Editor:

I saw the story today (Saturday, Jan. 21) about the 40-acre rule and think it should be repealed.

The bees are disappearing, the butterflies are disappearing, and this afternoon at 4 p.m. it is 59 degrees on my deck in New Paris, in January.

I imagine that if we soon do not do something to try to preserve our land and our environment, we will not have to worry about the acreage being used to farm, so we may as well let the developers just do what they will!

And so far, this winter reminds me greatly of one we have just a few years ago. Warm, probably too dry, little snow, and I drove by field after field where it looked like the crops were dying before they could be harvested.

I’m a city girl, and not too up on farming, so maybe that was how the corn was supposed to look. But I do remember when I was a little kid and we would take Sunday drives into “the country” and I would see field after field full of crops, and flying overhead were bees and butterflies where everywhere. This past summer I saw one honey bee. (I did see a couple of Carpenter Bees) And one Monarch butterfly ( he was probably lost!) and maybe 25 of those little yellow butterflies!

And speaking of the bees, I am wondering if maybe the reason they are sort of going away is that we have genetically engineered the plants to the point that the bees simply do not recognize them as plants,. It’s like that stuff I have seen in the meat department from time to time called “cheek meat” (whatever that is), which is apparently some sort of food, but which I would classify as road kill! Maybe the bees think the same thing about the corn and soy beans! Road kill.

So, why not just build houses or whatever on the farm land. At least buildings do not have to be pollinated.

Dee Lightner

New Paris