lol, no that wouldn't work in my soil, it's not heavy enough, but thanks for the advice. I'm using the tool that years of personal experience shows me works well.
This guy is such a inspiration. He's a millionaire but was not taken off the track by spoiled life. He just uses his money to do things he loves and doing them for himself and living humble life in connection with nature. Show me one more millionaire who walks around weeding his fields. This guy just fills me with inner peace and inspiration.
Jason, I'm so glad you are raising awareness of this deadly plant. Some years ago, there was an outbreak of equine deaths up and down the state of California. I was the barn trainer at a big livery stable with 60 horses. It was heartrending to personally see over 20 horses sicken and eventually die. Because the dead and dying horses were spread out over the length of the state and kept in all sorts of circumstances over a three week period, on the face of it, there did not seem to be a common cause. I couldn't believe it was random, so I got in touch with the local equine veterinary practice and all the owners of horses who'd died in Northern California or were treated at the state veterinary hospital in Sacramento. The common source turned out to be one lot of processed alfalfa hay that had been shipped state wide. A notice was subsequently sent out, the unused feed was destroyed and a treatment was suggested for horses who were showing signs of being ill, but had not succumbed.
Jason is a real inspiration to me. So successful in the modern age but yet totally grounded, knowledgeable and has respect for nature and the past. His calm energy and passion leave me in awe, this is a man that gets up goodness knows how early to look after a stable full of horses, runs a successful company which employs many and also produces one of the best youtube channels out there. All done with no bravado or complaints. World would be a better place with more Jason Kingsley's.
I remember my sister and I de-ragworting our horses' fields when I was about fourteen and she twelve. I pulled up a ragwort plant, and then unthinkingly licked my finger. I asked my sister how long I had to live, and she said maybe two years if I was lucky. I was so upset that I'd never get to vote in a general election, of all things... (by the way, I'm 32 now).
I've got a ton of respect for you mate, that you do this work yourself. I've read the Wikipedia article about you, and I'm pretty sure you could hire folks to come do this back breaking work for you. But the fact that you are out there in there fields doing it yourself (or even with others) is highly respectable. Not many CEOs would be caught dead wielding a pickaxe in a field doing physical labor. Seriously dude, much respect. If I had a skillset that could be put to use by you (other than just as an aspiring writer of fiction), and lived on your wonderful isle, I'd be honored to work for you. And thank you for highlighting this plant! It isn't super common where I live from what Google tells me, but I know to keep my eyes open for it as we have many wild/feral animals in my neighborhood that might decide to take a nibble. Now I can do those furry ones a favor and make sure none of these plants sticks around long.
You're right, I could hire people to do the work, but it's usually quite a nice day or two out in the long hay meadows. I could also pay people to look after and train my horses, but as you suggest, I like doing it myself! It keeps me fit and grounded and I love being outside in the landscape.
@@ModernKnight also, if you do Things yourself you can be sure they are done well... with some Tasks you have to trust employees or contractors, but with this the health and wellbeing of your valued horses might be something you want to be sure About.
We have a similar problem in Kentucky with poison hemlock. It’s everywhere in the bluegrass area, especially along roads and fences. Very few people know what it is and think it’s Queen Anne’s Lace. Animals won’t eat it on purpose, but they can’t easily avoid it rolled up in hay.
As a beekeeper we know when the bees have been at the Ragwort. It stains everything yellow / orange. This is one reason why we recommend that pregnant women and very young children should not eat raw honey, as we never know if there is a low amount of poison present due to plants such as Ragwort. It was also one of the first plants my mentor taught me about when I was a teen who knew nothing about agriculture or botany.
The most interesting thing about ragwort is, that it can easily kill a horse, but a rabbit can eat it without any health risk. It shows how utterly robust rabbits are in regard to poisonous plants. Their digestive system is somewhat adjusted to such things, because they eat lots of herbs, which humans use in small dosage for medicine.
@@Tibi93 It has to do with the shit and piss people flush down the toilet, while traveling with said train, ferteilizing the ground around. Blackberry bushes also tend to trive in such locations.
Hey Jason, you might want to try using a hoe or a mattock to dig up those weeds instead of a pick. You'll get a bigger chunk of dirt with each swing and you're pretty much guaranteed to get all the roots. Great video as always! Looking forward to the next one
Or as a fellow archaeologist friend of mine has : a bar of gentle persuasion. Basically an enormous iron spike for digging holes in particularly rocky soils.
It’s also an important plant for insects including the pretty cinnabar moth. Poisonous to animals but oddly, used by people in medieval times for the treatment of certain ailments. Any plant that has wort (wurt in Old English) in the name as the suffix denotes it for having medicinal qualities.
Obviously not used much since they discovered it destroys your liver, but... 1722 J. Miller _Botanicum Officinale_ 241 The leaves of Ragwort are commended by some as good for..cleaning foul sordid Ulcers and Sores. (From the OED) "In olden days it was supposed to be 'a certaine remedie to help the Staggers in Horses,' whence one of its popular names, Staggerwort" _A Modern Herbal_ Mrs Grieve. She mentions the early 20th century realisation of the toxic effects. 1597 J. Gerard _Herball_ ii. 219 The countrey people do call it [Iacobea] Stagger woort, and Stauerwoort, and also Ragwoorte. (OED again) "Ragwort was formerly much employed medicinally for various purposes. The leaves are used in the country for emollient poultices and yield a good green dye, not, however, permanent. The flowers boiled in water give a fair yellow dye to wool previously impregnated with alum. The whole plant is bitter and aromatic, of an acrid sharpness, but the juice is cooling and astringent, and of use as a wash in burns, inflammations of the eye, and also in sores and cancerous ulcers - hence one of its old names, Cankerwort. It is used with success in relieving rheumatism, sciatica and gout, a poultice of the green leaves being applied to painful joints and reducing the inflammation and swelling. It makes a good gargle for ulcerated throat and mouth, and is said to take away the pain caused by the sting of bees. A decoction of the root has been reputed good for inward bruises and wounds. In some parts of the country Ragwort is accredited with the power of preventing infection." _A Modern Herbal_ again.
