have disappeared, and I find, as regards my own work, many exposures of rock which I should like to examine and which would have been easily reached a few years ago but are now inaccessible. I mention this fact, nit for the sake of a personal grumble, but as an illustration of the restrictions of public privileges arising from the Com- missioners' activities.
This region, together with the area to the west, which includes the wild and desolate country of the Rhinog Moun- tains, should in my opinion be reserved as a national playground or park, with public control over its amenities. I have,
however, deferred bringing a proposal to this effect before the Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales until the question of Snowdonia as a National Park has been settled.—I am, Sir, yours faithfully, C. A. MATtEY.
The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W. r.
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