Scottish Preservers
The C.P.R.E., which held its annual meeting this week, should take note that in England, though not in Scotland, the parish councils are beginning to take active steps to preserve their own parishes ; and recently some of them have been presented with land, or given long leases of land, to the end of its preservation for amenity and nothing else. To give one example, Lord Brocket gave a very lovely reach of Grimm's Dyke ; and the local council in the same village took immediate steps, when a fraction of one of its commons was threatened. The reason, of course, why such good work is forbidden to Scotland is that the parish councils were brought to an end uncler the Gilmour regime. Their work has in places been taken over by community councils ; but the need of parish councils has been so acutely felt that here and there (again in West Scotland) voluntary parish councils have been formed. Doubt- less, rural preseuration is not so immediate a necessity in Scotland as in England ; but like the Lakes, Scotland has threats from which most of England is free. Afforestation by regimented conifers is a real danger in some districts, and those the wildest and most lovely. Contrariwise, some of the little recent plantations of larch in the low places of Galloway are of some scenic value.
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