I was always interested in the usage of herbs and knowing the basics of what's what in the nature. Thank you for making a video with some great answers!
Question: how could a medieval lord have told his servants, serfs or other subject to get rid of the ragwort if it was only introduced in Victorian times? Or were you talking about dealing with poisonous plants on meadows in general? It's no big deal but I just couldn't get this contradiction out of my head. Cheers.
@@ModernKnight You confused the Oxford and the common ragwort, I think. You neglected to mention that the cinnabar moth is more beautiful than many of our butterflies. Edited to add: proper use of the word eradicate, good one!
Yes, this confused me a lot, still doesn't make sense, if railways spread it then does that mean it was only prevalent in some parts of the country and didn't exist in others? So perhaps only native to the south or North etc until Victorian times and railways?
@@navalenigma No, the common ragwort (the plant in this video) was present over large parts of Britain for as long as we know. Oxford ragwort started off in Oxford Botanic Garden when introduced from Sicily in the 17th century and it was famously spread by the railways in the 19th century. I don't believe either were ever grown in gardens as ornamentals. The Oxford ragwort was grown as an exotic curiosity in the Oxford Botanic Garden.
I just would like to thank you for the awesome video. So unique! Even though I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, i love Europe medieval history and feel very blessed to have access to such an interesting content, specially these ones showing their everyday lives.
The pasture is looking wonderful! Reminds me of the hills where I grew up in Colorado, USA. Are all the horses still doing alright? And does The Mule with No Name have another title yet? Anywho, I hope all's well and that you're not too busy at work so we can get some more of your awesome content. Keep up the good work, Ser Kingsley!
It is indeed a very nice hat! And I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that pause before "26 more acres" - already tired!! In my area (southeastern USA) that stuff is all over the place, and it certainly does have a stench, but so few folks keep hay fields here that I had never heard about this being a problem - because as you said, the horses won't touch the plant while it is green and stinky. So now I've learned something useful in case I am ever privileged enough to have a pasture to worry over, haha!
I'd know that fuzzy yellow smear in the thumbnail anywhere! D= Wikipedia says it's native to the UK, which is what I'd always thought, but here in Australia it truly is invasive. Funnily enough it seems to do a lot better over here, completely overtaking paddocks if left to its own devices. It took me years to clear it from this farm after I arrived, several hours a day for weeks and weeks whenever it came into flower, which happened to coincide with the farm teeming with deadly serpents, which I generally couldn't see underfoot because of all of the ragwort and long grass, due to the fields being unsafe for grazers... thankfully, not only did I get through it in the end, but the neighbour wordlessly and discretely took the subtle hint and did the same thing at the same time, which was a very pleasant surprise indeed! It's now completely gone from both farms (where it had been abundant for decades) and we're both happily running livestock in fields that were once almost solid yellow through summer. =) I just used a pair of gloves and a firm grip at the base of the plant, which at least 95% of the time removed enough of the root to prevent regrowth, but when I could feel that I'd torn it and left a substantial root, I sort of fossicked around for the rest with the thick leather gloves - something which, in retrospect, could probably have been much improved with some sort of trowel. Using a heavier tool, like a pick or mattock, for the thousands upon thousands of plants would have been counter-productive though, because it'd have slowed me down enough that more plants would have had the chance to go to seed, which is the really critical thing to avoid. An important characteristic of ragwort to keep in mind is that individual plants (at least theoretically) live for just two years, so they can only return to bother you for one more summer if you do leave something in the ground, though they can of course re-grow foliage for the intervening year and in so doing, continue to be a danger to livestock.
We have rich clay soil so not much ragwort here luckily, very careful not to bring in with hay. Brilliant suggestion to seed the divet! We do that with the mole holes, nice loose soil ready to take the seeds of plants and herbs we want for our horses.
It has to be removed and burned......it did (and still is) a notifiable weed, but councils don’t seem to take action any more. When I first moved to Norfolk and saw it, I had no idea what it was....a local farmer told me the importance of getting rid of it properly, as the seeds can lie dormant, with this little rhyme: “One year’s seed and you’ll have seven years weed’... It’s a never ending struggle......
Twenty-six acres... roughly how many Stinking Billies would you guess you uprooted this year? Have you seen a general decrease in return customers, since you do it every year?
Now I've gotten an idea for a D&D league of assassins: The Ragwort Crown. Formed from farmers and herbalists who began using their knowledge of the toxic plants to earn extra coin, either by selling concoctions or "employing" them on a client's behalf. They call themselves "Billies" and "Williams", as a nod to the plant's alternate name. Their symbol is the flower of the ragwort itself, and members will sometimes where yellow on their person to identity each other. Most members still work in peasant occupations. Farmers gather or even cultivate ragwort (among other deadly herbs), even offering to weed the fields of their neighbors of toxic plants (which they keep for themselves). Others are laborers or servants, or at least pass as them to get close to targets. Most people don't notice low class individuals coming and going, allowing them to hide in plain sight. Of those members who has class levels, the lion's share are Rogues, of the Assassin subclass. However, some members cultivate a deeper understanding of both fighting and the power of the human body, becoming Monks following the Way of Shadows. These latter Billies serve much the same function in a Medieval European style setting as Ninjas did in Real Life feudal Japan: folks who disguise themselves as peasants, servants, and gardeners, until it's time to strike. All members of the Ragwort Crown are trained in Poisoner's Kits, Herbalism Kits, Stealth, Medicine or Nature, and improvised weapons (usually repurposed or modified farming implements).
Here in Texas, and other southern states, there is a critter called a blister beetle. They love to eat legumes, especially alfalfa. If a human gets just the "secretions" or oil of this beetle on their skin, it causes extremely painful, large blisters. If a horse injests one, even if they're dead and dried up in a hay bale, it is almost always fatal. That's why it isn't wise to buy alfalfa hay in the south. The hay needs to come from somewhere where the winters are cold enough that the beetles won't live there.
