•450 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
would serve as a relish and provoke an ap- 
petite for their regular food, and aid its per- 
fect digestion. These cattle were exhibited 
in September, at the Western N. Y. fair 
at Rochester, at the Central N. Y. fair at 
Albany, and at the first exhibition of the 
Hudson River Agricultural As- 
sociation, held at Poughkeepsie 
in Oct. At the last named fair 
they formed the chief attraction, 
being near home, where the ani- 
mals were well known and popu- 
lar. During the month previous 
to this they traveled 1000 miles, 
and, under good management, lost 
little or none of their weight. The 
"Queen" and the " Champion " are 
to lie fed another year, with the in- 
tention, if possible, to make them 
the heaviest heifer and steer that 
have yet been raised. It is prob- 
able that the steer is now heavier 
than the famous "Ketton ox" 
which was raised by Mr. Chas. 
Colling, one of the early English 
Shorthorn breeders, in 1796, and 
weighed 3780 pounds alive, when 
6 years old. We should judge 
by the handling of "Champion," 
that he can be made considerably 
heavier than he now is. It would 
do much to make Shorthorns 
popular, if breeders would feed 
either pure bred animals or high 
grades in this manner for beef more 
frequently, and give less atten- 
tion to mere pedigree. If high 
pedigree stock does not produce 
cheaper or better beef than any 
other, it is difficult to fix wherein 
its excessive value lies. The 
butcher's block is, after all, the 
final criterion by which high and 
low bred alike must be judged. 
The sight and touch of a living 
animal are both greatly inferior to 
the final test of all — the dressed 
quarters. Farmers who feed beeves look to this 
test for their profits, and if they are frequently 
made acquainted with sucn samples of what 
Shorthorn blood can produce, as are here 
illustrated, they will be the more ready to in- 
vest in the purchase of bulls than they now are. 
~-» —#,»«=.— _«. . 
An Easy Wagon-Spring. 
" Torsion " is the act f twtting, just as one 
twists or wrings a wet cl^th to get rid of the 
water. Th resistance of a sUel red to torsion, 
and the force with which i' springs hac'^ to its 
place, are very great. The strain upon t e ubers 
of the metal is much less in this case, than 
when a piece of steel is bent, and a torsion 
spring is therefore one of the most elastic and 
dan, of Fulton, N. Y., is here illustrated. The 
seat-spring is shown in fig. 1, and it is, upon 
trial, found to be remarkably easy. It is cal- 
culated to bear any weight up to 800 pounds, 
without losing any of its elasticity, or breaking. 
Figure 2 shows a spring intended for a wagon- 
Sto* 
Fig. 1. — TORSION WAOON-SEAT SPRING. 
durable known. A wagon or seat-spring, un.de 
upon this torsion principle, by Sohenck & Shtii 
CALIFORNIA WEED — DODDER UPON AXFAXFA. 
body. It is calculated for a weight of 800 
pounds to each spring. Two will thus bear 
1000 pounds. A spring for wagon-tongues is 
also made upon this same principle ; it is said 
that there are some thousands of railroad cars 
now running, which are furnished with springs 
of this kind. In a recent test a set of springs 
were taken from beneath a car after three years' 
use, and were as perfectly elastic as when first 
put in. The strength of springs made upon 
the torsion principle is so great that one made 
of |-inch steel-bar will bear a load of 7,000 
pounds, and still be perfectly elastic under it. 
»-• n» — — •» 
A Dangerous Weed in California. 
Improved agriculture is of so recent a date in 
California, that but few of the pests in the way 
of insects and weeds that trouble the cultivator 
in the older States, have come to plague his 
California brother. Alfalfa or lucerne is one 
of the staples of Californian agriculture, and a 
weed that threatens the destruction of this 
crop, is a matter of the first importance. No- 
tices of a particularly troublesome dodder have 
appeared in the California papers, and we are 
indebted to the kind attentions of our friends 
of the Pacific Rural Press, of San Francisco, 
i'-cd of the Sonoma Democrat, for specimens, 
which have enabled us to examine the plant, 
and to make an engraving of it. Almost every 
one knows our common dodders, which hang 
their yellow or copper-colored, wiry stems over 
the bushes in the swamps of the Atlantic States. 
There are ten native species cast of the Missis- 
sippi, several more west of that river, and about 
seventy species thus far known throughout the 
world, all of which, with their varieties, are ad- 
mirably described in Dr. G. Engelmann's elabo- 
rate account of the genus. The dodders are all 
parasites ; the seed germinates in the ground, 
and the stem attaches itself to some other plant ; 
by means of numerous disks or suckers, it 
draws upon the other plant for nutriment, and 
soon cuts itself loose from the root, and feeds 
wholly upon its unfortunate host. Some dod- 
ders live upon exogenous plants indiscriminate- 
ly, while others prefer particular plants, or 
those of certain families ; one confines itself 
to flax, which, besides the one in question, is 
the most generally injurious. One of our na- 
tive species has been known to be troublesome 
upon young trees in nurseries. The dodder up- 
on alfalfa, so far as we can determine from de- 
scription, having no authentic specimens for 
comparison, is Cuscuta racemosa, variety Chil'- 
ana. The species is a very variable one, and 
between it and related species there is some 
confusion. The seeds of this were no doubt 
introduced into California with alfalfa seeds 
from Chili, the same as it was into Europe 
many years ago, where it was very destructive 
to lucerne, often destroying whole fields. The 
engraving shows the habit of the weed ; when 
once fixed, it spreads and. entangles the several 
branches of a plant, or those of neighboring 
plants ; under this heavy draught made upon 
its life-blood, as we may regard the sap, the lu- 
cerne ceases to grow, and at length turns yel- 
low, and dies from exhaustion. The Sonoma 
Democrat publishes an opinion that the dodder 
now so troublesome upon the alfalfa is a native 
species, but an examination of the specimens 
makes us quite sure that it is not. One not ac- 
quainted with the minute characters, by which 
the species are distinguished, might, from their 
outward resemblance, regard them as the same. 
At the lower left hand of the engraving the 
relative size and shape of the two seeds are 
shown, both of course magnified. The alfalfa 
seed is like a minute, rather flattened, kidney 
bean ; that of the dodder is irregularly orbicu- 
lar, and only about one-third as long as the 
other. An ordinary magnifier will readily de- 
tect the presence of this or other foul seeds in 
the alfalfa seed. With this, as with other weeds, 
one important point is to avoid introducing it, 
and care in selecting the seed will do this. 
Where it makes its appearance the most prompt 
measures should be taken to prevent its spread. 
Cut the infested plants, and burn them, and do 
this before the parasite has matured its seeds. 
If the dodder has too full possession to allow 
this to be done, then the plan followed in 
France, (where a dodder, and probably the same 
species, is destructive,) may be adopted. Straw- 
Fig. 2. — TORSION WAGON-BOX SPRING. 
is laid in abundance among the plants in a dry 
time, and is then set on fire ; the sudden flame 
destroys the parasite, but does not materially 
injure the alfalfa, which starts from the roots, 
and the eteins, that escape injury by the fire 
