14 Composition of the Yellow Lupine, 



First, as to the season: it was one which, in regard to all 

 other crops, was singularly favourable for the burning land in 

 question. The wheat grown close at hand was almost the only 

 good piece on the farm ; the adjacent barley was unusually good 

 (between 10 and 11 sacks, worth 40s. and upwards, on land 

 worth from 12s. to 15s. per acre) ; the layers had more than 

 twice .their usual quantity of feed ; moreover, the lupines were 

 already on the wane before the season had developed its extreme 

 tendency to cold and wet. I cannot think, therefore, that the 

 season affected the result : and all the more, because for the 

 kindred leguminous crop of tares, when grown on such soils, 

 the rain can never fall in excess. 



Next as to management : the land appropriated to the ex- 

 periment was the last portion of the green rape reserved for 

 feeding the ewes and lambs, until in our bleak district the rye- 

 grass layer was nearly ready to receive them. The flock was 

 liberally supplied with extra keep, and the land was in good 

 heart, as the adjacent barley-crop clearly shows. 



The lupines were sown on the 5th of May : 2 bushels of seed 

 per acre, in rows 9 inches apart. On the 12th of May a grass 

 layer was sown over these 9J acres, in common with the rest of 

 the barley-shift. Shortly the yellow lupines appeared, a tolerable 

 plant ; the blue never came up so as to form a plant from the 

 bad quality of the seed. 



By the early part of June there were plants of yellow lupine 3 

 and 4 inches high, and their roots were more large, fleshy, and 

 long than the stem. At this point they all stopped : those at the 

 upper end of the field, where the chalk was near to the surface, 

 being the first stunted ; those lower down, where the black sand 

 was deeper, soon following that example. From this point the 

 grass layer and weeds gained the ascendancy. In the first week 

 in July the lupines began to die away, and when the layer was 

 fed off on the 23rd of July not a lupine was visible. If it be 

 objected that the layer choked the lupines, I can only say that 

 when tares have in like manner been sown with layer this was 

 not the case ; and moreover, the lupines started with a good 

 lead, if they could have kept it ; and their deep and strong roots, 

 as well as their stems, ought to have maintained their ascendancy 

 but for untoward circumstances. 



If this crop is not suited to the place in our rotation which 

 was assigned to it, I hardly know where it can be inserted 

 advantageously ; especially, if it cannot hold its own against a 

 layer, it will be of little service in my eyes, because I am more 

 and more convinced that on heath land, as far as possible, all the 

 corn should be put in a whole furrow ; and that in a hot season 

 this mechanical advantage is of more importance than almost 



