Medieval: August 2018

Agricultural Transformation (18thC-19thC) ↠

It appears that, in a never-ending Red Queen game, BBC has complained and YouTube has eradicated episodes (and channels) carrying uploads of Victorian and Edwardian Farm. When the inevitable happens, and some brave soul uploads more free advertising for the DVDs, I will update the playlists. So far, Tales from the Green Valley, Tudor Monastery Farm, and Wartime Farm remain intact.

In chronological order by period, not television production:

Tudor Monastery Farm
TMF playlist contents.

Tales From the Green Valley
TFGV playlist contents.

Victorian Farm
VF playlist contents.

Edwardian Farm
EF playlist contents.

Wartime Farm
WF playlist contents.

Land Use in Britain – Overview.

Land Use in Britain – Stone Age to Iron Age.

Land Use in Britain – Romans and Vikings.

Land Use in Britain – Normans bring Feudalism.
Land Use in Britain – Beyond Early Modern.

Playlist Wild Food.

Tree Hay: A forgotten fodder (full version) - Agric > .

Tree Hay - winter fodder - Lynb > .

Tree Hay & Mast - Fodder, Pannage - RexG >> .

Given a choice, which they rarely are in modern agriculture, many livestock prefer to browse on trees rather than graze on grass. The table below illustrates both the reason for their preference, and part of the reason that those living in the Iron Age began to carefully manage the remaining woodland. The forestry practices, on which they relied for fuel, wood, timber, fodder (leaves, nuts, mast), and specialized supplies (oak galls for ink, tannin-rich barks for tanning, etc) continued beyond the Middle Ages, but have been abandoned since the rise of alternate sources.

Abstract from Tree pollarding in western Norway, by Ingvild Austad in The Cultural Landscape: Past, Present, and Future

"The practice of collecting twigs and leaves for fodder for domestic animals is a very old form for fodder harvesting. Leaf fodder can be collected efficiently with small iron tools and the practice has a history at least back to the Iron Age. Almost all species of deciduous trees were used for animal fodder, also some conifers. Although the harvesting of trees for collecting fodder was widely practised all over Norway, the choice of species, techniques and utilization varied from area to area, as did the names given to tree management.

Pollarding (“styving”) refers to the process of topping trees, i.e. cutting back branches at a height of 2 -3 m, above reach of grazing animals. Lopping (“lauving”) is the actual fodder-collecting. The branches were cut into smaller pieces (approx. 1 m), bunched and tied together. The bunches of twigs (“kjerv”) were dried, and later stored in barns or stacked together (“rauk”). Young shoots were sometimes cut directly from the tree bases or as suckers (coppicing). Some farmers set aside areas that were cut frequently. In some areas, leaves were collected for fodder by plucking them (“rispelauv”). Raking up autumn leaf-fall (“rakelauv”) was practised mostly for the use as bedding in stalls.

Branches especially from Ulmus glabra (wych elm, Scots elm) and Fraxinus excelsior (European ash) were sometimes collected during the winter for twigs (“ris”) and bark (“skav”) and later fed to animals. Bark from Ulmus glabra was peeled, cut into small pieces, mixed with water and given especially to dairy cows during the winter and early spring. Bark of Ulmus glabra was also valuable for its use in human nutrition (bread, “barkebrød”).

A wide range of landscape elements and biotopes have been formed and maintained by farming techniques including leaf-collection. Most of the human-influenced and human-dependent vegetation types are under great pressure from extensive disuse, overgrowing and encroachment, vanishing due to inexperience with maintaining and preserving them."

Playlist: Tree Hay & Mast - Fodder, Pannage .

Table of leaf nutrition. Percentage of constituents in tree species compared to hay and red clover.

	water
		ash
			fat
				sugar
					protein
						fiber

Ulmus glabra	12.6	9.9	2.9	49.2	13.2	12.3
Sorbus aucuparia	11.9	5.9	6.5	50.4	9.9	15.4
Salix caprea	11.5	6.1	3.8	50.3	11.6	16.7
Populus tremula	10.8	8.5	6	43.5	13.3	20.9
Fraxinus excelsior	11.6	6.3	3	50.4	12	16.7
Alnus incana	11.9	3.9	5.9	43.6	17.6	17.4
Betula spp.	11.7	3.9	7	49.2	12	16.2
regular hay	14.96	5.42	2.2	44.43	8.51	24.56
Trifolium pratense	15.65	5.17	1.88	36.76	10.98	28.56

Adapted from The Cultural Landscape: Past, Present, and Future, Birks et al, Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Ulmus glabra	wych elm
Sorbus aucuparia	rowan
Salix caprea	goat willow
Populus tremula	European aspen
Fraxinus excelsior	European ash
Alnus incana	grey alder
Betula spp.	birch
regular hay	grass, legumes, herbaceous plants
Trifolium pratense	red clover

Pages

𝕸 Livestock, Fodder, Timber

BBC Farm Series

Tree Hay - former fodder