One of the most fascinating and, I may say, remunerative ways of spending a holiday for the really keen farmer with the sense to use his powers of observation to increase the power of his pocket—is to go herb-hunting and to study the soil conditions indicated by the herbs that are found.
No soil analyst can tell an observant farmer what he wants to know about his soil as accurately as the herbs (or weeds if you still despise them) growing on it. Whenever I go to a fresh bit of country I want to know the sort of soil I'm walking on; and my most enjoyable occupation is to search upon it for unfamiliar herbs, which are quickly identified with the aid of those ever-absorbing pocket books, Flowers of Wayside and Woodland, published by Warne & Co., which are permanent passengers in the pocket of my car (except when an equally inquisitive son or member of my staff has borrowed them for the same purpose).
Equipped with these priceless books, and some knowledge of soil types which every farmer's son absorbs between the ages of five and fifty, nobody need wait the long years that it will take the agricultural advisory service to complete a soil analysis of each of his fields. The official soil analysis, in any case, only tells what the spot availability of nutrients was at one brief moment in the 365-day biological cycle of the soil.
The herbs that grow a whole season, or year after year, in your field tell you what the sum total of the four seasons has already produced, and might or might not be capable of reproducing with the wide range of domestic crops or animals that you consider growing there.
The soil chemist's analysis has as its objective, not a complete picture of soil conditions, but the key to the sale of chemical fertilizers. It is an antique device for convincing spoon-fed farmers that they are being efficient. But, based on the fallacy that the secret of successful crop-growing is knowing the 'right' quantities of N.P. & K. to sprinkle on the land, it is, for intelligent farmers, a long-outmoded form of grey magic. The grey or white powders which the soil chemist's report of his test tells you to use, have no bearing whatever on the particular soil conditions under proper methods of management; and no honest soil chemist to-day really believes that a spoonful of soil in a crucible in his laboratory is going to show the answer to the problems of crop production and animal health on the farm. It can only tell you what elements are available in that particular bit of soil at that particular moment; and a bit of soil taken from the same spot in the same field a few hours later will produce a completely different answer: for a change of atmospheric temperature may have set in motion a whole train of rapidly changing, but highly vital and interrelated processes. And we get plenty of changes of temperature in this country; so if you are going to rely on soil analysis to govern your fertilizer expenditure you are going to be in a pretty state of confusion should you try to get a guide from the soil analyst.
But a herb cannot hop in and out of your field in step with the British climate or the gall bladder of the soil analyst. So I suggest some acquaintance with the natural eternal guides to the conditions in your soil, which were put there for your information before people discovered that selling chemicals was an easier living than growing crops.
I cannot, in this one chapter, hope to do more than introduce this fascinating study of herbs and their meaning—and, I hope, set my readers on the hobby of a lifetime, most of which will be original research. For though we know a lot about the properties of herbs in the prevention and treatment of disease, and many books have been published on herbs and their identification, nothing that I know, until this short amateur effort of mine, has been published on the interpretation of herbs and wild plants in relation to their environment: herbs and their associations with companion plants, and herbs as indicators of soil conditions.
For me this interest has developed with my lifelong study of animal health and the search for nature's means of maintaining it. In order to discover the natural remedy for a modern animal ailment, I have needed many private consultations with my animals ; and, in turn, with the herbs which nature has provided for their welfare—and ours. And in these consultations with the living manifestations of natural processes of healing, what a tremendous lot of information is revealed gratis that does not appear superficially to have any relevance to the immediate problem, but which has a vital part in the whole complex of animal husbandry and ultimately, in most cases, human health.
We all know that a soil which is deficient in calcium (or at least on analysis shows itself to be acid by the accepted pH measure) quickly acquires a covering of herbs or weeds which thrive under conditions of acidity. Some of these plants are themselves slightly acid or sour to the palate of the animal and are therefore not normally acceptable to the majority of farm animals. Sorrel, Sourdock, Silverweed and Yorkshire Fog are examples. Others, such as Burnet, gather calcium with their tap roots, and because of consequent palatability tend to be grazed out of existence. Soil conditions result in a deterioration of grazeable ingredients in the mixture; and the beneficial grazing of the animal in turn diminishes, with the result that an unpalatable sward predominates. The scavenging type of grazing animal, such as the sheep or the goat, is then the only animal able to survive on the changed ingredients of the pasture.
This is the state of affairs which exists on thousands of acres of so-called marginal land to-day. It is believed that because only grasses and herbs which are unpalatable to cattle grow on these 'marginal' areas, they cannot be made productive for cattle. So thousands of acres of potentially fertile land are neglected as suitable only for rough sheep-grazing.