Interesting, in Germany we have a related species (Schwarzblauer Ölkäfer, looks like a gigantic metallic blue ant queen). I didn't knew they were toxic to horses as well. Well, you never stop learning :)
Here in Wyoming, I know a farmer who sends entire truckloads of second-cutting alfalfa to big horse ranches in Tennessee. It is their biggest money-maker. I asked him why the horse ranches don't just grow their own, and he told me the climate is better here. I wonder if blister beetles are the reason, or at least a factor.
I would suspect that's part of the reason, but good hay and alfalfa need a dry environment to dry out, Tennessee being as humid as it is would definitely cause insane amounts of rot, if not complete spoilage of the product.
This reminds me of the Bibe scripture about the wheat and the weeds. The answer to not harvest any of the poisonus weeds or lose any of the wheat was to wait until harvest season. The wheat would bear fruit whilst the weeds would look very distinct during its mature phase. Can't wait to see the full video. Thank you for all of your hard work.
What a lovely video. I'm glad you tagged it at the end of a new video so I found it. I also love that you do a lot of the work on your land yourself. Including ragget hunting. (If I've spelled it right) 👍
I didn't look for this video but wow was I hooked watching him talk about a plant. Also that soil most be rocky - when he used the pick at the end, you could hear the crunch and scraping of rocks.
This brings back memories of having to go rag-pulling on my uncle’s dairy farm in my summer holidays. Very boring and hard work for an eight-year old who just wanted to read his book.
73North & Jolan61 Lol guys! Your uncs weren't really taking advantage-you boys were just sooo much closer to the ground than pesky adults! (In western Oregon, the soil is fairly friable. If you pull ragweed in spring before everything dries out, you can get the entire plant. Later- ouch!) Blessings! (sp. edit)
I used to work for the states clearing ragwort, we were still doing it by hand until they disbanded the department (no budget for forks). Unfortunately it spreads like the clap and on Lihou island they keep great fields of it for the sake of the cinnabar moths. Also: if you put it in bin-bags on a hot day, it leaks horrid orange-yellow sap everywhere which scorches itself into damn near everything. We struggled to get it off the truck flatbeds. I can still spot it from about 3 fields away from a moving vehicle and it drives me mental to know so many keep it like a damned ornament.
Hello, my friend and I always enjoy seeing you and catching what you have to share, always interesting and helpful to many people I'm sure. Thanks for the interesting video. Be well.
Edit: Now it makes more sense. Thanks, Modern History TV! Original Comment: Well, I doubt that in Medieval times they would have been looking out for a plant that wasn't introduced until the Victorian Era, but otherwise this was a very interesting video on an important bit of husbandry and definitely informative.
@@ModernKnight Thanks! That looks like a pain to have to do every year, but thanks for the videos, and glad that all of the animals have such a wonderful home and keeper to watch after them and give them productive and happy lives!
that hat has to be like +30 botany, but then i realized how cool it looks so it probably has bad stats. lol xD . love the vids. i was curious how they would of known it was bad for the animals, since the effects take so long to notice, and being pretty newly introduced to the land as well??
i added question marks on the last bit to make it more clear, and lost your heart :0 . so def hope someone has some ideas, i guess they were just bosses at plant characteristics and just cared what every plant was they were feeding to their horses ?
Hi Jason, love your channel, absolutely fascinating as I love social history. I was thinking of you with your pick axe! I use a mattock which I inherited. It's a very different shape to a normal mattock, it's got a short wide blade (a pointed square) on one side with a flat wedge type pick on the other, with a very long handle, and is a very effective tool for rooting out, it's brilliant! I would be interested as to it's origin, I am in Dorset and I presume that it must have been from around here a few generations back.
thanks for your kind words. many tools were made locally, some still are, and there were local variations in shape and form, particulalry well know are billhooks for hedging.
We have similar problems where I work; we keep a herd of managed red and fallow deer so the ragwort needs to be controlled. At the same time it is a SSSI and Cinnabar Moths have been spotted so we have to leave some for them. Never really noticed the smell myself, considering there are plenty other smellier plants, such as swamp cabbage, stinking iris and the gravy plant.
Tansy ragwort became an incredible problem here in Northern California when it first showed up in the seventies, as it had no natural enemies. First some sort of beetle was brought in, but that didn't do much. It wasn't until after the Cinnabar Moth was brought in that the infestation became manageable. It's still bad enough though that the local refuse station has an annual contest to see who can bring in the most.
It is one of these things... we have the same issue with Capeweed. But when you have gotten rid of it, but the field next to you haven't because they don't care is annoying... but a process that has to be done.
I remember a friend with horses trying to manage ragwort in their fields having trouble with the young ragwort plants as they are very low to the ground and if the grass was short the horses were more at risk of accidently ingesting it than the larger more obvious plants
You mentioned ragwurt was brought in during Victorian times yet you mention at 4:35 about it being a problem in Medieval times. They no doubt would worry about other things similar to ragwurt they didn't want growing around themselves so your statement still likely stands. Excellent work as always though Jason!
I think he was talking about the Americas, because it's an european plant ^^ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobaea_vulgaris According to wikipedia, greeks and romans used it as an aphrodisiac, and it was native of England ^^'
@@xensonar9652 From Wikipedia: "Ragwort is native to the Eurasian continent. In Europe it is widely spread, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean." So it must have been an issue for the Medieval French and Spanish and Germans. With all the battles back and forth between England and the continent., I'm surprised it wasn't brought to England sooner.
5:55 it's not overkill, a pickaxe, or better yet, a pick mattock, is an excellent farming/gardening tool. Shovels suck at getting through grassy ground
Can we just take a moment to appreciate that headwear? From what I understand french farmers used the same headwear when working in the fields to keep the sun off their faces. Although I don't remember where I read that, or even if it's correct.
My uncle had a problem with poisonous plants in his fields a while back. Apparently it was a rainy year, which delayed his first cutting, and the weeds grew in the extra time, because it hasn't been an issue before or since.
