I AM sorry to disenchant the Rev Philip Brew, who recently compared the English rose to the deadly ragwort. His light-hearted attempt to persuade us to respect this lethal plant is possibly due to ignorance of the facts.

I lost a horse to probable ragwort poisoning many years ago and I cannot describe the suffering we both went through at the time.

I, too, have written to the authorities begging them to exercise their powers to remove this weed from the roadsides and to take action against landowners who allow it to flourish on private land. Unfortunately, the Ministry has been too busy with the Foot and Mouth epidemic to enforce the law.

We humans can avoid pricking ourselves on rose thorns, we know not to eat laburnum seeds and other poisonous berries. But, while most horses will avoid eating the flowering ragwort, they know no better than to eat the dried plant, often with fatal consequences.

This is a very serious matter and, delightful as it may look adorning our fields and verges, there is no place for it other than to be dug up and burned. One plant produces hundreds of thousands of seeds, which will be blown on to agricultural land. We must not underestimate the damage ragwort can cause to livestock, which may not be immediately apparent, but, by the time it is, horses will die a slow and painful death due to liver failure.

Katherine M Kay (Mrs)

Boonfields

Bromley Cross

Bolton