Now! Then! Smooth-leaved holly as winter fodder for Pennine sheep

Excerpt

In the south west of Yorkshire, at and about Bradfield, and in Derbyshire, they feed all their sheep in winter with holly leaves and bark, which they eat more greedily than any grass. To every farm there is so many holly trees; and the more there is the farm is dearer; but care is taken to plant great numbers of them in all farms thereabouts. And all these holly trees are smooth-leaved and not prickly. As soon as the sheep sees the shepherd come with an axe in his hand they all follow him to the first tree he comes at, and stands all in a round about the tree, expecting impatiently the fall of a bough, which, when it is falling, all as many as can eats thereof, and the shepherd going further to another tree, all those that could not come in unto the eating of the first follow him to this, and so on. As soon as they have eaten all the leaves they begin of the bark and pares it all off.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

John Guillim also tells us that “there is a kind of holly that is void of these prickles and of gentler nature, and therefore called free-holly, which in my opinion is the best holly” (Guillim 1660); John Evelyn that holly “is with us of two eminent kinds, the prickly, and smoother leaved, or as some term it, the free-holly, not unwelcome when tender, to sheep, and other cattle” (Evelyn 1670); and Pryme, a folklorist rather than a biologist, reports hearsay over observation. However, while leaves on young, and in the lower limbs of mature, trees have three to five sharp spines on each side, pointing alternately upward and downward, leaves of the upper branches in mature trees lack spines. The evolutionary reason is obvious: sheep, cattle and other potential predators can’t fly.

Jeffrey Radley:

Village names containing ‘hollin’ as a component are rare, but there is a Hollinsend, Sheffield, and Hollingworth, Cheshire. On the high moors trees grow best in the entrenched cloughs, and there are several indicative names such as Holling Dale on Bradfield Moors; Hollingworth Clough, Hayfield; and Hollins Clough, Dovedale. Near Bolsterstone, Yorkshire, there is Hollin Busk and Hollin Edge Height (Radley 1961).

I haven’t read Martin Spray’s article (Spray 1981).

In Campoo, on the southern slopes of the Cantabrian Range:

The basis of livestock feed was and continues to be pasture, meadow grass and agricultural produce (wheat, barley, potatoes, cabbage, alfalfa, carob, etc.), although it is now common to supplement this diet with feed and products brought from elsewhere. Family economics of just a few decades ago did not allow this type of luxury. Cattle, sheep, horses and even pigs grazed the countryside, although today only cattle and horses remain common. In the past, when food was scarce, it was necessary to resort to foraging wild resources. Branches of elm, holly or poplar were cut so that cattle, sheep and goats could take advantage of their leaves; weeds and other wild vegetables such as white asphodel, nettles, thistles (Sonchus asper) or field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) were used as a supplement for pigs, rabbits and chickens; heather and gorse (Ulex gallii) were chopped for horses; acorns and other fruits such as wild apples or beechnuts were collected to fatten the pigs, although they might also be given to other animals (Pardo de Santayana 2008).

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Original

In the south west of Yorkshire, at and about Bradfield, and in Derbyshire, they feed all their sheep in winter with holly leaves and bark, which they eat more greedily than any grass. To every farm there is so many holly trees; and the more there is the farm is dearer; but care is taken to plant great numbers of them in all farms thereabouts. And all these holly trees are smooth-leaved and not prickly. As soon as the sheep sees the shepherd come with an axe in his hand they all follow him to the first tree he comes at, and stands all in a round about the tree, expecting impatiently the fall of a bough, which, when it is falling, all as many as can eats thereof, and the shepherd going further to another tree, all those that could not come in unto the eating of the first follow him to this, and so on. As soon as they have eaten all the leaves they begin of the bark and pares it all off.

178 words.