The grass seed farmers with their collective consciences should stop the field burning without the need for legislation. Period. They are adults over 7 and should know the difference between right and wrong. If they are doing something that harms someone, it is wrong. I lived in Albany for 29 years and I once asked a grass seed farmer, "Doesn't the field burning smoke bother you?" He replied brightly, "On no! My wife and I go to Alaska during field burning and our hired hands do the burning!"

Most of us do not have the time or the means to go to Alaska during field burning.

I'm wondering, too, if these "farmers" know anything about agriculture and soil.

George Washington Carver, the greatest agricultural scientist who has never been equaled, proved in his lab that field burning takes the nutrients from the soil and called it "the scourge of the South." After he convinced the Southern farmers of this, they stopped the practice and the soil became so rich that new crops such as cabbage, onions, sweet potatoes and peanuts supplemented the dwindling cotton crops, thus saving the South from economic disaster - all of this without fertilizer.

Rye-grass is not a food; neither does it make into any usable products, which even the marijuana plant does. All it does is make green lawns. I have had beautiful green lawns with just weeds.

If growing the marijuana plant (cannabis) were legalized, perhaps the grass seed farmers could grow it and start a whole new industry that creates jobs, empties our prisons of non-violent offenders, gives back their property and eliminates the need for more prisons. There are countless uses for this plant besides smoking the dried leaves and flowers. Legalizing it might even cut down on the smoking if the smokers are gainfully employed.

Farmers need to be allowed to raise a crop that has many uses, including food for man and bird. Rye-grass is neither useful nor edible. Above all, field burning has to stop.

Odrey Wootan, Springfield