That's why farming can be so difficult. A change in weather by even a week can just screw things up. I have several peach trees. It was an abnormal cool wet spring and none of the trees got any peaches. Nor any of the wild native peach trees I know that grow in the woods. Imagine if that was an important food source
found a load up the top of my garden a few weeks back and I was going to remove it until i noticed it was absolutely covered in cinnabar moth caterpillars, so I left it for them :)
Remember a summer job on a farm when I was a lad digging out toxic plants from fields to protect the horses. That is a stylish hat! Do you like the work of the French Realists? The depiction of the workers in the fields etc. is very emotive.
I'm not sure if anyone else noticed it, but at the end of the intro, where Jason is slicing the Mellon with the sword. It looks like the falling part is frowning, while the part still on the stick is smiling. . . perhaps my imagination is working too hard.
This video makes me curious about the diet of the medieval horse and how it differed by their functions and the time of year. How much food would a horse on campaign need? Did horses have their teeth floated in medieval times? And what kinds of medicine, treatments, and supplements were available to horses? I have too many questions but I’ve yet to find any sources about them.
Bit of a late comment for this video, but I am intrigued by your bycocket hat, as a keen wearer of hats. I see a lot of reenactment and cosplay types who make them out of separate pieces of woven fabric sewn together, and relatively few made of single pieces of shaped felt as this seems to be. I suspect the single piece of felt to be the more typical historical variant, maybe with multiple pieces seen together for more high class and fashionable pieces. Your version also has a shape which looks to be more naturally derived from the shape of the initial felt blank, in that the brim does not look cut down in any way, just folded up at the back and sides.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
"That's my weeding hat. It makes me look taller to scare the weeds away"
lol, it was to give me some shade from the hot sun!
@@ModernKnight That's 'way too prosaic! Teehee. 💐
@@ModernKnight nah, it makes the Neighbors believe some little Brownie would do all the hard work for you....:o)
@@ModernKnight Wrong tool. Use a Fork
wecan-tools.com/ShowProducts.asp?id=11106
lol, no that wouldn't work in my soil, it's not heavy enough, but thanks for the advice. I'm using the tool that years of personal experience shows me works well.
This guy is such a inspiration. He's a millionaire but was not taken off the track by spoiled life. He just uses his money to do things he loves and doing them for himself and living humble life in connection with nature. Show me one more millionaire who walks around weeding his fields. This guy just fills me with inner peace and inspiration.
thanks for your kind comments and support.
Jason, I'm so glad you are raising awareness of this deadly plant. Some years ago, there was an outbreak of equine deaths up and down the state of California. I was the barn trainer at a big livery stable with 60 horses. It was heartrending to personally see over 20 horses sicken and eventually die. Because the dead and dying horses were spread out over the length of the state and kept in all sorts of circumstances over a three week period, on the face of it, there did not seem to be a common cause. I couldn't believe it was random, so I got in touch with the local equine veterinary practice and all the owners of horses who'd died in Northern California or were treated at the state veterinary hospital in Sacramento. The common source turned out to be one lot of processed alfalfa hay that had been shipped state wide. A notice was subsequently sent out, the unused feed was destroyed and a treatment was suggested for horses who were showing signs of being ill, but had not succumbed.
how awful. those issues are partly why I grow my own hay here.
That actually made me tear up! 😢
Jason is a real inspiration to me. So successful in the modern age but yet totally grounded, knowledgeable and has respect for nature and the past. His calm energy and passion leave me in awe, this is a man that gets up goodness knows how early to look after a stable full of horses, runs a successful company which employs many and also produces one of the best youtube channels out there. All done with no bravado or complaints. World would be a better place with more Jason Kingsley's.
thanks for being so supportive, it's appreciated!
INteresting. I find the "mundane" portions of history the most fascinating. What did people have to do on the daily.
Agree
For sure
This isn’t even something they had to do in the past
The Victorians caused this problem
Ah yes, the medieval Bob Ross, never disappoints.
This guy really is the Medieval Bob Ross, love it!
And loves showing how the more things change, the more they stay the same
Never made that connection myself, but it's actually really accurate
Happy little weeds. . .
You increased your Herbalism skill.
Look everyone, Henry's come to see us!
That is so funny, I was thinking that too. Way to go Henry!
God be with you Henry
Meet you in the barn Henry
Jesus Christ be praised
I remember my sister and I de-ragworting our horses' fields when I was about fourteen and she twelve. I pulled up a ragwort plant, and then unthinkingly licked my finger. I asked my sister how long I had to live, and she said maybe two years if I was lucky. I was so upset that I'd never get to vote in a general election, of all things... (by the way, I'm 32 now).
Hahaha
Did you vote?
Did you die though?
@@muradm7748 No reply... I guess it finally got her.
@@fosty. the secret is that she typed this from the grave
I've got a ton of respect for you mate, that you do this work yourself. I've read the Wikipedia article about you, and I'm pretty sure you could hire folks to come do this back breaking work for you. But the fact that you are out there in there fields doing it yourself (or even with others) is highly respectable. Not many CEOs would be caught dead wielding a pickaxe in a field doing physical labor. Seriously dude, much respect. If I had a skillset that could be put to use by you (other than just as an aspiring writer of fiction), and lived on your wonderful isle, I'd be honored to work for you.
And thank you for highlighting this plant! It isn't super common where I live from what Google tells me, but I know to keep my eyes open for it as we have many wild/feral animals in my neighborhood that might decide to take a nibble. Now I can do those furry ones a favor and make sure none of these plants sticks around long.
You're right, I could hire people to do the work, but it's usually quite a nice day or two out in the long hay meadows. I could also pay people to look after and train my horses, but as you suggest, I like doing it myself! It keeps me fit and grounded and I love being outside in the landscape.
@@ModernKnight legend
@@ModernKnight also, if you do Things yourself you can be sure they are done well...
with some Tasks you have to trust employees or contractors, but with this the health and wellbeing of your valued horses might be something you want to be sure About.
