Recapping the history and outlook of field burning, as we did on Sunday in a story by Corvallis-based reporter Bennett Hall, makes a few things clear.

Among them:

• The number of complaints about smoke has no direct relationship to the amount of burning actually done. The number of complaints has risen lately even as the amount of burning has declined from one year to the next and the effectiveness of the state's smoke management program has increased. Burn complaints come in even if there's been no field burning. So as a rationale for further curbs on the practice, counting the number of complaints does not work.

• The alternatives to burning a field every few years do not make environmental sense. They use more chemicals and more fuel, and probably stir up more dust as well as tractors have to go over a field again and again.

• Some of the fields in the southern valley are ill suited to growing things other than annual ryegrass, for which burning is the best way of assuring a decent crop the following year.

Let Oregon legislators keep those factors in mind next year as they consider various new efforts to phase down the practice further or to impose a complete ban. (hh)