Yet much of this land which grows these acidity-indicating herbs, and shows a serious lack of calcium on analysis, is immediately overlying the chalk or limestone. Many thousands of acres of it are actually chalk downs or hills. Only the deep taproots of perennial herbs can etch their way down into the chalk to release calcium for themselves; and in addition to growing the herbs which indicate the non-availability of calcium, nature has actually started the process of making available the necessary calcium, and in many such areas blatantly demonstrates to the observant farmer, with yet another well-known indicator of acidity, what needs to be done to put matters right.
Everyone who walks over these poor, acid fields feels the springy decaying turf underfoot. It is like walking over the deep pile of the newly carpeted foyer of a London theatre. And to the farmer of the land it is as costly in wasted acres as the carpeting of the cinema foyer is to the Odious Picture Corporation, Inc. The only difference is that the fabulous Odious can afford it; indeed it attracts profits for its owner. But the 'feather-bedded' farmer can't, it only attracts picnickers to leave his gates open. Feather beds are a comfort under an aching back after a hard day's work, but not under foot on a large field that could be producing 500 gallons of milk to the acre.
But why has nature laid this mattress of turf over these thousands of acres? If we trace through the process of deduction started by the observation that the Yorkshire Fog, the Sorrel, the Annual Meadow Grass and the Ragwort grow on acid soils while ample chalk sits near their roots, and decide by this means that the soil needs soluble calcium, we may reasonably conclude that the covering of matted vegetation is the attempt by nature to create acids of vegetable decomposition for the purpose of releasing the chalk or limestone which is there but insoluble. The decay on these matted marginal acres is too slow to produce results, because of inadequate animal manure to feed the aerobic bacteria and supply them with sufficient nitrogen to activate the decomposition of the vegetation.
Organic matter and animal excretion to activate it; the ever-beneficent action of sun and rain to set the cycle of decay and growth in motion, are all that are needed to change the face of these barren downs.
As I write, I sit in a field of perhaps forty or fifty acres which is at present hardly capable of feeding the rabbits who share it with a few hungry store bullocks. The field adjoins a quiet seashore on one of the loveliest corners of the Cornish coast. Every year for the past ten years I have come here to write, while my sons play on the sands below; or to play cricket on this unproductive turf in the energetic interludes between writing, when I fancy myself emulating my fellow Yorkshireman, Freddie True-man. Here are forty or fifty wasted acres, upon which, on occasions, I cannot even enjoy expending my cricketing energy, because of the swarms of seaweed flies which breed in the piles of seaweed accumulating on the sands a few yards below. And yet all this land needs, to make it grow a first-class pasture, to enable it to carry a cow to the acre, is about a tenth of the seaweed that is deposited alongside each autumn. It would not even be necessary to mix with it the sewage sludge that pours out into the surrounding sea from two adjoining towns: though, if such an obvious invitation of nature were ever to be accepted by the local authorities, there is no reason why this now useless land could not carry two cows to the acre for the greater part of the year.
And we stand helpless in the face of approaching famine; we publish books by the dozen on the problems of a hungry world; we despair of that careless Creator who has landed us with a human population which threatens to outstrip world food resources!
But I have been led a long way from my Yorkshire Fog in following up its clues. Would that those of my fellow agriculturists, with the power and influence to carry them through, would observe the indications of the herbs which grow in the humus-hungry acres of a world which pours its fertility down the drains to feed only fish and seaweed. It isn't only the city 'sharks' who swallow the farmers' profits: the drains of our cities and towns take more of them down to the mouths of real sharks in the sea around us; and when they are thrown back at us in the form of a seaweed fertilizer we go to the chemist for a poison spray to destroy the life which breeds in the seaweed—as though we are determined to dash human destiny on the rocks of industrial dividends and bury the bones in the barren sands of our own stupidity.
But while the little pink Thrift whispers its warning on the shores of national prodigality, there are other herbs which can guide you and me on our farms further inland, where we struggle for individual survival.
24. Ribgrass or Plantain. This plant was cut immediately after this photograph was taken—then photographed after ten days re-growth (see plate 25)
25. The same plant of Plantain as plate 24 ten days after being cut
BURNET (Poterium Sanguisorba)
Its presence growing wild is an indication of acidity, though it becomes very predominant on the chalk where its deep roots can penetrate into the chalk to draw up the calcium released by rootlet acids. This ability to bring calcium to an acid top soil makes it an extremely valuable ingredient of the temporary pasture, balancing the deficiencies of the shallow-rooting clovers and grasses. It is relished by all stock and in consequence is often punished by too early grazing before it is established. It also takes better when seeded direct for it establishes better with plenty of sunlight and breathing space, being rather discouraged by a 'nurse' crop.