@@ModernKnight I don't blame ya. You're the man, Sir Jason. A very honorable man.
Based
We have a similar problem in Kentucky with poison hemlock. It’s everywhere in the bluegrass area, especially along roads and fences. Very few people know what it is and think it’s Queen Anne’s Lace. Animals won’t eat it on purpose, but they can’t easily avoid it rolled up in hay.
As a beekeeper we know when the bees have been at the Ragwort. It stains everything yellow / orange. This is one reason why we recommend that pregnant women and very young children should not eat raw honey, as we never know if there is a low amount of poison present due to plants such as Ragwort. It was also one of the first plants my mentor taught me about when I was a teen who knew nothing about agriculture or botany.
how interesting, thanks for the information.
@@lukeskynanny As I recall from my beekeeping days, ragwort honey also tastes disgusting.
you know it's gonna be a good day when you see that both Townsends and modern history posted videos
Two of the best channels on RUclips for sure 👍😎
You know I was just thinking the same thing, these guys are the most wholesome people on RUclips. We must protect them at all costs! 👏👏😄
Could I add Lindybeige to this list?
The most interesting thing about ragwort is, that it can easily kill a horse, but a rabbit can eat it without any health risk. It shows how utterly robust rabbits are in regard to poisonous plants. Their digestive system is somewhat adjusted to such things, because they eat lots of herbs, which humans use in small dosage for medicine.
or maybe it goes through their system too fast to matter
Goats as well! They can eat damned near anything with impunity. I love goats.
@@Charok1 Sure, why not? Everything else they do is fast. :)
@@InnannasRainbow Yup! I can verify that the azelias and rhodies that "should" have killed my French Alpine nanny didn't slow her down for a minute!
Completely different species, of course it's different.
When we had horses we had to spend days get rid of that stuff, our old field was next to an old railway
Do those plants like the sound of trains ?
Definitely, helps the plants grow bigglier.
@@Tibi93 It has to do with the shit and piss people flush down the toilet, while traveling with said train, ferteilizing the ground around. Blackberry bushes also tend to trive in such locations.
@@Dutchviking021 not so much. Its more about habitat.
@@Dutchviking021 yeah that's right, all through the tracks were blackberry bushes either side, used to pick them for jams and stuff
0:44 legit thought he was going to break into song
Heyho heyho... :D
“Be wery wery qwiet, I’m hunting a wagwort” -Elmer Fudd
Hey Jason, you might want to try using a hoe or a mattock to dig up those weeds instead of a pick. You'll get a bigger chunk of dirt with each swing and you're pretty much guaranteed to get all the roots.
Great video as always! Looking forward to the next one
I was just thinking the same thing, maybe use a shovel.
I use a mattock, but an onion hoe can work early in the year before the roots are well developed.
I tried one of those but the stony ground and how dry it can get means a pickaxe works best for me personally.
Pick mattock, best of both worlds!
Or as a fellow archaeologist friend of mine has : a bar of gentle persuasion. Basically an enormous iron spike for digging holes in particularly rocky soils.
Excellent, a new Modern History video. Just what I needed to brighten up my evening.
You're the best Jason!
It’s also an important plant for insects including the pretty cinnabar moth. Poisonous to animals but oddly, used by people in medieval times for the treatment of certain ailments. Any plant that has wort (wurt in Old English) in the name as the suffix denotes it for having medicinal qualities.
I haven't been able to find any mention of it used medicinally as its name should suggest. I'll keep looking!
Obviously not used much since they discovered it destroys your liver, but...
1722 J. Miller _Botanicum Officinale_ 241 The leaves of Ragwort are commended by some as good for..cleaning foul sordid Ulcers and Sores. (From the OED)
"In olden days it was supposed to be 'a certaine remedie to help the Staggers in Horses,' whence one of its popular names, Staggerwort" _A Modern Herbal_ Mrs Grieve. She mentions the early 20th century realisation of the toxic effects.
1597 J. Gerard _Herball_ ii. 219 The countrey people do call it [Iacobea] Stagger woort, and Stauerwoort, and also Ragwoorte. (OED again)
"Ragwort was formerly much employed medicinally for various purposes. The leaves are used in the country for emollient poultices and yield a good green dye, not, however, permanent. The flowers boiled in water give a fair yellow dye to wool previously impregnated with alum. The whole plant is bitter and aromatic, of an acrid sharpness, but the juice is cooling and astringent, and of use as a wash in burns, inflammations of the eye, and also in sores and cancerous ulcers - hence one of its old names, Cankerwort. It is used with success in relieving rheumatism, sciatica and gout, a poultice of the green leaves being applied to painful joints and reducing the inflammation and swelling. It makes a good gargle for ulcerated throat and mouth, and is said to take away the pain caused by the sting of bees. A decoction of the root has been reputed good for inward bruises and wounds. In some parts of the country Ragwort is accredited with the power of preventing infection." _A Modern Herbal_ again.
Thank you @osgar333 and @Pat The Plant I was wondering :)
We have "-wurz" as the suffix in modern high german :)
I was always interested in the usage of herbs and knowing the basics of what's what in the nature. Thank you for making a video with some great answers!
Question: how could a medieval lord have told his servants, serfs or other subject to get rid of the ragwort if it was only introduced in Victorian times? Or were you talking about dealing with poisonous plants on meadows in general? It's no big deal but I just couldn't get this contradiction out of my head. Cheers.
It's native to Britain, it was spread by the railways, I mixed the two up whe speaking.
@@ModernKnight You confused the Oxford and the common ragwort, I think.
You neglected to mention that the cinnabar moth is more beautiful than many of our butterflies.
Edited to add: proper use of the word eradicate, good one!
Yes, this confused me a lot, still doesn't make sense, if railways spread it then does that mean it was only prevalent in some parts of the country and didn't exist in others? So perhaps only native to the south or North etc until Victorian times and railways?
