Back in the day, certain trees were managed to produce masses of leaves that could be easily plucked and turned to hay for stock feed. Ash was the favoured tree, but sycamore, chestnut, hornbeam and others were utilised in this way. The process was a kind of pollarding and trees pruned in this way were treasured and very carefully nurtured. This image shows a leaf-hay gatherer. I found an article on 'Hay in the treetops', by Bernard Jarman, in a 'Harvests' magazine. It makes very interesting reading.
13 comments:
I didn't know about leaf hay but I have spent many an interesting morning cutting down (pollarding) willow trees so that stock could have something to eat during a drought
The interesting bit is avoiding dropping the trees on the eager stock
Of course with irrigation not needed as much
Ray, I'm very interested in what you describe and can I ask, what variety of popular were you cutting? There is a group called the Poplar and Willow Trust that researches and develops new varieties and I'm keen to learn more about their work. It's my view that there is a tremendous future in both trees, nation wide. We have rivers that need 'healing' and those trees, willows in particular, are in part, the way that will be done. Incidentally presently I'm working on a plan to seed the berms with cow-shit patties that contain beech seed. It's an idea suggested to me by a clever man and such ideas are best followed, rather than ignored :-)
Oh, and your drought referrence - I'd be planting willows and populars, rather than relying on irrigation, were I you (though I don't know which part of the country you inhabit.) Climate Change is going to make fools of most of us.
I hope your photo is not too prophetic of the NZ economy under a Green-dominated coalition of the left.
Have you stopped yet to think WHY people stopped making leaf hay?
I have no stock to feed but could you use the green leaves for compost? I have an unwanted large sycamore and this could be a good use for it :)
V Pollard - I suspect that once Key has sold off the assets we developed over the past few decades, we'll all be strapping on our leaf-baskets and heading out into the rough fields. It can still be avoided of course. Don't vote National.
Anonymous - yes. And I've thought about why it's good to know how it was done, in case we need to once again learn to use our available resources sustainably. While we may never need to harvest the leaves of trees, the principal of managing tree products in perpetuity is a great model, don't you think?
renetsil - leaves are best used to make leaf-mould. It's a fine compost that can be used as an excellent seed raising mix, as it has no weed seed in it. Just pile them into a netting 'basket' pegged into the ground. Most deciduous leaves will make lovely leaf-mould, especially oak.
Anon @ 3:39 I expect one of the reasons was the increase it the availability of cheap and dense energy, in the form of oil, and the associated mechanisation and change in skillsets needed to work those machines.
As long as we have abundant cheap oil we won't need to know about tree hay.
Tree hay mauri ora!
Very clever the way you have switched the photo from depicting NZ under a Green Government to NZ under a National Government.
You are too smart for those Tories, Robert.
Well done, keep up the excellent work!
Tena koe, Wit. Pai rawa to ingoa kakama!
Hi Robert. I am very interested in how to actually make leaf hay and wondered if you could direct me to the article you mentioned in your post. I live on a very wooded lot with many young trees, and have lifestock. I'd love to be more sustainable in my feeding of the animals. Any help in find sources that explain the "how" would be great. I'll keep looking, myself, too, but any help you could offer would be great. Thank you!
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