540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



seded, the old faith of the mind sapped, by the maggot in the brain 

 Avhich breeds doubt and, denial, so in these latter days, the old beldam 

 Earth breeds o'idhmi which blights, the phylloxera which destroys. It 

 was the phylloxera which interested my young Frenchman. He had 

 just come from California, after sending home countless houtures (vine- 

 slips) to his father, a vigneron of Burgundy. It is found that these 

 bits of vine, planted in France and then grafted with the vine of the 

 district, will resist in most cases the phylloxera, and so save the vine- 

 yard. It was when hearing this from my young vigneron that I 

 seemed to hear that earth-clock strike. The sound I thought was 

 braided of two murmurs where joy and sorrow blended. " Yes," I 

 said to myself, " youth is a good thing, and how beautiful it is to see it 

 sustaining the decrepitude of age ! " How proud, thought I, should 

 America be to see her democratic blood mingled with to sustain the 

 princely lives which Bacchus honors ! American girls wear the straw- 

 berry-leaf and sit not far from the throne itself. And how like this is 

 the marriage between the parvienus of California and those princely 

 ones whose etiquette gleams at royal boards ! But how are the mighty 

 fallen ! The imperial house of Clos Vougeot is in the dust, and many 

 another lordly house besides. A friend of mine, an expert in the sci- 

 ence of wine, crowned his wealth by the purchase of this imperial Clos 

 (field) of Vougeot. This little field, the most precious for its extent 

 in France, a true Field of the Cloth of Gold, whose grape is the high- 

 est expression of God's beneficence through the vine he gave us, has a 

 flavor, perfumed, modest, tasting of the violet, which separates it from 

 the crude and harsher vintages as a gentleman is distinguished among 

 roughs. This favorite of the earth, this consummate flower of France, 

 Providence shall not long allow to lie perishing in the dust. And it is 

 the democrat who shall fly to the rescue of this scion of an imperial 

 house. For the world of epicures will not be deprived of its dainties ; 

 and it is no more than justice that America should heal the wound 

 she makes, for it is confidently asserted that vines from America, im- 

 ported into the south of France, brought the phylloxera with them. 

 But this is only guess-work ; there is a mystery in the modern sudden 

 distribution over the world of insects and weeds which is not under- 

 stood. It can not be watched, because it is not suspected, and secretes 

 itself as part of a freight fetched for quite another purpose. Mrs. S. C. 

 Hall has told us how, for ten years before, the weed Anacharis alsanas- 

 trum spread with frightful rapidity over the inland waters of England, 

 choking ponds and rivers, as may be seen in the Serpentine of London, 

 the germs of which plant were supposed to have been secreted in im- 

 ported timber, I have recently, however, read that this plant was 

 dying out, apparently finding its environment unsatisfactory. It is 

 interesting also to hear of a process, the reverse somewhat of Califor- 

 nia's grape-cure, namely, how the robust weeds of England devour, as 

 Britons do the natives, the weaker weeds of Australia. So have we 



