610 Domestic Notices : — Scotland. 



a great height, and although much broken down and prostrated by a violent 

 storm in August, yet I have been able to select an unbroken stem, which 

 measures 10 ft. in length ; many of the stalks are, at the base, of the size of a 

 man's forefinger, hollow, but very woody and strong. 1 am not yet able to 

 ascertain whether the plant will prove a perennial or only a biennial. The 

 produce of seed is immense. The quantity you sent me might have been con- 

 tained in a dessert spoon. From this year's produce of that small stock, I have 

 already, this autumn, sown about two gallons of seed ; and when I have 

 harvested and rubbed out the residue, I expect about half as much more, 

 which I shall not sow till spring. The application of this crop must, as it 

 appears to me, be in a degree limited. I conceive that, when somewhat less 

 than half-grown, it might be cut for green fodder, and possibly for hay ; but 

 the great size of its stalks would create a difficulty in getting it sufficiently 

 dried for hay, within the compass of any ordinary haymaking season. If suf- 

 fered to stand till it has attained its full stature, though it would, in that state, 

 be somewhat less succulent, yet its great bulk would render the drying of it a 

 very slow and uncertain operation. If dried, I believe that, with the aid of a 

 powerful chaff-cutter, it might be brought into a state which would render it 

 practicable and palatable to horses ; a stock that always relishes, and even re- 

 quires, a certain portion of ligneous matter in their food, to keep them in 

 health ; and would be a wholesome accompaniment and corrective to Swedish 

 turnips, carrots, potatoes, parsneps, or the like. The acreable produce would 

 be enormous. I find that even the stoutest and most woody of the stems, 

 when split with a knife into splinters small enough for a horse to masticate 

 them, are freely eaten. The blossom is white, and the plant might easily 

 be taken for ilfelilotus alba altissima ; but its transversely and subacutely 

 rugose legumes indicate that it belongs to the second of your divisions of 

 ikfeUlotus {Hort. Brit. p. 298.), in which division there is no species which 

 corresponds with this plant in its characters, and therefore I conceive it is to 

 be taken as a hitherto nondescript species. I mean to make the experiment 

 suggested by M. Vilmorin in his Bon Jardinier for 1839, of employing it to 

 support Flcia villosa, which, this vear, attained with me the length of 8 ft. — 

 W. P. Taunton. Stoke Bisliop, Bristol, Sept. 26, 1840. 



SCOTLAND. 



Melildtus, or BoJihara Clover. — In recurring to your esteemed [^letter of 

 30th March, 1839, enclo^ng seeds of a Jfelilotus, or Bokhara clover, which I 

 last year acknowledged, from its gigantic growth, and, while tender, being eaten 

 with avidity by horses and cattle, and from its extraordinary growth the first 

 and particularly the second year, I think it may yet realise the anticipations of 

 those who gave it last year such celebrity in the newspapers, and exceed your 

 expectations as expressed in your letter. The plants stood below the ground 

 last winter, and appeared above ground about the 1st of April : it grew with 

 amazing rapidity ; I cut part to try if it yielded well after cutting ; the second 

 growth came forward with equal rapidity, but, wishing to save seeds, I allowed 

 the whole to flower afterwards. The first flowers appeared on the 7th July, 

 and by the 22d it was literally covered with white blossom; the plants 

 branched out luxuriantly and reached the height of 10 ft. on ordinary black 

 soil, and without dung. Last year no seeds ripened with me, this year it 

 ripens well ; I enclose a spike, and shall be glad to give one to as many of your 

 friends as you may wish. I yesterday sent a stalk to Messrs. P. Lawson and 

 Son, for the Highland and Agricultural Society's show at Aberdeen, measur- 

 ing 10 ft. 1 in. above ground : the roots are very large. In its botanic charac- 

 teristics, it agrees with those of the ilfelilotus leucantha Koch (see Hort. 

 Brit.), only it has sometimes 2 seeds; perhaps it is a gigantic variety of that 

 plant ; at any rate, it deserves cultivation in the flower-garden from its elegant 

 appearance, and in the field for its extraordinary weight of green food. As 

 it ripens its seeds the second year in this part of the island, and I understand 

 in England the first year after sowing, its culture will likely soon become 



