82 PASTURE AND RANGE. 
It is common in wet places and of wide distribution. 
It is an upright branching, plant from two to six feet 
high. The pinnately compound leaves have long, narrow, 
sharply toothed leaflets. The lower ones are long petiol- 
ed, the upper almost sessile. The white flowers are borne 
in compound umbels with narrow bracts. 
SUNFLOWER FAMILY—Compositae. 
RAGWORT—Senecio Jacobaea L. 
Other Common Names: British Ragwort, Tansy- 
ragwort, Staggerwort, Stinking Willie. 
Stockmen in eastern Canada formerly lost consider- 
able numbers of cattle through a mysterious ailment 
called “Pictou Cattle Disease.” The liver was 
Pictou the organ especially attacked. Long periods of 
Disease Nervous irritability and gradual emaciation were 
followed by increasing weakness and death. An 
investigation of the disease by the Canadian Department 
of Agriculture proved the correctness of suspicions held 
by farmers for years, that Ragwort was the cause. Since 
that time experience in England and New Zealand has 
corroborated this conclusion. 
Both in pasture and in hay, Ragwort has proved 
poisonous to cattle and, to a lesser extent, to horses. 
Sheep generally eat it with impunity. The 
effect of the poison is apparently cumulative, 
and animals may feed on the plant for months before 
characteristic symptoms develop. Then the hair loses its 
lustre, the animal becomes irritable and nervous, with 
occasional chills, followed later by a paleness of the 
Symptoms 
