AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 343 



to Wd management, and denounced all who assert that this is not the best 

 of all sorts grown in this country. 



About pruning, he said: I would prune from November to Ffebruary. 

 My vines are trained upon iron wires, on posts 15 or 20 feet apart; train- 

 ing six canes or branches from each root, for fruit, where the roots are 

 strong. I would prune a city vine that climbs high, upon the short spur 

 principle, two buds in a place. I pursue, in my vineyard, the renewed 

 principle, growing wood this year for fruit next year. These wood-growing 

 branches bear no fruit this year, and those which are bearing are all cut 

 away, from which new shoots for wood are trained for next year. My soil 

 is deep sand, and I have used clay and much for fertilizers. I have 

 trenched deep, but have not underdrained. The rose, or June-bug troubles 

 us. We find a benefit in plowing in November, to destroy these insects ; 

 but we have to go through the vineyard and catch the bugs in a cup of 

 water. We go over the vines for eight or ten days, when the bugs are 

 very plenty, twice a day. Plowing late in the fall seems to destroy the 

 seed of these bugs. They are worse on southern slopes than on northern 

 ones Their depredations are upon the blossoms, which they will soon 

 destroy if the bugs are not themselves destroyed. The morning is the best 

 time to hunt them, for then they do not fly. The black spot on grapes is 

 produced by the bite of the rose-bug upon the young grapes. The most, 

 and almost the only, successful vineyards in the northern United States 

 are of the Catawba and Isabella varieties. The Scuppernong grows natur- 

 ally at the south, and is a very large and productive vine. The fruit makes 

 a light wine, that needs a good deal of brandy to keep it. The Diana lacks 

 two characteristics to make it sell well in this market : it is too small in 

 in fruit and bunches. The Rebecca is a \^hite grape that will sell as a 

 white grape. The Hartford Prolific is a coarse grape, large berry and 

 bunch, and will answer where the Isabella will not. So will the Concord. 

 The Delaware is a sweet, rich grape, and good for private use ; but none 

 of these grapes will supersede the Isabella and Catawba as a market fruit, 

 or for large vineyards. It is a slow grower, and the fruit of small size. 

 I have planted many kinds of foreign vines, and dug them all up as unpro- 

 fitable. ICvery one has, and will prove a failure, and many thousands of 

 dollars have been lost by the experiments, and probably will be again. 

 Foreign vines will not succeed for out-door culture. 



GARDENING INQUIRIES FROM AVISCONSIN. 



Solon Robinson read a letter from M, Lamb, of Onalaska, LaCross 

 county. Wis., making a variety of inc£uiries how to improve a sandy gar- 

 den soil, situated near the Mississippi, below the Blufi's, and some sixty or 

 eighty feet above high water. Wells have to be dug seventy or eighty 

 feet through sand ; the natural growth is black oak, growing sparsely. 

 His garden, of half an acre, is on a sandy ridge, and has borne two crops, 

 with a dressing, last spring, of about a cord of good manure and a wagon- 

 box full of lime and ashes, with the following results : 



My crops were as follows : Evergreen sweet corn, very good ; mountain 



