RAGWORT GOLD AND GLOOM 



cattle were so numerous that two cow-boys were 

 needed in summer, and even then we often heard 

 the tinkling bells of cattle that had roamed into the 

 copses ; so that a pound, with a sixpenny fine, was a 

 regular institution. In those days the ragwort only 

 grew in tufts here and there on the open common. 

 But to-day, with the capricious brake fern, it has 

 invaded a great part of the open spaces, and is 

 spoiling the pasturage. One result of this increase 

 of ragwort is a food for the rabbits that I have 

 never heard of. They have discovered that the 

 root is good to eat in the winter, and, when 

 the yellowing grass is half smothered by the 

 mosses, they scratch away the soil till they reach 

 the plant. 



The root of the ragwort, and often several of its 

 deeply crenated leaves, are hibernating just beneath 

 the moss and grass, and I think the rabbit must 

 discover them by scent where it is not guided by 

 one of the dead stalks still upstanding. Hundreds 

 of little holes in the turf show where the rabbits 

 have scraped away the grass and moss and penetrated 

 to the root. 



Broad acres of ragwort in summer are only 

 inferior to the gorse gold of May. We owe to 

 ragwort, too, the day-flying cinnabar moth, with 

 the gorgeous wings of black and crimson. But 

 by the end of the year its gaunt and wasted 

 stems, which have not yet been laid flat like 

 the brake fern's, are nearly black from frost and 

 rain. 



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