@@navalenigma No, the common ragwort (the plant in this video) was present over large parts of Britain for as long as we know. Oxford ragwort started off in Oxford Botanic Garden when introduced from Sicily in the 17th century and it was famously spread by the railways in the 19th century. I don't believe either were ever grown in gardens as ornamentals. The Oxford ragwort was grown as an exotic curiosity in the Oxford Botanic Garden.
@@pattheplanter thank you
I just would like to thank you for the awesome video. So unique! Even though I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, i love Europe medieval history and feel very blessed to have access to such an interesting content, specially these ones showing their everyday lives.
It is so cool to learn very practical things like this. Keep it up, Jason! This is awesome! And nice hat!
The pasture is looking wonderful! Reminds me of the hills where I grew up in Colorado, USA.
Are all the horses still doing alright? And does The Mule with No Name have another title yet?
Anywho, I hope all's well and that you're not too busy at work so we can get some more of your awesome content. Keep up the good work, Ser Kingsley!
I think he should keep the mule with no name as his title...what a great movie title
Yes, does the mule have a name or will it be MWNN for all of time?
@@Jolan61 "Mwnn," pronounced as though it's Welsh.
Edit: "mwnn" means "mutiny" in Welsh, apparently.
Jason rocks!! You sir are a fantastic showman. The content is always factual and never dull. Superb!!
Glad you enjoy it!
It is indeed a very nice hat!
And I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that pause before "26 more acres" - already tired!!
In my area (southeastern USA) that stuff is all over the place, and it certainly does have a stench, but so few folks keep hay fields here that I had never heard about this being a problem - because as you said, the horses won't touch the plant while it is green and stinky. So now I've learned something useful in case I am ever privileged enough to have a pasture to worry over, haha!
I'd know that fuzzy yellow smear in the thumbnail anywhere! D=
Wikipedia says it's native to the UK, which is what I'd always thought, but here in Australia it truly is invasive. Funnily enough it seems to do a lot better over here, completely overtaking paddocks if left to its own devices. It took me years to clear it from this farm after I arrived, several hours a day for weeks and weeks whenever it came into flower, which happened to coincide with the farm teeming with deadly serpents, which I generally couldn't see underfoot because of all of the ragwort and long grass, due to the fields being unsafe for grazers... thankfully, not only did I get through it in the end, but the neighbour wordlessly and discretely took the subtle hint and did the same thing at the same time, which was a very pleasant surprise indeed! It's now completely gone from both farms (where it had been abundant for decades) and we're both happily running livestock in fields that were once almost solid yellow through summer. =)
I just used a pair of gloves and a firm grip at the base of the plant, which at least 95% of the time removed enough of the root to prevent regrowth, but when I could feel that I'd torn it and left a substantial root, I sort of fossicked around for the rest with the thick leather gloves - something which, in retrospect, could probably have been much improved with some sort of trowel. Using a heavier tool, like a pick or mattock, for the thousands upon thousands of plants would have been counter-productive though, because it'd have slowed me down enough that more plants would have had the chance to go to seed, which is the really critical thing to avoid.
An important characteristic of ragwort to keep in mind is that individual plants (at least theoretically) live for just two years, so they can only return to bother you for one more summer if you do leave something in the ground, though they can of course re-grow foliage for the intervening year and in so doing, continue to be a danger to livestock.
We have rich clay soil so not much ragwort here luckily, very careful not to bring in with hay. Brilliant suggestion to seed the divet! We do that with the mole holes, nice loose soil ready to take the seeds of plants and herbs we want for our horses.
It has to be removed and burned......it did (and still is) a notifiable weed, but councils don’t seem to take action any more. When I first moved to Norfolk and saw it, I had no idea what it was....a local farmer told me the importance of getting rid of it properly, as the seeds can lie dormant, with this little rhyme: “One year’s seed and you’ll have seven years weed’...
It’s a never ending struggle......
These videos never fail to make me smile. What a gem of a channel!
Twenty-six acres... roughly how many Stinking Billies would you guess you uprooted this year? Have you seen a general decrease in return customers, since you do it every year?
Ah but it comes in from other places, like bird and rabbit manure.
None that's a Stinking Willie he's removing.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 🤣
it's declining every year. Initially we took out about 10 large barrow loads, this year it was probably half a barrowload overall.
I love how your videos give glimpses into what everyday life was really like and how informed you are on the subjects Great channel
Glad you like them!
Love to see your videos in my feed. Natural, and relaxing.
You never fail to interest me! Hope all of you and yours are doing well. Cheers from Pennsylvania.
Now I've gotten an idea for a D&D league of assassins: The Ragwort Crown. Formed from farmers and herbalists who began using their knowledge of the toxic plants to earn extra coin, either by selling concoctions or "employing" them on a client's behalf. They call themselves "Billies" and "Williams", as a nod to the plant's alternate name. Their symbol is the flower of the ragwort itself, and members will sometimes where yellow on their person to identity each other.
Most members still work in peasant occupations. Farmers gather or even cultivate ragwort (among other deadly herbs), even offering to weed the fields of their neighbors of toxic plants (which they keep for themselves). Others are laborers or servants, or at least pass as them to get close to targets. Most people don't notice low class individuals coming and going, allowing them to hide in plain sight.
Of those members who has class levels, the lion's share are Rogues, of the Assassin subclass. However, some members cultivate a deeper understanding of both fighting and the power of the human body, becoming Monks following the Way of Shadows. These latter Billies serve much the same function in a Medieval European style setting as Ninjas did in Real Life feudal Japan: folks who disguise themselves as peasants, servants, and gardeners, until it's time to strike. All members of the Ragwort Crown are trained in Poisoner's Kits, Herbalism Kits, Stealth, Medicine or Nature, and improvised weapons (usually repurposed or modified farming implements).
Nice idea.👍
WRITE IT DOWN! WRITE IT DOWN!
I'm just admiring the confidence and self-esteem required to wear a hat like that out in public. This man is truly living his best life.
Good to see that Jason cares about his moth and bee viewers.
And Needlegrass, hate the stuff :( Thanks for the interesting video and like the hat!
