PRICKLY COMFREY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3935, 26 June 1877, Page 2

PRICKLY COMFREY.

ITS HISTORY, CULTIVATION, EXTRAORDINARY PRODUCTION, AND USES.

[From tlio " Hobart Town Meroury."] TlfE following letter addressed to his Excellenoy Sir Hercules Robinson, President of the Agricultural Society of New South Wales, &c, &c, &c, by Arthur T. Holroyd, will be read with interest by €agriculturists who have an eye to their Own advantage. The vise of the plant promises to introdude a ndw era in stockfeeding. We learn that Mr Russell Young has secured 12 plants, and his experiment will be watched with some anxiety. He deserves credit for his enterprise, and will do much good to the farmers if, as we doubt not he can, he succeeds in making his experiment a success. The writer saya : — My dear Sir Hercules, — My attention having been attracted some fifteen or sixteen months ago to the Prickly Comfrey by a short article in the Country Gentleman's Magazine, 1 determined at once to introduce it into this colony ; and though my first efforts were ineffectual, owing to the miscarriage of the letter containing the order for the roots for planting, it was not until after the arrival of the Whampoa on the 15th July in 1876, that I was in the position of being able to plant them in my garden. Unfortunately, out of 600 root-cuttings ordered, not one-half arrived in a sound and healthly condition — sufficient, however, were fertile, and the experiment which I am now trying will show me and my agricultural friends whether this extraordinary plant can be grown to advantage and acclimatised here. I can only say, from information I have before me, that if I succeed, it will be the greatest blessing ever conferred upon agriculturists and graziers in dry and droughty seasons. Imagine this perennial plant producing the first year as much as twenty tons to the acre ; the second fifty, and every year after from eighty to one hundred and twenty tons — but if the authorities upon which I rely are to be believed, this enormous production will be realised. I have addressed this letter to your Excellency as President of the Agricultural Society of New South Wales, and prior to laying before you the history of Prickly Comfrey —its simple cultivation, its extraordinary production and its manifold uses— l think it right to say the following remarks must be considered a compilation and arrangement of materials which I have obtained from several sources. A few months, however, will be sufficient to test its qualities. I have plants in full leaf and apparently doing well, and if the annual crops with me are only half of what they are represented to be in England, I shall be satisfied with the result, and more than compensated for its introduction. It is uncertain when the Prickly Comfrey — the Symphytum Asperrimum of botanists — was introduced into England. It is a native of the Caucasus. One author believes that it was brought over in. 1799, but I think that there is little doubt now that " it was originally introduced into England by the Messrs Loddiges in 1811, its bright blue-bell flowers and foliage seeming to recommend it as a showy adjunct in the shrubbery or large flower border. Somewhere about 1850 it was recommended to the farmer as a green soiling plant, capable of affording a large quantity of nutritive and relishing food, especially good for cattle." — Country Gentleman's Magazine. The Treasury of Botany informs us that : — " Its graceful pendent of lightblue flowers and bold foliage recommended it as an ornamental plant in spacious flower-gardens or the front of the shrubbery ; in which it has to a greater or less extent kept a place in old gardens, but some few years ago it was recommended as a green ' soiling' plant." Mr Stephen Shilling, of Teddington, Middlesex, tells us that " The true sort of Prickley Comfrey is a Perrennial Herbaceous Plant, a native of the Caucasus, and perfectly hardy. It belongs to the family of Anchusa or Borage plant. It is safe as a food, and «o?»-poisonous in all its stages of growth. The leaves are greyish-green, rough in texture, elongated like the Fox Glove {Digitalis Furpurea), but much larger, and throwing up several hollow stems. The flowers are produced on the point of the stem, small in size, blue color, only four seeds in a small capsule. The seeds are rarely known to be fertile when raised in England, unless impregnated with pollen of Symphytum Official c or Common Comfrey, a native of Britain, a worthless plant which no domestic animal will touch." Prickley Comfrey has been for some years established in Ireland and in some parts of England, and is grown extensively by Mr Kinard Edwards, at Hinckley, in Leicestershire. The following is the result of an analysis of Si/mpliytum Asperrimum by Professor Voelcker : —

