Cultivation of the Lupine as Food for Sheep. 109 
scarcely used to gjow a few annual jrrass-plants, in the shade 
of the luxuriant lupines is immediately covered with different 
weeds ; even couch-grass making its appearance where it was 
formerlv unknown. For such poor land the lupine has some 
peculiarlv fertilizing influence. 
The cultivation of the lupine is so very new, though many 
thousands of acres are now to be seen, that it is not quite decided 
on what kind of soil it will be grown with most profit. There 
is no doubt that it is a real boon for the poorest sandy and gravelly 
soils, but for soils of a better description it is no less a very 
profitable plant. Chalk and calcareous sand seem not to be 
lavourable for it, nor wet and undrained land. Some years 
ago, when first introducing the lupines into my neighbour- 
hood, I drilled some bushels on a piece of rich, highly-culti- 
vated land of my home-farm, which had been heavily-manured 
for beans. The season being favourable, the beans grew to a 
height of more than 5 feet ; the lupines, on the contrarv, in the 
same field, were onlv a few inches high, and bore the most miser- 
able appearance, with onlv some single flowers. In the same year, 
on another farm, on a loamv sand, unmanured, and after a corn- 
crop, I had the lupines nearly four feet high ; and notwithstanding 
the field being covered with fallen seeds, thev having become too 
ripe belore mowing, I had thirty-eight imperial bushels per acre 
(sixteen scheffel per morgen). 
One of our most ingenious agriculturists — H. von Wulfen — 
some forty years ago introduced the white lupine (L. albus, 
Linn.^ from the southern parts of France, and cultivated it 
during his lifetime on poor sandy soil as " green manure." He 
was reluctant to give it up, though no cattle would touch it, and 
notwithstanding that the seeds often failed in our climate, because 
be anticipated the great importance of that genus of plants for the 
agriculture of the northern climate. His white lupine is now 
nearly forgotten, but his anticipation is fullv justified. 
W e now are trying some other lupines. The Lupinus termis 
of Forskal from Egypt, which is cultivated in Sicilv, shows a 
very luxuriant growth, but most probably the seeds will not 
always ripen with us. 
Heem. vox Xathcsius. 
Ilundisburg, Magdehurg, Prussia. 
IX. — American Implements, and Methods of Economizing Labour. 
By C. W. Eddy, M.A. Oxford, late Radcliffe travelling 
Fellow. 
AVhex it is considered that America has been brought by the 
mighty agency of steam within ten da^ s of our shores, and that it 