Medicinally it has tonic properties. The old herbalists believed it cleansed the heart and cheered the spirits.
There is every indication that it has this effect on sheep and cattle for they will graze it in preference to all other ingredients of the simple mixture, though its favour is about equal to Sheeps' Parsley, Plantain and Chicory in the herbal ley—depending to some extent on the soil type and mineral availability of the field in which it grows. I have written more about grazing preferences in Chapter XV—Consult the Cow.
FAT HEN (Chenopodium Album)
You may know it by any of the following local names: Lambs' Quarters, Goosefoot, Muck Weed, Dung Weed. The last names give the clue to its taste in soil conditions. It grows only where the organic content of the soil is high and it comes in profusion on and around a farmyard manure or compost heap. It is often in companionship in this position with a very similar plant, Orache or Dungleweed; but Fat Hen is upright and does not have the spreading branches or wing-based leaves of Orache. If it becomes a nuisance on the farm you may take consolation from the knowledge that it means the fertility of the soil where it grows is as good as need be. The fact that it is an annual makes it easy to control, though because of its profuse seeding propensities it seems to have no survival problems, so long as its one requirement, rich fertile soil, is available.
RED SHANK (Polygonum Persicaria). Sometimes known
as Willow Weed or Persicary.
A most profuse and persistent plant on heavier and damper soils. Its presence again indicates no serious lack of organic matter, for it will not prosper on very light, poor, dry soils. Where it is present then, it may be assumed that the soil is potentially very fertile and not lacking in any serious degree any essential elements. It will grow well on acid soils but favours neutral conditions as far as calcium availability is concerned. The fact that adequate organic matter is a condition of its existence, probably explains why even on lime-deficient soils it will thrive so long as humus is maintained. This, of course, also applies to the domestic crops which don't normally thrive with a lime deficiency, for they too will ignore the lime deficiency and grow well if the organic content is right.
Persicaria can be controlled by allowing it to grow alone or in a silage crop up to the flowering stage and cutting it for silage before it seeds. If the field is then only disced or rotavated it will not establish again until, you plough and bring up a previous year's seeding.
GROUNDSEL (Senecio vulgaris)
One of the most common of English weeds, known by everyone for its fluffy off-white birds' powder-puff seed head.
Medium rich soil conditions may be assumed from its presence. It does not favour very light acid soil. So, as with Persicaria and Fat Hen (though the latter indicates the highest fertility) it is safe to assume good fertility if Groundsel is a troublesome occupant of your soil.
CHICKWEED (Stellaria media)
Is also in the same company as Fat Hen in being a lover of rich, strong soil. It must have moisture and organic nitrogen and whilst it will grow a small-leaved spindly plant in medium soil it develops a large, bushy, succulent green water-cress-like growth in the rich soil that it favours.
Judge your soil by the size of its leaf in comparison with water-cress.
It is not suggested that chickweed should be sown in a pasture; but it comes voluntarily where the organic content of the soil is good—for the first year of the pasture. Though it does not persist usually after the first year, so long as it doesn't smother out everything else in the seeds' mixture, it is beneficial to the grazing animal.
Its special virtues are as a kidney tonic, a rich source of vitamin C and preventive of skin disorders. It also helps to keep clear and free from infection the internal mucous membranes, and the respiratory organs in particular. It is beneficial in any kind of inflammation of these membranes, and helps to protect the animal against worms of all kinds, but especially husk worms, which live in the mucous deposits of the internal membrane of the lungs.
MARESTAIL (Equisetum). Also Horsetails, Snakepipes,
Cats-tails, Toad Pipe.
The main indication of this plant is of badly drained or poorly aerated soil. But it also favours the more fertile and heavier soils of neutral lime status. It is one of the most difficult weeds to eradicate and as it has no medicinal or nutritional value in agriculture (it is said to be capable of arresting the development of poliomyelitis in humans) it is only a persistent reminder that something must be done about drainage in the spot where it grows. It is a perennial which, once established, penetrates to a great depth in the rather airless subsoil of a heavy wet field.
The repeated use of a subsoiler offers the most economical and effective way of eliminating the weed, but once the soil
aeration is improved it may be necessary to have a summer fallow finally to destroy it.
