Mexico weekly ledger., 1877-02-22
The Seourge of the French Vineyard.

The importance of her vine-growine
industry to the. trade and revenue OF
France is widely, although vaguely, re-
cognized. The fact is hat the value OF
wines and brandies annually exported
in wood Dr. glass is computed upon
trustworthy statistics at $66, 600, 000.
AS regards the share of the national
burdens now borne by the same prod
ucts, it appears that the impost which
six years ago yielded 45,00O,0 900 pro-
Queen in the year 1874 about $4,000
600. Under these circumstances, the
destructive and rapidly expanding raw
ages of the insect which has received
the name of the phyl!deerG, and which
up to a very recent date was totallyun-
known in France, are invested with
general interest.
Until about twenty-five years ago the
French vine-grower had nothing to fear
beyond the wholly fortuitous calami-
ties of excessive cold, drought, or rains
except the ordinary vine-worm and
two or Dhree parasites and maladies not
specially formidable or intraetable. At
that epoch, owing possibly TO changed
methods of cultivation, which may be
presently indicated, q curious pestilence
nature are yet undetermined, but which
may be described as a sort of grapevine
cholera. For this-the so-called otdiun
after numerous unsuccessful attempts
to arrest the blight which it occasiQned,
a perfect antidote was at last found in
sulphur. With the discovery of this
specific a new era of prosperity seemed
to open for French vineyards, when
suddenly a new enemy, more tenacious
and redOubtable than any of its prede-
cessors--the now famous phylloxera-
appeared in one of the southern depart
ments.
Prior to 1868, the p~hylloxera was
commonly supposed to be endemic to
the American Continent. In fact, how
ever, 1t had been recognized in Gas
cony on the white cabbage, and was
afterward detected i'll Scotland and
Ireland. Two years later its presence
Was attested OF the g~rapevines in the
neighborhood of Mines, from which
point it spread rapidly up the right
bank of the Rhone, moving subsequent
~ south and west, until, in 1874, it had
covered the two districts of sovereign
importance to the wine-growing indus
try, the Bordelais and the Beaujelais.
We are told that the plant assailed by
it betrays nothing abnormal to the eye,
but gradually, as if depleted of sap,
languiskes, withers and dies. If such
a vine be then pulled up, the roots are
seen to be coated with a pullulent mass
of exceedingly minute insects, which
are found, under the microscope, half
a millirleter in length, and to be fur
nished with wings. We may add that
the white grape is more liable to the
attack of these infusoria than is the red,
and that in no case is a plant infested
with them totally destroyed before the
fourth year. But the problem is to ex-
tIrpate the insect, as soOn as its pres
ence is discovered, without also killing
the vine. With the exception of a
single remedy, too costly for practical
application, French science has, so far,
chief, and the appearance of the phyl-
cursor OF ultimate decay.
But how came this pest, before I'M
heard Of to invade the vineyards of
France? The Academy OF Sciences,
which has given the subject unremit-
ting, although somewhat unfruitful,
stady, has affirmed that the phylloxera
was imported from America, and MIR.
Riley, an America, seems to have es-
tablished, by a comparison of speci-
mems, its identity with a species native
to this country. There is no doubt,
however. that the action of the insect is
much less destructive in the United
States, and that the grating of French
vines upon an American stock has
proved, for the moment at least, an eff
1ective safeguard. 1t may be on these
grounds that the committee which has
lately inspected the district of the Gil
ronde pronounces the phylloxera of Eu-
ropean origin. Another opinion, which
appears to be gaining ground, regards
the insect not as the direct and pri-
mordial cause of the new malady, but
as a consequence or accessory symp-
tom. md it is pointed out that its raw
ages are most considerable precisely in
those districts where sulphur had been
largely used to combat the oidium or
grapevine cholera. The nature, too, of
the only specific so far discovered for
the phylloxera-the treatment with sui
pho-carbonate of potassium, recon-
mended by a committee of the Institute
in 1874, but which, as we have men,
toned, is too expensive for adoption in
practice-would seem to imply an ex-
haustion Of the soil and impoverish-
ment of the vine resulting from over
crowding.
The truth is, that the whole system of
vine culture has been revolutionized in
France during the present century.
Formerly the slips were set at a consid-
cradle distance from one another, the
interspaces being filled with cereals
which restored to the soil those elements
which are demanded by the vine. These
conditions give rise to the rule that
manure should never enter a vineyard,
and the rule explains the delicate flavor
the so-called gout dn terroir-from
which the best crus of France ACQUIRED