Letter : Niff of Constable

Sir: James Hughes (Letters, 4 October) denies that "the pong in the countryside" has been around for as long as farming has existed. I ask him to look at any Constable picture of rural life and imagine what it actually smelt like.

If this feat of imagination does not suffice, try visiting two fields - one recently fertilised out of the bag and the other with cattle or pig manure. Modern agri-business and intensive farming may or may not be "a good thing". But the associated odours are a fraction of those generated by traditional (largely organic) farming.

J A ANDERSON

Carshalton, Surrey