Iowa has a population of 674,000 souls, and in October, 1861, had already mustered eighteen regiments of one thousand men each.  Such a population would give probably 170,000 men capable of bearing arms, and therefore the number of soldiers sent had already amounted to more than a decimation of the available strength of the State.  When we were at Dubuque, nothing was talked of but the army.  It seemed that mines, coal-pits, and corn-fields were all of no account in comparison with the war.  How many regiments could be squeezed out of the State, was the one question which filled all minds; and the general desire was that such regiments should be sent to the Western army, to swell the triumph which was still expected for General Fremont, and to assist in sweeping slavery out into the Gulf of Mexico.  The patriotism of the West has been quite as keen as that of the North, and has produced results as memorable; but it has sprung from a different source, and been conducted and animated by a different sentiment.  National greatness and support of the law have been the idea of the North; national greatness and abolition of slavery have been those of the West.  How they are to agree as to terms when between them they have crushed the South—­that is the difficulty.

At Dubuque in Iowa, I ate the best apple that I ever encountered.  I make that statement with the purpose of doing justice to the Americans on a matter which is to them one of considerable importance.  Americans, as rule, do not believe in English apples.  They declare that there are none, and receive accounts of Devonshire cider with manifest incredulity.  “But at any rate there are no apples in England equal to ours.”  That is an assertion to which an Englishman is called upon to give an absolute assent; and I hereby give it.  Apples so excellent as some which were given to us at Dubuque I have never eaten in England.  There is a great jealousy respecting all the fruits of the earth.  “Your peaches are fine to look at,” was said to me, “but they have no flavor.”  This was the assertion of a lady, and I made no answer.  My idea had been that American peaches had no flavor; that French peaches had none; that those of Italy had none; that little as there might be of which England could boast with truth, she might at any rate boast of her peaches without fear of contradiction.  Indeed, my idea had been that good peaches were to be got in England only.  I am beginning to doubt whether my belief on the matter has not been the product of insular ignorance and idolatrous self-worship.  It may be that a peach should be a combination of an apple and a turnip.  “My great objection to your country, sir,” said another, “is that you have got no vegetables.”  Had he told me that we had got no sea-board, or no coals, he would not have surprised me more.  No vegetables in England!  I could not restrain myself altogether, and replied by a confession “that we ‘raised’ no squash.”  Squash is the pulp of the