SADLY Mrs Sidwell (Letters, last week), I believe it is the shortage of cork that means we get plastic stoppers in our wine bottles these days.

If a farmer in the Altanejo (Portugal) plants a cork oak, it will be his grandchildren that sell the cork bark - a bit each year. If he plants eucalyptus instead, he can sell it within a decade or two for papermaking or fuel (fermented or otherwise).

Furthermore, cork oak roots are close to the surface and a tractor damages them; thus a donkey is needed to take the harvested bark away. It is sad that these idyllic customs are dying out, but money talks.

Michael Jackson, Peacock Lane, Lancaster.