282 Gossip from Southern Iowa. 



GOSSIP FROM SOUTHERN IOWA. 



Bj- " Hawkeye," Burlington, lo. 



Upon reading " J. M. M.'s " article on grapes in the December number, 

 I was prompted to ask, " Well, what grapes do succeed in Massachusetts ? " 

 For the sad tale seemed all one way, — a series of disappointments. Here 

 we have no such lugubrious experience to relate. Last year (1868) was 

 an unusually good grape-season, though the previous one had been excel- 

 lent. Catawbas alwa3-s ripen perfectly, and did so last season, with no 

 sign of rot upon them. As some of our vineyards are more than fifteen 

 years old, we do not consider our statements on this head at all premature. 

 We consider the Catawba our very best wine and table grape ; and that, 

 I believe, was the testimony at the American Pomological meeting at 

 St. Louis in 1867. 



Where the Catawba will succeed, any other grape ought to do well. Yet 

 we fail with Delaware and (shall I say it ?) lona. How many thousands of 

 dollars have been wasted on the first, I shall not attempt to say ; but I know 

 of many vintners who have lost years of priceless time in trying, in vain, to 

 grow it. The Concord, of course, does well. So does Hartford Prolific, 

 our best early grape. It holds its berries well till it gets to market, and 

 never drops them till past its prime and its season. 



One of the quidnuncs of " The New- York Tribune " recently calculated 

 the grape-soil of this country at a million of acres. There is four times 

 that amount of as good grape-land as ever the sun shone on, in Iowa alone, 

 if you regard land that will grow Catawbas and Concords as grape-soil. 

 We certainly have ten thousand square miles, out of our fifty-five thousand, 

 of six hundred and forty acres each, in the south part of the State alone. 

 I recently saw what was probably the first Concord vine ever brought to 

 this State. It cost five dollars in 1854, has been twice transplanted, and 

 has never failed to ripen a crop. It is a hundred and thirty miles in the 

 interior, west of the Mississippi ; is planted in common prairie soil ; and 

 bids fair to live as long as it already has, at least. All along the Missis- 

 sippi River, from St. Louis to Rock Island, is any quantity of the best 

 of grape-land. North of the Lower Rapids (Keokuk), the Catawba flour- 