I love these videos of yours. Very peaceful and enjoyable to watch though I'm sure it's hard work on your end.
Here in Texas, and other southern states, there is a critter called a blister beetle. They love to eat legumes, especially alfalfa. If a human gets just the "secretions" or oil of this beetle on their skin, it causes extremely painful, large blisters. If a horse injests one, even if they're dead and dried up in a hay bale, it is almost always fatal. That's why it isn't wise to buy alfalfa hay in the south. The hay needs to come from somewhere where the winters are cold enough that the beetles won't live there.
I didn’t know that. Gad, farming is difficult.
Interesting, in Germany we have a related species (Schwarzblauer Ölkäfer, looks like a gigantic metallic blue ant queen). I didn't knew they were toxic to horses as well. Well, you never stop learning :)
Here in Wyoming, I know a farmer who sends entire truckloads of second-cutting alfalfa to big horse ranches in Tennessee. It is their biggest money-maker. I asked him why the horse ranches don't just grow their own, and he told me the climate is better here. I wonder if blister beetles are the reason, or at least a factor.
I would suspect that's part of the reason, but good hay and alfalfa need a dry environment to dry out, Tennessee being as humid as it is would definitely cause insane amounts of rot, if not complete spoilage of the product.
oh! Is that why folks keep on asking me if I know anyone who has sweet hay for sale? I'd wondered, they were all from warmer climes
Great video, I love this kind of information from the past. Still practical while being rooting and humbling
First we had the series “The Knight”. Now we have a new series - “The Serf” 😂
This reminds me of the Bibe scripture about the wheat and the weeds. The answer to not harvest any of the poisonus weeds or lose any of the wheat was to wait until harvest season. The wheat would bear fruit whilst the weeds would look very distinct during its mature phase. Can't wait to see the full video. Thank you for all of your hard work.
Good point. Although tares are a different type of plant entirely.
Same here! :D
Love this channel for its relaxing tone and informative topics
Sir Knight your amazing!!! Wow I didn’t know this!! Thank you!!
Can’t wait to see the harvest video of the hay! Love all your videos!!!
Our multi-faceted lives! Great and pracital info. So far still my favorite of your films was the one on the leather medieval map of the world !!! 🌿
What a lovely video. I'm glad you tagged it at the end of a new video so I found it. I also love that you do a lot of the work on your land yourself. Including ragget hunting. (If I've spelled it right) 👍
Jason videos are work of art, always interesting and engaging.
thanks for your support.
Now I know why my dad had my brothers and I getting rid of ragwort. As a teenager I spent hours digging the stuff up.
Jason I love your hat! I've really enjoyed this show; thank you for all the cool information!
Thanks for watching!
Very good to see another upload it has been to long thanks Modern History
I didn't look for this video but wow was I hooked watching him talk about a plant.
Also that soil most be rocky - when he used the pick at the end, you could hear the crunch and scraping of rocks.
thanks for watching, yes the soil here is called Cotswold brash and in very rocky.
Awesome, try more common every day things like this one, please. It really completes the whole medieval picture of a knight.
These videos are so relaxing to me. I usually fall asleep watching them. I mean this in a good way though. Keep it up 👍
lol, taken in the right way!
This brings back memories of having to go rag-pulling on my uncle’s dairy farm in my summer holidays. Very boring and hard work for an eight-year old who just wanted to read his book.
I too was unpaid labor on my uncle's farm. He was sneaky though, second year he started "paying" me with used paperbacks
Jolan61 Uncles eh?! At least you some compensation- I was just offered the chance to see calves born!
73North & Jolan61
Lol guys! Your uncs weren't really taking advantage-you boys were just sooo much closer to the ground than pesky adults!
(In western Oregon, the soil is fairly friable. If you pull ragweed in spring before everything dries out, you can get the entire plant. Later- ouch!) Blessings!
(sp. edit)
Amanda Wilcox That might explain why I am so tall (6’5”) - my body didn’t want to have to be near the damn things anymore!
Good video as always :). I could spot one in the far distance over your right shoulder as well, (left in the video).
Love your hat! We had problems with botulism in round bales, lost one horse.
I love this channel
Thanks for your quality videos.
Glad you like them!
That is......the coolest......hat .....*EVER*
Love the channel Jason!
I used to work for the states clearing ragwort, we were still doing it by hand until they disbanded the department (no budget for forks).
Unfortunately it spreads like the clap and on Lihou island they keep great fields of it for the sake of the cinnabar moths.
Also: if you put it in bin-bags on a hot day, it leaks horrid orange-yellow sap everywhere which scorches itself into damn near everything. We struggled to get it off the truck flatbeds.
I can still spot it from about 3 fields away from a moving vehicle and it drives me mental to know so many keep it like a damned ornament.
Hello, my friend and I always enjoy seeing you and catching what you have to share, always interesting and helpful to many people I'm sure. Thanks for the interesting video. Be well.
this channel is so well made that it can makes weeds interesting!
I love this channel. Reminds me I need to get the ragwort out of my pastures.
Edit: Now it makes more sense. Thanks, Modern History TV!
Original Comment: Well, I doubt that in Medieval times they would have been looking out for a plant that wasn't introduced until the Victorian Era, but otherwise this was a very interesting video on an important bit of husbandry and definitely informative.
yes, I misspoke, it was spread by the railways, but is a native plant.
@@ModernKnight Thanks! That looks like a pain to have to do every year, but thanks for the videos, and glad that all of the animals have such a wonderful home and keeper to watch after them and give them productive and happy lives!
Fascinating stuff 👍 btw love your hat, could you do a video explaining about it an how it's made if possible? Many thanks.
that hat has to be like +30 botany, but then i realized how cool it looks so it probably has bad stats. lol xD . love the vids. i was curious how they would of known it was bad for the animals, since the effects take so long to notice, and being pretty newly introduced to the land as well??
i added question marks on the last bit to make it more clear, and lost your heart :0 . so def hope someone has some ideas, i guess they were just bosses at plant characteristics and just cared what every plant was they were feeding to their horses ?
