TRESPASSING
Sut,—Sir William Beach Thomas, in his paragraphs on Country Life, quotes a judge as saying from the Bench that there is no law of tresp353 in Britain. This was true till recent legislation made trespass a tort in special circumstances. On hills where deer-stalking was going on, Is: instance, it might be prohibited. if an order for this had been obtained, from one specified date to another. The Countryman once quoted a judge (Mr. Justice Bucknill, if Env memory does not deceive me) as saying that persons in search of wild flowers were not trespassing, which seems a little hard on land-owners, who might regard the flowers, with the land on which they grow, as their private property. I once asked a senior official at the head offices of a County Constabulary if he agreed with this pronouncement, and was assured that he did. I enquired also. about wild foods, such is blackberries and mushrooms, and was told that if they were absolutely wild they were there for anyone's gathering, but that if a farmer hid scattered salt in a field to encourage the growth of mushrooms, or had put manure under a hedge to improve the blackberries there, these foods were then considered cultivated, and anyone taking them would
be
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