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Cultivation of the Lupine as Food for Slieep. 
VIII. — On the Cultivation of the Lupine as Food for Sheep. 
To THE Council of the Royal Agricultural Society of Exgland. 
Gentlemen, — I am induced to place the subjoined communica- 
tion before you, relative to the cultivation of a leguminous plant 
(the Lupine) on poor sandy soils. 
My attention was first directed to the growth of the lupine by 
Baron Herm. von Nathusius, of Hundisburgh, Prussia (a large 
landed proprietor, who has devoted much of his time to agri- 
culture, both in its practical and more scientific departments). 
In 1856 he was kind enough to give me two bags of seeds — 
one of the blue, the other of the yellow variety — which I planted 
upon what is here called poor, blowing, sandy land; and the pro- 
ductiveness of the plants greatly surprised me. In 1858 I 
drilled about one bushel per acre of seed, upon eighteen acres of 
poor land ; from which I obtained fifty waggonloads of sheaves, 
similar to those which accompany this paper. The luxuriance 
of this crop quite astonished all that were acquainted with the 
sterility of the soil ; and the quantity of grain, before harvesting, 
was estimated by various persons at from forty to fifty bushels 
per acre. The very lucid account given by the Baron Herm. von 
Nathusius in the accompanying communication, is a far better 
testimony to the value of the lupine than any which my short 
experience enables me to offer ; and in addition the Baron, in a 
letter to me dated December 18th, 1858 (in answer to a request of 
mine that he would furnish me with his experience respecting the 
growth of the lupine) says: — " We have had here the most un- 
fortunate season I ever remember ; we have lost all our clover- 
layers by excessive dryness, and the lupines are the only crops 
which can help our sheep through the winter. It is really a 
valuable plant for some sorts of soils. I had a field of thirty-six 
English acres drilled with blue lupine in May, after the young 
clover-plant was lost ; and one of my neighbours offered me 
fifty-seven bushels per acre for the thirty-six acres — which I 
refused. In my letter I omitted to state that the yellow lupine 
is the better for hay, straw, and. chaff; but the blue is generally 
more productive in grain."' 
My past success, I think, fully justifies me in commending the 
cultivation of these lupines to the notice of the occupiers of light 
sandy soils, to whom, I believe, it will hereafter prove of im- 
mense advantage. 
Believe me, Gentlemen, 
Yours vory truly, 
ButUy Ahhey, Feb. 1859. ThOMAS CrISI'. 
