Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-01-01
GRAPE GROWING.
TIE FUTURE OF Tbs INDUSTRY IN
CALIFORNIA.
Cause of the Depression in 1s75-Will
Grape Raising be everGone-Var1ous
Phases of the Industry Considered.

Professor E. W. Hilgard in the Overland Monthly
for January, 1SS4l
During the last four or five years the In
crease of the vineyard area of California
has been 30 rapid as to give rise to consider.
able speculation regarding the final out
come of the movement, which stands in
striking contrast to the deep depression OF
the vineyard interest that reached its lowest
stage about the year 1875. At that time
IS per ton was the highest price paid for
grapes, with slack demand and hogs,
poultry, and even cattle were let into the
vineyards to gather the vintage, prepare
tory to the contemplated pulling up OF the
vines aad their replacement by grain or
fruit trees. The recognition of the inva-
sion of the ply lloxera added to the gloom,
from which heavy and increasing indeDt-
edness seemed to render escape hopeless
for those whose all had been staked on the
success of viticulture.
WAGON LOADS OF UPRooTED VINES
Entered Sonoma. and were corded up for
sale as firewood around the public square
of that respondent town. How greatly
changed is the picture to-day Not only
have the abandoned vineyards been re-
planted in (oftentimes somewhat i'll. consid-
ered) defiance of the phylloxera and
all its works; but the valley lands,
with a skiold increase in value, have be.
come too narrow for the expanding indus
try, and the oaks and chaparral of the
mountain sides are giving way before the
encroaching perennial green OF the vine,
both in the Coast Ranges and in the foot
hills of the Sierras. Even the brown, dusty
plains of Fresno and Tulare are changing
their somber summer garb, and are wear
ing the green of the grapevine, where but
a few years ago the bright but brief spring
bloom of the wild flowers alone relieved the
intense monotony. Even the supposed
"barren mesas " of southern California are
being invaded by the vine, which seems
only now to have realized that what 1t has
been doing for centuries in the droughty
coast region of Mediterranean Spain can be
done again, and better, in the more fertile
soils OF California. But
Is NOT GRAPE PLANTING BEING OVERCOME?
Do we not heal of vineyards thousands of
acres in extent being established, one after
another, threatening to deluge the market
with their products, and finally to leave at
least the small grower, if not themselves,
no better off than they were in 1875 ? Such
warnings have been repeatedly sounded
and mingled as they are with illusions to
incontrovertible facts that seem to sustain
them, it is well worth while to examine
somewhat closely into the foundation of
these predictions. For should they be well
grounded it will be i'll for the many who
are now investing their savings in this al.
Turing industry, with the hope of literally
being enabled, hereafter, to sit under their
own vine and fig tree. 1t behooves, first
of all, to consider the
CAUSES OF THE PREVIOUS GREAT DEPREs-
SION,
And to draw lessons therefrom. Why was
it that the wines of California were drug
in the market, and barely passed muster
under foreign labels ? 1t was, uuquestion-
ably, because in their hurry to realize the
golden harvest the great majority of the
winters of that time aimed altogether at
quantity to the neglect of quality, and
threw upon the market chiefly wines badly
made from such Indifferent material as the
Mission grape, and which had barely had
time to get fairly through their after
fermentation; consequently lacked char
acter and frequently spoiled on the pur-
chasers' hands. When the standard varie-
ties of foreign grapes, prudently introduced
by far. seeing men, came into bearing, bad
was made worse by giving to wines made
of Mission must with a slight admix!ure
of the nobler Juice, the name of the latter,
thus conveying to the consumer in the
East, and to a few daring Investigators of
the new article in Europe, the idea that
the noble RIesling, the Chaselss, and the
best varieties of Burgundy and the Borde-
lais, were so deteriorated in the California
climate as to yield an Incidentally faulty
product, which could at most be used for
dilution, to come extent, of the wines of
France or Germany, but whose earthly,
harsh taste would ever
RENDER THEM UNACCEPTABLE
To the knnwer of good wine. 1t were
bootless to discuss at this time whether the
growers or the wine merchants were most
to blame for these costly mistakes or
whether, perhaps, they were only an al.
try under new conditions. It suffces for
our present purpose to know that such
state of things existed at the time of neap
tide; and that knowledge should forever
prevent a repetition of the faults that led to
such low ebb. 1t is difficult to conject-
ure how long the depression would have
continued but for the intervention of that
arch-enemy, the phylloxera, which spread
terror and devastation among the vineyards
of France, and sent her wine merchants
and their foreign correspondents on pain
full search for new sources of supply to all
available countries. They began to recol-
lect that among her many sins in the way
of bad wines California had furnished some
really good samples. Gould it be possible
that these might be duplicated, and the
French wines thus saved the foxy con.
tamination of the native American wines
which the Eastern States were willing and
able to furnish in unlimited quantities
t was
THE TURNING. POINT OF THE TIDE
In Californian viticulture. The attention
not only of France but of the Eastern
States was again directed to the product
of Californian vineyards, which in the
mean time had brought respectable area
of good European varieties into bearing,
and could make vastly better showing Tor
quality. And, although some mistakes
have been made even since then, on the
whole the golden opportunity has been
we'll utilized by our wine makers.
From the lowly function of producing
something that France would tolerate as
an admixture TO her wines, they have rap
lilly risen to that of establishing standard
qualities that ind favor under their own
names and labels. They have become con-
WINGED, and are rapidly converting the rest
OF the world to the belief, that the faults
heretofore observed in California wines
were not Of NATURES making, and that be-
tween the limits Of Oregon and Mexico
most, if not all, the most desirable qualities
of European wines may be reproduced IN
der an intelligent selection and mutual
adaptation OF grape varieties, climates and
soils, and by the manufacture Of wines
UNDER THE MANAGEMENT OF EXPERTS,
Instead Of the hsp-hazsrd system before
pursued And not being trammelei by
time-honored habits in the premises, they
are rapidly and consciously applying Amer
lean ingenuity and energy to the solution
of the several problems, upon the success
ful solution Of which the future in store for
the grape industries Of California so essen
italy depends. The grape growers, at