RICHARD Chamings has written so wisely on other items in your columns, that his query "Are the hills for people or sheep?" (Your Letters, February 28) comes as a bit of a shock.

The hills are a product of nature for all living things, least of all are they the property of ever grasping mankind, who have done most to destroy the hills.

My school days had me living on the extensive Guarlford/Rhydd Commons where farm animals grazed freely. Horses, cows, sheep and poultry had free range, the result a wealth of wild plants - Tom Thumbs, Moon Daisies, Buttercups, Clovers, Hens and Chickens, Scarlet Pimpernel, Quaker Grass etc.

The advent of the car took the livestock off the commons, and the passion for mown verges destroyed much of the wildflower treasures. Can you find many of those mentioned now?

Leave hills and commons to nature, Mother Nature does a far better job.

S G T BEARD, Regency Road, Lower Howsell, Malvern Link.