RIBGRASS or PLANTAIN (Plantago Lanceolata). Also
known as Ribwort or long-leaved Plantain.
This plant is relished by all classes of livestock, standing ahead of all grasses and clovers, of roughly equal palatability with sheeps' parsley and chicory where cattle have a choice. It is one of the most mineral-rich of all herbs available for inclusion in the herbal ley and, whether or not it is indigenous or self-evident in the surrounding areas of the field, it should most certainly be included in all grazing pasture mixtures at the rate of at least 1 lb. an acre. I prefer 2 or 3 lb. for dairy herd grazing. Even where hay is to be made from the pasture it is not troublesome to dry, having a lower moisture content than clover.
In a silage mixture it adds greatly to the palatability of the finished silage.
In conditions of poor fertility it grows with a rosette of rather prostrate leaves, which are not easily grazed by cattle. Because of this habit on poorer soils it has been rather spurned as a weed, especially by the poison-spray salesmen whose products find an easy victim in the prostrate rosette of ribbed leaves. But given good fertility, a reasonable organic content in the soil, it grows erect and its long lance-shaped leaves, which widen with increasing fertility, grow up to allow the cows to wrap their relishing tongues around it to gather from its vigorous, abundant growth, vast quantities of nutritious health-promoting forage.
As a perennial it persists and increases in output under fertile conditions throughout each year of a four-year ley or permanent pasture.
WILD THYME (Thymus serpyllum)
Thrives on light, thin, rocky or stony soil over chalk or limestone, and creeps over large areas of hill and down. It prefers, and under such conditions grows more erect like the garden Thyme, a humus-rich patch on the stony hillside where the calcium of the chalk or limestone is in a soluble condition. I believe therefore that the presence of an erect growing Thyme indicates that some calcium is available in an area which may otherwise be 'lime deficient' though on the chalk or limestone. A little Wild Thyme in the pasture is good for internal disinfectant purposes, has a soothing effect on a disturbed digestion, is a mild worm deterrent and has a beneficial effect on the bronchial tubes. It might have possibilities in the herbal pasture in very limited measure.
SAVORY—Summer or Winter (Satureia Montana)
This little plant is of the same botanical family as Wild Thyme but whereas Thyme likes a bit of humus to supply its soluble calcium, Savory grows well in exposed, extremely poor, rough and shallow soil which may be almost completely devoid of humus. There are two strains of the plant, one growing in summer and the other in winter. I have never seen Savory growing on any soil that was not seriously lacking in humus and it is never to be found on soil that has a reasonable degree of fertility. So it can be safely assumed that if Savory is growing, no domestic crop will be a proposition, until a heavy dressing of organic manure has been applied.
It has very small lilac flowers and tiny dark green spear-shaped leaves and a coarse stem, which makes it of little or no nutritional value, so the fact that it will not survive on fertile soil is no loss. It is, however, of value in colic, either human or animal and is valued by goats as a preventive of stomach gases.
POPPY (Papaver rhoeas)
Where the red field Poppy grows the soil is generally light and sandy, indicating lack of humus. It favours a very dry season and is never troublesome on the moister, fertile soils with sufficient humus to maintain optimum growing conditions for the competing crop.
It comes and goes—in other words a bad poppy year may be followed by several in which the poppy is not a troublesome weed. It is often seen to be a punishment for the farmer following the excessive use of nitrogenous fertilizers and this, I believe, is due to the humus-burning effect of synthetic nitrogen, which leaves a soil condition in which the poppy thrives.
If the poppy appears, then it is time to stop the nitrogen (and this may also mean raw farmyard dung with its excessive nitrogen, for poppy often follows the dung cart) and to apply a good dressing of really mature F.Y.M. or compost.
FIELD WOODRUSH (Luzula Campestris)
Rushes of all kinds are generally an indication of damp, sandy or salty conditions. But the Field Woodrush, with upright, little, smooth, round, wiry stem, topped by a dark brown, shiny-edged cluster of flowers, is a common sight on the dry, light-land pastures of low fertility in all parts of Britain. Its leaves may be mistaken for one of its coarser grass companions when the flower stem has not developed, but may be distinguished by the long white hairs on the grass-like leaf.
It has no value except as an indicator of poor, dry conditions and the need for organic manure to improve the moisture-holding ability of the soil.