I love this channel ♥️
Hi Jason, love your channel, absolutely fascinating as I love social history. I was thinking of you with your pick axe! I use a mattock which I inherited. It's a very different shape to a normal mattock, it's got a short wide blade (a pointed square) on one side with a flat wedge type pick on the other, with a very long handle, and is a very effective tool for rooting out, it's brilliant! I would be interested as to it's origin, I am in Dorset and I presume that it must have been from around here a few generations back.
thanks for your kind words. many tools were made locally, some still are, and there were local variations in shape and form, particulalry well know are billhooks for hedging.
We have similar problems where I work; we keep a herd of managed red and fallow deer so the ragwort needs to be controlled. At the same time it is a SSSI and Cinnabar Moths have been spotted so we have to leave some for them. Never really noticed the smell myself, considering there are plenty other smellier plants, such as swamp cabbage, stinking iris and the gravy plant.
Tansy ragwort became an incredible problem here in Northern California when it first showed up in the seventies, as it had no natural enemies. First some sort of beetle was brought in, but that didn't do much. It wasn't until after the Cinnabar Moth was brought in that the infestation became manageable. It's still bad enough though that the local refuse station has an annual contest to see who can bring in the most.
The fact that he has actually been knighted fucking kills me
This is fascinating! and add one more to the many, many things I never knew.
It is one of these things... we have the same issue with Capeweed. But when you have gotten rid of it, but the field next to you haven't because they don't care is annoying... but a process that has to be done.
Should have been in full armor, ya know, just to be safer.
So nice to see someone that really cares about our enviourent😍
I remember a friend with horses trying to manage ragwort in their fields having trouble with the young ragwort plants as they are very low to the ground and if the grass was short the horses were more at risk of accidently ingesting it than the larger more obvious plants
You mentioned ragwurt was brought in during Victorian times yet you mention at 4:35 about it being a problem in Medieval times.
They no doubt would worry about other things similar to ragwurt they didn't want growing around themselves so your statement still likely stands.
Excellent work as always though Jason!
Yeah, I did't get it either
Yep small wording error. I guess he was thinking about other poisonous plants at that moment.
He might have meant it was brought to England in Victorian times.
I think he was talking about the Americas, because it's an european plant ^^
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobaea_vulgaris
According to wikipedia, greeks and romans used it as an aphrodisiac, and it was native of England ^^'
@@xensonar9652 From Wikipedia: "Ragwort is native to the Eurasian continent. In Europe it is widely spread, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean." So it must have been an issue for the Medieval French and Spanish and Germans. With all the battles back and forth between England and the continent., I'm surprised it wasn't brought to England sooner.
5:55 it's not overkill, a pickaxe, or better yet, a pick mattock, is an excellent farming/gardening tool. Shovels suck at getting through grassy ground
Went hunting for nightshade in my pasture only yesterday. There are some jobs that just need done.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate that headwear? From what I understand french farmers used the same headwear when working in the fields to keep the sun off their faces. Although I don't remember where I read that, or even if it's correct.
I didn’t even flinch when he said about hunting dragons, as i fully believed Jason has a live dragon on his land.
My uncle had a problem with poisonous plants in his fields a while back. Apparently it was a rainy year, which delayed his first cutting, and the weeds grew in the extra time, because it hasn't been an issue before or since.
That's why farming can be so difficult. A change in weather by even a week can just screw things up.
I have several peach trees. It was an abnormal cool wet spring and none of the trees got any peaches. Nor any of the wild native peach trees I know that grow in the woods. Imagine if that was an important food source
found a load up the top of my garden a few weeks back and I was going to remove it until i noticed it was absolutely covered in cinnabar moth caterpillars, so I left it for them :)
I do love cinnabar moths.
I've spent so many hours of my life removing ragwort from fields 😂. Happy days though spent with friends. Also de-dunging fields too!
Nifty hat there Jason! Yes that weed is a blooming nuisance in hay fields and grazing.
Surprised of the choice of a pickaxe over a mattock! Charming video, as always.
Awesome vid🔥
An important key to identifying members of the Asteraceae family is by the shape of their phylaries.
lol.
Yakomuto-but what about the horses they rode in on? 🐴👾
Ragwort is also known as Tansy in the US.
Queen Anne’s Lace, wild parsnip, all toxic to horses.
Love your hat and would love to know where you got it.
Remember a summer job on a farm when I was a lad digging out toxic plants from fields to protect the horses.
That is a stylish hat!
Do you like the work of the French Realists? The depiction of the workers in the fields etc. is very emotive.
those pictures are a goldmine of data for what they actually wore, or at least what real people wore to work and not formal court clothes.
I’ve got ragwort, dogbane, copperweed, jimsonweed, hemlock, Wild parsnip, and several nightshades growing wild here in abundance
Oof! That'll be some work to eradicate!
Do you have a list of songs you use in your videos? They are really calming and relaxing. I would love to listen to them outside of videos.
I'm not sure if anyone else noticed it, but at the end of the intro, where Jason is slicing the Mellon with the sword. It looks like the falling part is frowning, while the part still on the stick is smiling. . . perhaps my imagination is working too hard.
Can you do some more videos on plants please!
This video makes me curious about the diet of the medieval horse and how it differed by their functions and the time of year. How much food would a horse on campaign need? Did horses have their teeth floated in medieval times? And what kinds of medicine, treatments, and supplements were available to horses? I have too many questions but I’ve yet to find any sources about them.
Bit of a late comment for this video, but I am intrigued by your bycocket hat, as a keen wearer of hats. I see a lot of reenactment and cosplay types who make them out of separate pieces of woven fabric sewn together, and relatively few made of single pieces of shaped felt as this seems to be. I suspect the single piece of felt to be the more typical historical variant, maybe with multiple pieces seen together for more high class and fashionable pieces. Your version also has a shape which looks to be more naturally derived from the shape of the initial felt blank, in that the brim does not look cut down in any way, just folded up at the back and sides.
love your videos
thanks
We need a video about your caps and hats!