There is nothing to commend the practice of digging holes in a leisure time that all may be ready when the time to plant arrives. The vines will strike root best in the freshly turned, moist soil of newly dug earth, which can be firmly set about the roots when the vine is planted. Neither is time saved in digging beforehand, for the sun-baked and rain-washed sides of holes long dug would surely have to be pared afresh. It is, however, quite worth while to throw the surface soil to one side and that lower to the other, that a spadeful of moist, virile, surface soil may be put next to the roots. There are, no doubt, some soils in which the holes might be blasted out with dynamite, as, for instance, in a shallow soil with the hardpan near the surface and good subsoil beneath. It is very questionable, however, whether these defective soils should be used for commercial plantings as long as there still remain unplanted many acres in all grape regions of good deep land for the grape. To such as are attracted by "dynamite farming," minute descriptions of methods of use of dynamite and even demonstrations may be secured from manufacturers of the explosive. _Time to plant._ The best time to plant the vine in cold climates is early spring, when sun and showers arouse the spirit of growth in plants, and nutritive solutions proceed quickly and unerringly to their preappointed places. At this time, the much mutilated vine can undertake best the double task of making fresh roots and opening the dormant leaves. Fall planting puts forward the work, thus diminishing the rush of early spring when vineyard operations crowd, and, no doubt, when all is favorable, enables the vines to start a little more quickly. However, there are frequently serious losses from planting in the fall. In cold winters the grip of frost is sufficient to wrench the young vine from its place and sometimes all but heaves it out of the soil. There is, also, great liability of winter-killing in vines transplanted in the autumn, not because of greater tenderness of the plant, but because of greater porosity of the loosened soil which enables the cold to strike to a greater depth. These two objections to fall planting can be overcome largely by mounding up the earth so as practically to cover the vines, leveling the mound in early spring; but this extra work more than offsets the labor saving in fall planting.