STINKING MAYWEED (Anthemis cotula)
This daisy-flowered member of the Chamomile family may well be regarded as the 'blacksheep' of the Anthemis family. For whereas true Chamomile (Anthemis nobilis) has a pleasant scent, cotula is most objectionable when rubbed and has an irritating effect on the skin and nasal membranes of some people. As a soil indicator it favours acid, light gravelly conditions and low fertility. It is an extremely troublesome weed on the lighter or sandy soils which lack organic matter or moisture. On the heavier soils with much humus and moisture it will not long survive and even when established it persists only on the hard, dry cart track or foot path.
As an annual it can be controlled by mowing before seed sets. And because of the profusion of leaves which it produces, it makes a valuable contribution to soil fertility when used in this way, as a mulch, or worked into the top soil with discs or rotavator.
It has sedative properties when used medicinally, though the true Chamomile (Anthemis nobilis) is preferable for this purpose and is well known as a digestive tea.
CORN SPURREY (Spergula arvensis)
A sure indicator of light soils—on which it persists and multiplies rapidly by means of its annual seeding of round hard oil-bound seeds. It has no value except as an indication that the soil is too poor to grow satisfactory animal or human food and as a warning that a summer fallow is long overdue. One of its names, Beggar Weed, is derived from the poverty of the soil which it favours.
KNAPWEED or HARDHEADS (Centaurea nigra)
This purple-flowered head with a bumble-bee brown basal cup (from which the purple petals spring) is one of the few indicators of phosphate deficiency. Most of the other poor-soil plants also indicate low availability of phosphates in the top soil but Knapweed, being a deeper rooter, able to tap phosphates unavailable to the other plants, only thrives where the phosphates are deep in the subsoil, though seriously lacking, almost to the point of absence, in the top soil.
The existence of Knapweed is one of the few justifications for the application of additional phosphates (in the form of ground phosphate rock) as well as organic manure and ground limestone or chalk.
BROAD-LEAVED PLANTAIN or SNAKEWEED (Plantago Major)
This is a common plant on most soils, and will grow almost anywhere. Consequently its existence is of no value as a soil indicator. Its rosettes of broad, oval, longitudinally ribbed leaves are, however, of great nutritional value. The fact that it is sometimes called Way-bread or Bread-by-the-way indicates its nutritional value to the roving animal, or travelling man. It is equally useful to grazing animal or bird. Its long, narrow spike of seeds produces abundant food for birds and its leaf, which grows the year round under all conditions of climate and soil, makes it a universal provider.
Medicinally, it has mucilaginous properties, and its bruised or chopped leaves have great healing properties, as a fresh green poultice or rubbed into a nettle sting or fly bite.
YARROW (Achillea Millefolium)
In its wild state this herb favours very dry conditions and this is just about the only thing it may guide you to as an indicator, for it grows on all types of soil, almost prostrate and tiny in poor acid soils but upright and resplendent with its 'Millefolium' or Thousand leaves' of pretty soft fern-like appearance, in fertile soils.
Its roots do not tolerate excessively moist conditions so that it does tend to die out on wet, heavy or badly drained land. So where it thrives the land may be assumed to be freely draining.
In addition to its high protein content it has valuable tonic and stimulant properties. Its juice applied to a cut or wound will stop bleeding.
COLTSFOOT (Tussilago farfard)
A plant which favours heavy clay soils of medium fertility with poor drainage. It is sometimes even known as Clayweed in clay soil areas.
It is distinguishable from many similar yellow daisy-like flowers, by the fact that flowers appear before leaves. Its stem looks rather like asparagus until after flowering, when the leaves break out large and heart-shaped and develop a white down on the underside.
Though I have never known cattle to eat it, probably because they are not normally subject to the troubles which it cures, Coltsfoot leaves infused as a tea have a most beneficial influence on the bronchial tubes, and give great relief in chronic bronchitis.
CLEAVERS (Galium aparine)
Also known as Goosegrass, Sticky Willy, Clivers, Sweethearts. A plant which is commonly found climbing among the hedgerow bushes and spreading into such fields as are fertile enough to sustain it. It favours straw crops, around which it can attach its hooked, bristly, sticky, square stems. It spreads by 'burs' or round hard bristly seed heads which attach themselves to clothes and the hair of animals.
If it is present in an arable silage crop you may well be pleased for it is an excellent blood purifier, being rich in iron, chlorophyll, some iodine and all the vitamins. Cut in the green stage it is easily controlled, for it is an annual which spreads only by seeding. It must, however, be cut before the seed is advanced enough to pass through the cattle which eat the silage. If the seed does set hard the best use for it is to feed poultry. They love the seed and readily consume the whole plant when its iron and iodine content are very valuable, especially to yarded or deep-litter birds. It is well worth while to gather Cleavers solely for the purpose of feeding it to intensively-kept poultry.
