NATURE-RESERVES 15 



mittees, councils, and individuals in evading and refusing 

 even the smallest increase of responsibility and activity 

 beyond that which they are compelled by law to dis- 

 charge. Unless they are legally compelled to interfere, 

 all records of art and nature may perish before they 

 will incur the inconvenience of moving a finger ! Con- 

 sequently the only thing to be done is to assign such 

 duties by law to an existing authority, or to one created 

 for such purposes. 



The same tale of destruction and irreparable damage 

 has to be told of our dealings with the beauty of once 

 unsullied moorland, meadow, marsh, forest, river-bank, 

 and seashore. But the destruction has here been more 

 gradual, less obvious on account of remoteness, and more 

 subtle in its creeping, insinuating method, like that of a 

 slowly-spreading infective disease. The word " country " 

 has to a very large extent ceased to signify to us " out- 

 lying nature beyond the man^mjade town," occupied only 

 in little tracts here and there by the immemorial tillers 

 of the soil. The splendid and age-long industry of our 

 field-workers has made much of our land a garden. Now 

 they themselves are disappearing or changed beyond re- 

 cognition, losing their traditional arts and crafts, their 

 distinctive and venerable dialects, and their individuality. 

 The land is enclosed, drained, manured ; food plants 

 produced by the agriculturist replace the native plants ; 

 forests are cut down and converted into parks and 

 pheasant-runs ; foreign trees are substituted for those 

 native to the soil. Commons, heaths, and wild moor- 

 lands have been enclosed by eager land-grabbers, the 

 streams are polluted by mining or chemical works, or if 

 kept clean are artificially overstocked with hand-fed 

 trout ; whilst the open roads reek of tar and petroleum. 

 The " wilderness " is fast disappearing, and it is by this 



