1866 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
139 
pendiculiir; then, four inches back the spade is 
set in until it comes through into the gallery, 
and after working it a little back and forth, it is 
lifted carefuily out. The hole is then cleared 
of all earth that may have crumbled down, and 
the wire noose inserted through the cut made 
by the spade, and spread wide. A stake (D), 2 
feet in length, and having a pin (E) through it, 
and a notch {F) about as indicated in fig. 2, is 
then driven a little in front of the hole. The 
board, c, which is about 20 inches long, is then 
suspended, by the hole B, upon the pin in the 
stake, close against the perpendicular face, shut- 
Fis. 3. 
^6 
ting the hole. The pole is then 
bent down, the cord (i) attached to 
the wire loop, and the trigger, the 
string being made the right length, 
is inserted between the notches a in 
the board, and/, in the stake. The gopher touch¬ 
ing the board with his nose will release the trig¬ 
ger, and be caught around the body by the noose. 
Mr. Smizer says: “ I have tried many ways to 
catch gophers, and this is simple, cheap, and 
sure to catch and kill them, and is the best I 
ever tried. I caught 45 last spring with three 
traps; and the whole cost was not 25 cents.” 
J. B. Quin by, of Davis Co., Kansas, describes 
his way of killing gophers as follows: “Armed 
with a weapon something similar to a fish spear, 
visit the ground infested by them early in the 
morning (before sunrise), or a little before sun¬ 
down, and with as little noise as possible, search 
until you find one of their holes opened. Take 
your stand back of it, holding j'our spear within 
a foot of the hole, and ready poised for aetion. 
Soon you will hear the gopher at work, and di¬ 
rectly he will come to the surfirce, pushing his 
load of dirt before him. As soon as you can 
see his shoulders, pin him with your spear, and 
look for more holes, and my word for it, if they 
are plenty, you can bag more game in an hour 
than you can with all your traps. Gophers sel¬ 
dom come to the surface of the ground in pleas- 
Mit weather, excepting for an hour or so morn¬ 
ing and cv'ening, and they seldom show more 
than part of their bodies. After opening a hole 
a few minutes suffices to throw out what dirt 
they wish, and they immediately close it up. A 
little practice will make experts of most any one.” 
The Weeds of the Flax Field. 
The flax crop is liable to be infested by the 
ordinary field weeds, and besides these, there 
are two which seem to be quite peculiar to it, 
the False Flax, and Flax Dodder. It is proba¬ 
ble that the seeds of these weeds, being intro¬ 
duced with imported flax seed, vegetate freely, 
and flourish the first year, but do not perpetu¬ 
ate themselves to any considerable extent in oui 
climate, as do the majority of foreign weeds. 
Indeed several of the English writers have rec¬ 
ommended the use 
of American seed 
as one means of 
ensuring freedom 
from these weeds. 
Falsk Flax, al¬ 
so called Wild 
Fla.x, and by the 
rather extrava¬ 
gant name of Gold 
of Pleasure, is Ca- 
melina sativa of 
the botanists. It 
was formerly sup¬ 
posed that flax 
degenerated into 
this plant, just as 
some persons sup¬ 
pose that wheat 
turns to chess, or 
that potatoes mix 
in the hill. This 
plant is still more 
Avidely separated 
from flax than 
the chess is from 
wheat, and only 
those persons 
ignorant of plant 
structure believe Fig- 1.—false flax, 
in these sudden transformations. The False 
Flax belongs to the Cruciferm, or Mustard Fam¬ 
ily, and in the structure of its flowers closely 
resembles the Mustard. It is an annual, grow¬ 
ing about 18 inches high, with its smoothish 
stem leaves sessile upon the stem, and having an 
arrow shaped base. The figure shows the up¬ 
per portion of a stem somewhat reduced in size, 
and at the left hand a seed pod of the natural 
size. The pods are somewhat pear-shaped and 
bear a sharp point at the top. The seeds are 
reddish yellow in color, and, in the plant as it 
grows iu this country, not very numerous. 
Fig. 2.— FLAX DODDER. 
Flax Dodder, Cuscuta epilinum, is a much 
worse Aveed than the other. It is a plant of 
peculiar habit; starting from the seed in the 
ground, it pushes up a slender, thread-like, leaf¬ 
less stem, Avhich branches freely and entAvines 
around the flax plant, entangling the plants to¬ 
gether. This is, not all the mischief it does; 
Avherever the Dodder comes in contact Avith the 
flax stem, it pushes out small suckers or feeders, 
by means of Avhich it draws nutriment from 
the flax, and is able to groAV and flourish even if 
its root be desti’oyed. The 
flowers are very small, and 
are produced along the stein 
iu small dense clusters of a 
Avhite color. Figure 2 shows 
the Dodder of the natural 
size, Avith clusters of floAvers 
and fruit. This is one of the 
most injurious Avecds of the 
fla.x crop, and the estimation 
in which it is held in England, is shoAvn by the- 
vulgar, but rather expressive names of “ devils’ 
guts,” and “ hell-Aveed,” there applied to it. 
These Aveeds being introduced Avith the flax seed, 
the cultivator should take pains to select pure 
seed. A sample of flax seed Avhen spread out 
thinly upon a piece of Avhite paper, aliows the 
naked eye to see if any foreign seeds are pres¬ 
ent. Figure, 3, gives a seed each of Flax (larg¬ 
est), False Flax, and Dodder, equally magnified, 
the Dodder the smallest, and rough. Properly 
adjusting the fanning mill, and passing the seed 
through several times, cleans it quite Avell. 
Leading Staff for a Bull. 
A great deal depends trpon having a safe 
leading staff Avhen a man handles a bull. Bulls 
haA'e a Avay of being very gentle and docile at 
times, thus throwing their keepers off their 
guard, and then they very often take a notion 
to have a little rough if it may so be called. 
The result may be, and has often been, that a 
man has been killed or greatly injured, perhaps 
by a young animal he had not the least fear of 
Mr. Thorne, of Shorthorn fame, has nev'er 
had serious accidents 
of this kind occur, be¬ 
cause he believes in 
“making assurance 
doubly sure,” and never 
trusting a bull at all. 
The leading staffs used 
by his herdsman struck 
irs as needlessly secure 
at first sight, but Ave 
Avere assured that long 
experience had proved 
that spring clasps, 
though never so Avell 
made, did occasionally 
give Ava}’’, and that iu 
using the staff Avith the 
clasp attached by three 
or four links of chain, a bull would sometimes 
get the advantage, and crowd his groom most 
dangerously. They have adopted, therefore, a 
staff tipped with a strong hook of the best iron, 
wrought in the shape shown, and closed by a 
screw passing through both the shank and the 
tip of the hook. The thread on the screAV is 
first cut the Avhole length, and then it is turned 
or filed off in the middle portion, leaving the 
shaft of the screAV a plain bolt, except at the ends, 
as seen in the left-hand figure. When the hook is 
to be opened, a few turns are sufficient to allow 
the screAV to slip back, and it can not fall out, 
being prevented by the threads at the end. 