DUNGLEWEED or ORACHE (Atriplex patuld)
Commonly known as Dungleweed it is almost as much like another rich soil plant Dungweed (Fat Hen) as their names. But Orache has narrower snake-tongue leaves with wide-pointed winged base to the leaf. Orache is also an annual and spreads by the numerous seeds which set from its spikes of green flowers. Orache has a much more spreading, branched habit of growth than Fat Hen.
Like Fat Hen it grows on strong soils of medium high fertility, rich in organic matter. Its appearance is an indication that with proper cultivation your soil needs no manuring of any kind to enable it to grow any crop. A very cheering state for any farmer or gardener to have reached, for it is much easier to maintain such a state than to achieve it.
It is interesting to note that the natural indicators of high fertility have little or no medicinal value. Their main virtue is purely nutritional—suppliers of starch- and protein-equivalent and some vitamins—but they are normally useless as sources of mineral and trace elements.
The reason for this is that where top-soil fertility is high, the shallow-rooting plants can nourish; whereas if the top-soil is poor and incapable of supporting the shallow-rooters, only the deep-rooters can survive. And it is from the subsoil that the deep roots draw the minerals and trace-elements which have been robbed, perhaps through generations of exploitive methods— mono-cropping, mono-stocking or inadequate manuring—from the top soil.
It would be a useful piece of research work if someone, with the necessary funds to pay the very high cost of complete mineral, trace-element and vitamin analyses, would ascertain the extent to which these elements, which we know are richly present in the deep-rooting herbs, are also acquired by the shallow-rooters in a really fertile top-soil. In the meantime, a wide variety of herbage, both deep- and shallow-rooting, will ensure an adequate supply of all nutritional and health requirements, provided sufficient humus is present.
LUPINS for phosphate-deficient soils
As a green manure to be disced into the soil in preparation for the ley, lupins are the best crop where there is a phosphate deficiency. They appear to have a greater capacity for extracting phosphorous from the soil than any other green-manuring crop. Even from soils which, on analysis, appear to be lacking in available phosphate, lupins have the ability to make it available and to take it up. This means that when a green crop of lupins is disced or rotavated into the top-soil it adds directly a supply of phosphorous in addition to releasing more in the process of decay.
GROUND IVY (Nepeta hederaced)
Has a special value in kidney troubles. Because of its bitter flavour cattle will rarely eat it; but if very small quantities are growing in the ley or hedgerow the cattle will take it along with other grazing. If so taken it is beneficial to the reproductive health of both male and female animals. Its disadvantage is that it spreads rapidly over the ground, and if it is to be used is best confined to a small area rather than mixed with the other ingredients of the ley, otherwise it may not be easily controlled.
SHEPHERD'S PURSE (Capsella bursa-pastoris)
Because of its profuse seeding-habits, Shepherd's Purse so easily becomes a nuisance on areas of land where it is not wanted, that it is not one of the herbs I would recommend for inclusion in a herbal ley.
But it is as well to note that where it is present it may be used with benefit for feeding to cattle and goats with breeding troubles, or infused as a tea for use with dogs that have kidney trouble. It is also relished by poultry, and has a stimulating effect on egg production.
CHICORY (Cichorium intybus)
Of all the plants available to the farmer, none provides a richer source of all the minerals and trace-elements, vitamins and plant hormones than chicory.
Its thick tap root penetrates, during the normal period of the pasture, a depth of anything up to ten feet, gathering and transmitting to its stem and leaves all the known minerals and microelements necessary for animal health and fertility.
Chicory will grow anywhere. Its deep roots will seek out its own nutritional and moisture requirements over a wide area and great depth, resulting in its survival under almost any conditions. It does not, however, tolerate excessively wet conditions over long periods in its early stages; but short of its young roots standing in water for months it can nevertheless survive longer under such conditions than most other deep-rooting herbs. One field of herbal ley which went into its first winter with a full complement of all the herbs, though the amount of chicory present somewhat reduced, it was the only herb that survived almost four months either under water or with a very high water-level.
Similarly, chicory will continue to push up green leaves almost as fast as it is grazed, when everything else is burnt up by drought. The last drought summer we experienced in Britain, in 1949 and now, the drought in September 1955 sees my herbal leys still lush to confirm the following story. Every pasture in the district—and throughout the country, as far as I was able to observe—was burnt brown, yet my herbal ley continued green and productive throughout the summer. That particular year my grazing ley adjoined a public road, and many passing farmers asked me what fertilizer I had dressed the field with to keep it growing green while theirs, which had been 'given all the sulphate of ammonia we can afford to keep it going' was like an old parched board cracking open with dry rot.