On the comparison, the above figures will show this plant to be almost equal to some of our more important green food crops ; and certainly if we take into consideration the quantity of its produce, there are few plants capable of yielding so much of green food as the Comfrey. Dr. Voelcker says, that the " amount of fleshforming substances is considerable. The juice of this plant contains much gum and mucilage and but little sugar." (Treasury of Botany.) Mr Thomas Christy, of 155, Fenchurchstreet, London, furnishes us with the following particulars: — "Prickly Comfrey being a deep rooted plant, is not dependent on weather and climate, and it will afford several cuttings when other vegetation is either burnt up or at a standstill." The cultivation of Comfrey is the next point to be considered ; and here we have a plant with enormous powers of production giving us apparently little trouble in growing it, in almost any soil, in all climates, and under all conditions. If a quarter of an acre of ground is set apart in a suburban garden sufficient forage can be obtained to maintain a cow and a horse all the year round, and keep the family in good, rich, wholesome milk ("not sky blue"), and butter of superior quality to what is obtained from the grocer. " Gentlemen who have grown Comfrey for twenty years in England, say they get better and richer milk from their cows, and a higher price for their butter. " I am sure the extracts which I am about to give will prove the valuable acquisition of keeping a cow cheaply by a suburban resident. After the ground has been properly prepared, the roots may be subdivided and planted in all but the dry season of the year. In Europe, this plant cannot be cultivated from seed. Mr H. Doubleday, of Coggeshall, Essex, took a great deal of pains to test the fertility of the seed. He says, " I would not hybridise or have any inferior variety near them ; I sowed the seed under all conditions, and under glass, .and in the open ground ; I only obtained a score or two on a considerable space of ground under glass, and kept very moist a few more. My opinion is, there are a few fertile seeds, but certain not one per cent, ; but as the root cuttings are so successful, Are have ample means of increase." I began thus :— I forked my ground

10 inches deep ;• I opened a small trench, and forked the bottom six inches deeper. I then put on the bed a good covering of stable and farm manure. I mixed this well with the soil, having scattered a little bonedust \ipon it ; I next planted the root cuttings or sets, two feet apart, in the rows, and the rows two feet apart also ; but I see already that the ground can be worked more advantageously to the plants, if the plants and rows were three feet apart instead of two, and where space of grounk is no object, I should recommend it. I intend to do so in future. If this latter suggestion be adopted, 1000 root-cuttings will popupy a quarter of an acre; My ground being ready,- t tdok out a handful of soil where each set was to be planted, put a little moist sand in the hole and planted a root-cutting in it three inches deep. I selected moist ground. I keep the ground clean and free from weeds ; in two or three weeks after planting, leaves like Foxglove appeared. A writer in the Field, of December 17th, 1870, states :— '' It is nearly forty years since my attention was directed to Prickly Comfrey ; its excellencies as a food for cattle, its specialties, the chief of which is its rapid and continuous reproduction. I procured in the year I spoke of (about 1832) 25 seta of the Prickly Comfrey taken immediately from the plant grown on the spot. I know nothing at all comparable to it to set before cattle for nourishment. The weight of each leaf will be somewhat more than an ounce. When the whole crown was taken at once it was reproduced in the short space of 10 or 12 days in the summer time, and in a fortnight or little more in late spring and autumn. As to the place where Prickly Comfrey is to be planted, any Soil Beems to suit it. I have, where I am at present, two spots where it is planted ; one, an open sunny place on almost a sand ; the other, a stiff clay against a north wall ; and they seem to do nearly equally well in both. My notion is that the plant derives a good deal of nourishment from its decayed leaves in autumn, which I have always left." Any soil but chalk suits it. Spring is the most proper time for planting in England, but no month comes amiss with it unless mid-winter, when the frost might kill the fresh planted roots. When Mr Doubleday first divided his roots about four years ago, he planted his root cuttings experimentally. He says, "I found these grew satisfactorily in a very peculiar way ; a circle of leaves was produced around the top of the inner bark of the root, while the root fibres formed all over the under bark. The next season I cut the roots into smaller pieces, and these also all grew in a similar way ; but I found this difference between the cut roots and the divided crowns — the former only produced leaves the first season, the latter perfect blossoming plants. My experience in feeding on a small scale was quite satisfactory. Lambs and pigs were extremely fond of it and did well ; they are also very fond of it in the dry state. My land is a heavy clay on which the Comfrey grows luxuriantly, the roots striking down deep into the ground. Last year (1875), my first cut was from three to four feet high (plants three feet apart), some producing 101 b each plant, or 21^ tons per acre, at the first cut, 15th of May." Mr Stephen Shilling has supplied some valuable information on the Prickly Comfrey in the Live Stock Journal and Fancier's Gazette. In writing on planting he says, " In selecting sets, bear in mind that the small root sets, or pieces of the roots become far more productive than old crowns, although the crowns are apparently much stronger It is the same with young vines raised from eyes, which are far more robust and productive than vines raised from layering or cuttings taken 6 to 10 inches long from old wood. " From Mr Edwards I gather further that " Prickly Comfrey possesses many advantages over other plants in common use. It affords a cutting earlier and lasts longer than any other. If cultivated upon a good deep soil, it will yield a heavier crop than any other plant ; and when once planted, it will last for ever. It is very hardy, and is found to produce heavy crops upon any dry soil, although poor and unsheltered."

Lkavks Stem. In j Calcu- In Calcunatural I lated natural lated state. I dry. state. dry. Water . . . SB-4Oo! .. 97-74 1 , .. Flesh forming- substances T . 2-712 23 37 "69 13 06 Non - nitrogenised substances: Heat and fat - producing matters . 6-398 59 49 3 'Bl 72-49 Inonjanic matters (Ash) . . 1-990 17-14 -76 14-45 100000' ioo-ooo! 100000! ioo-000