I've been out of town, and my eyesight worsened seriously in just two days last week. Hence I'm only reading fragments of selected posts -- and any responses are apt to be irrelecvant or unfair to the complexity of many posts. So read accordingly.
I think Alan is being much too mild on romanticism when he indicatesd merely warinesds in response to such arrant nonsense. The Yeoman farmers past & present are apt to be utterly indifferent to animal pain and probably have a view of the land of no view at all. They are just trying to exist in a very misereable way and have no room for 21st/20th century weird combinations of crystal-ball gazing with foolish nostalgia for what neer was.
Carrol