The field had been given nothing but a light dressing of compost—about five tons an acre—in the previous year, but apart from that had nothing even to sow it down with; and yet, in the worst year of drought I have ever known, this pasture maintained my dairy herd, without supplementary feeding—while neighbours were dipping into their winter hay to keep the cows alive. It was solely by virtue of the large proportion of chicory in the mixture that this ley remained evergreen throughout that scorching summer.
Incidentally, an interesting little postscript to this story indicates the ignorance of some of our advisory experts. Because of some carelessness in cleaning the milking machine during the very hot weather of the late summer of that year, we had one or two bad samples of milk and the milk advisory officer for the district was sent to advise me about tracing the cause and avoiding future trouble. She found that the machine was perfectly clean and there was no apparent explanation of the trouble. However, shortly after I'd said good-bye to her she returned to say she thought she'd found the cause of the trouble. 'I notice your cows are grazing the field by the road which has got a lot of blue-flowered weeds in it. They no doubt, are affecting the keeping-quality of the milk. I really think you will have to do something about getting rid of those weeds,' she said.
'Well, I don't think even an ultimatum from the Agricultural Committee could compel me to do that,' I replied, 'considering that "those weeds" are chicory which I deliberately sowed in the field. At this time of year it tends to go up to flower if not topped off with a mower.'
"Oh, I'm sorry,' said the dairy-farming expert, 'I hadn't realized chicory had a blue flower, and I thought the leaves around it were dandelions.'
In fact she thought I had a thoroughly weedy field, and it was time I got it cleaned or had a bullying letter from the Agricultural Executive Committee.
I heard no more about milk samples that summer; and there are now many more pastures in the district which show a few blue flowers in late summer.
It is partly this untidy habit of pushing up flowering stems as the grazing season advances that gives chicory its value to soil fertility. For to top these stems and flowers off with a mower feeds back to the top soil precious minerals and trace elements, and who knows what else, that have been brought up from the deep subsoil by the tap roots and crystallized in the leaves, stems and flowers. These supply the health and fertility needs of the grazing cattle, who drop the surplus to the soil in the form of dung; then what they do not graze is fed back to the soil direct by mowing off and letting it remain as a surface mulch.
In this way the trace-mineral content of the top soil is gradually built up over the life of the ley. This process is contributed to by all the deep-rooting herbs in the ley; but chicory is the biggest supplier of this free natural trace-mineral application.
SHEEP'S PARSLEY (Petroselinum sativum)
Medicinally this plant is one of the most valuable; and though its use is now advocated in herbal strips, and occasionally in mixtures, the amounts usually recommended are in my experience not half enough because it often suffers from overgrazing.
Besides being highly mineral-rich, it is rich in an element called apiol, which is extracted from some varieties of cultivated parsley for its potent beneficial effect on kidney and bladder complaints. It is also a specific in female reproductive disorders, and should be used in larger seedings where breeding troubles exist in the dairy herd.
Iron and all the known vitamins are also in good quantity in this valuable herb.
Watch the eagerness with which it is grazed by cattle and you will know its great value. In comparative tests I carried out, it proved to be one of the first to be grazed bare where a free choice of individual plots of thirty-five different herbs, grasses and clovers was allowed.
Collect it for your own household salads, and soups too: though it is better in salads, for its rich vitamin content is lost by cooking in soups.
It is my favourite raw snack when I'm out among the cattle grazing my leys; and I can rarely resist a refreshing nibble with them on a hot summer day.
FENNEL (Foeniculum vulgare)
As a digestive tonic and bloat-preventive fennel should find a place in every grazing ley. But its seed is not yet available commercially in any quantity, and if not grazed hard it tends to run up to a thick stem and make haymaking, even on tripods, extremely difficult. As seed becomes available it ought nevertheless to be included in herbal strips.
Like Caraway and Dill (of the same family) it has a marked effect in aiding the digestion of an otherwise rich diet; and the cultivation of a little fennel, to be dried for use with a concentrate ration would be a service to the cow's digestive system and a lengthener of her productive life.
CARAWAY (Carum Carvi)
The seed of this plant was once widely used in the kitchen as a digestive tonic, both in the famous Caraway Cake—or Seed Cake of our grandmothers—and as a medicine in digestive troubles. It still has great value as a human medicine for dyspepsia, its properties are now finding value in the herbal ley for its ability to aid the digestion of other ingredients of the animal diet—and to encourage the right bacterial flora in the stomach. It is consequently an important anti-bloat ingredient.
