Gossip from Southern Iowa. 283 



ishes as well as it can anywhere, ripens perfectly, and only rots occasionally 

 when kept too closely pruned by the Germans. South of that point, that 

 grape does not do well. It is all folly to be paying a hundred dollars and 

 more an acre for lands about the New-York lakes, and Sandusky, O., when 

 the supply is literally inexhaustible at less than one-tenth that price in just 

 as well tried and perfectly proved latitudes. Hereabouts, we regard our- 

 selves as veteran grape-growers, having been at it twenty years and more ; 

 beginning when Isabellas and Catawbas clambered all over the elms uncared 

 for, and yielding barrels of luscious fruit to the vine. This they have long 

 since ceased doing ; the climate having apparently changed so much as to 

 necessitate closer pruning, and covering every winter. 



Your correspondent from Keosauqua, in this State, is certainly correct in 

 having ascertained that autumn-planted trees will not do in Iowa. Physi- 

 ology ought to have taught him that. A tree, though dormant in winter, is 

 full of warmth and life. It is constantly exhaling moisture, though less, 

 of course, than during summer. If the rootlets are destroyed, as in re- 

 moval, the sap cannot be supplied equal to the demand, and the tree dries 

 up, a dead stick. It is not the case that these rootlets form in autumn, 

 when early planted out, enough to carry the tree through the winter. 



Strange to say, trees bought in autumn, and buried in the ground, 

 branches as well as roots, do better, are more certain to live, and make 

 more growth, than when left out till spring, and then moved. They come 

 out more vigorous and fresher, and more completely uninjured from winter 

 casualties. 



The reverse is the case south of the Ohio River. There the summers 

 are so hot, from February to November (especially in the Gulf States), that 

 trees must be set out in autumn, to get established during winter, or they will 

 burn up with heat. Here it is very different. Let your Northern readers, 

 then, always buy their trees in autumn, but never set them out till spring. 



During a recent sleet, which lasted unusually long, I was much interested 

 at noticing the great amount of warmth in live trees. As soon as the thaw 

 began in the least, it commenced at the tree, and the ice scaled off in long 

 pieces the shape of the limb, like a casting. This was not the case with 

 a dead tree in the same garden. The ice adhered to it, and the thaw be- 

 gan from the outside. I think it always best to set out grapes in autumn, 



