82 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



ner 1 sent you some account of by the Sheplierd last year. It 

 is not the Lobelia^ (as I had surmised) but a leguminous plant 

 growing about two and a half or three feet high, with glau- 

 cous lanceolate leaves, about two inches long, ending in a 

 sharp point, and each furnished with two minute, prickle- 

 like stipules ; the flowers are orange-colour, and produced, 

 several together, on a sort of raceme which grows from tlie 

 axils of the upper leaves. The leaves are frequently three 

 in a whorl ; the flowers, when expanded, are about half an 

 inch in diameter ; they are succeeded by hairy seed-vessels, 

 about the size of a large pea, which are spotted with brown, 

 and permanently crowned by the style. 



" There has been much difference of opinion among the 

 settlers, as to the cause of the death of so many of our flocks 

 and herds. Dr Harris, who has had much experience in 

 sheep and cattle, was of opinion that the animals died of a 

 dangerous inflammatory disease. He had published a letter 

 to that effect, which brought over most of the members of 

 our Agricultural Society to his opinion ; but his son, Mr 

 Joseph Harris, thought with me that the animals died of 

 poison. He had lost about fifty sheep on his farm, on the 

 William river, a few days before I visited him, and the exact 

 spot where the sheep had been feeding, when they were thus 

 affected, was known. I found that there were but a few 

 plants of which the sheep ate on these occasions, which could 

 possibly cause their death, and these I determined to put to 

 the test of experiment. The Lobelia I had tried a few days 

 before, yet although the juice is extremely acrid, it appeared 

 to have no bad effects on a sheep to which it was given. 

 Several circumstances had caused this plant (the Legumi- 

 nous one) to be suspected. Mr Harris called it the Sage 

 plant, from its having in its leaves some resemblance to the 

 common garden Sage. He had observed that a flock of 

 sheep which his father and hirnself brought from the Sound 

 to the William, without loss, did not feed on this plant; 

 whereas another flock which were brought by the same par- 

 ties and by the same road, ate of it, and many of them died 