Its strong flavour makes it unwise to include more than 1 lb. per acre in the mixture (½ lb. is adequate in case of short supplies), in which proportion it is readily eaten by all classes of farm animals along with the mixture.
SWEET CLOVER—Melilotus Alba (White)
Melilotus Officinalis (Yellow) and Melilotus Altissima (Yellow) are smaller and less productive wild varieties.
For the improvement of poor soils Sweet Clover has no equal. Sown on its own, or with a grass, it produces great bulk of green manure and a tremendous rooting system. It has a thick tap root which opens up the subsoil, letting in the air and facilitating earthworm and aerobic bacterial activity. In addition to a large quantity of the products of its own root decay after maturity, sweet clover has the ability of all legumes to fix atmospheric nitrogen; and because of its great length and number of roots, Sweet Clover gathers more nitrogen to the soil than most crops.
The Ohio Agricultural Experimental Station reported in Special Circular 53, 1938, that in an official test Sweet Clover sown in the spring with oats—i.e. undersown in spring oats— by November of the same year had contributed nearly a ton an acre of roots, showing a 3.5 per cent nitrogen content, to the soil of that field. Sweet Clover hay harvested in the following June, yielded nearly three tons of dry hay containing 2.35 per cent of nitrogen.
No crop which has Sweet Clover to precede it, or sown under it (or a ley including it), needs any synthetic nitrogen. It will gather each summer all the nitrogen that can usefully be employed by any crop, and leave a large residue for subsequent years.
An application of sulphate of ammonia to equal the root nitrogen of an acre of Sweet Clover would be 6¾ cwt. in order to achieve the equivalent application of 76 lb. an acre of crude nitrogen. If the following green crop were incorporated in the top-soil there would be a further application of 140 lb. an acre of nitrogen: equivalent to 13 cwt. an acre of sulphate of ammonia, and nearly ten tons an acre of organic matter with phosphates and potash greater than an equivalent dressing of farmyard manure.
I am convinced, then, that nothing equals sweet clover as a green manure, in preparation for a straw crop and as a pre-treatment before seeding down to a long ley. The method of using Sweet Clover for this purpose is described in Chapter XI —Establishing the Ley.
American scientists have confirmed the value of sweet clover for manurial purposes in experiments reported in 1943 by O. H. Sears and W. L. Burlison in the Illinois Agricultural Extension Service Circular No. 559 and I. J. Johnson writing in The Farm Science Reporter in 1945.
Johnson reported that in experiments in Iowa, Sweet Clover sown in corn followed by oats, repeating the two-year rotation over a sixteen-year period, produced an increase in the yield of corn of 13.8 per cent over controlled plots which had no Sweet Clover.
Sears and Burlison report that the use of Sweet Clover as a green manure to follow corn and wheat in a three-year rotation of corn (i.e. maize), oats or wheat, corn, in spite of successive straw crops increased the second crop corn yield from 59 bushels to 80 bushels an acre. In this experiment the corn stalks and wheat straw were returned to the soil with the Sweet Clover.
Who would go to the expense of purchased fertilizers and the labour of applying them in these tightening days, with such rich manurial value available free of charge?
Sweet Clover is not advisable as a solo forage crop, because it is slightly bitter and unpalatable on its own, owing to a toxin called coumarin which is present in the plant and which the animals do not readily accustom themselves to, and which is an anticoagulant causing the animal, if injured or scratched, to be liable to bleed to death. This property of melilot is being used in the treatment of human thrombosis to prevent the formation of blood clots.
26. A simple mixture of grasses and clovers ten days after mowing
27. A fertility pasture ten days after mowing (in the same field and mown at the same time as the field in plate 26 above). Photograph taken at the height of the 1955 drought. Note quick recovery of the deep rooting herbs
28. American Sweet Clover
29. Yarrow in the Herbal Ley
But American plant breeders, who value the great productive capacity of Sweet Clover, are attempting to breed a strain of the crop with a reduced coumarin content which will make it one of our most profitable forage crops.
Meanwhile, it is still a valuable ingredient of leys, especially on poor and calcareous soils, up to 4-7 lb. an acre. There is scope for experiment with Sweet Clover as a major companion crop for silage purposes—possibly grown in equal quantities with Cocksfoot, Timothy or Meadow Fescue and Lucerne or another legume such as Trifolium, or Red Clover.
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