'A54: TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



of them may also be formed, and will succeed well on low, spongy bottoms 

 along the margins of streams. 



In the great majority of farms will be found level, marshy, wet spots, 

 which, by drainage, cannot well be made available for tillage, which might 

 be planted with the willow, and would afterward recompense the proprie- 

 tor or farmer in a two-fold wa,y. The land might be prepared in various 

 ways for this crop, owing to the extent and nature of the soil. For plan- 

 tations of any considerable extent for osiers, the ground should be formed, 

 by the spade, into beds of from eight to nine feet broad, with intervening- 

 furrows or narrow ditches to carry off the water. The plantation may be 

 made at any time between the fall of the leaf and an advanced period in 

 spring; but the last two weeks of February and the first weeks of March, 

 in England, April and the middle of May, in America, are the most proper 

 times for planting the willows. Cutting-s fifteen inches long should be 

 taken with a knife on an upward slope from well ripened wood of either 

 two or three years' growth. They grow more luxuriantly when planted 

 about two-thirds of their length in the ground, than when they are less 

 deeply planted. 



Osiers succeed best in a deep, moist, free soil; ground dug to the depth 

 of twenty-four inches, with a small quantity of dung and old lime rubbish 

 put in the bottom of the trench. 



The willow, for the use of the basket maker, should be cut every year, 

 slopingly, with the knife, within three buds of the point whence the shoot 

 issued, and will admit of being cut back once in three years for the use of 

 the cooper, exactly to the swell of the shoot of the three years' growth — . 

 thus compressing the plant back to its ancient dwarf form, at the same 

 time realizing a handsome return. 



Moreover, by treating osiers in this way, they will last and produce well 

 for a great many years. The ground should be deeply stirred with the 

 hoe, and kept clear of weeds; but digging with a spade around the roots 

 of willows often proves very hurtful to the fibrous feeders, as we often 

 meet with a great portion of such oozing and growing very near the sur- 

 face of the soil. 



The way in which willows are most commonly disposed of, after being 

 cut, is, they are sorted into trusses and tied into bundles of two and some- 

 times three feet in circumference; and if intended to be stripped of their 

 bark they are set on the thick end, and immersed a few inches in standing 

 water. 



They succeed best in northern exposures, provided they are not over- 

 topped. Should the ground be at all suitable for the crop, each set will 

 produce the first year two good basket rods, or 24,000. The second year, 

 the sets being much stronger, will produce on an average six rods, one 

 more or less being considered a very common number, one of which may 

 be left on each stock for hoops, and the remaining 60,000 cut for baskets, 

 which would be worth about $120. 



Location for a Catawba Vineyard. 



Mr. L. C. Stephens, of New Hartford, Connecticut, wants to know where 

 to locate a vineyard of Catawba grapes. He says: 



