34 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



this side of tlie continent, called during the ensuing summer, for the 

 discussion of this subject, might lead to good results. 



Our wine making interest is becoming one of the greatest industrial 

 interests of the State. It excels that of any other State in the Union, 

 Yet there is not perhaps another branch of industry in regard to the 

 practical operatiot)S of which there is so much ignorance among our 

 people as tliis. The varieties of grapes best adapted to wine making in 

 our State, or in the different localities of it; the chemical propei'ties of 

 the soil required for superior wines; the atmospherical influences of dif- 

 ferent localities; the manner of planting the vine and tilling the vine- 

 yard; the gathering and pressing the gi'ape, and fermenting and after 

 treatment of the juice or must until it is converted into wine — are all 

 sul)jects about which our people have but very little practical or satisfac- 

 tory information, and upon which there is prevailing, in all our agricul- 

 tural communities, the most livel}^ interest and intense desire for knowl- 

 edge. 



If the Board were to appoint some competent person as a chemist to 

 the society, who would, under its sanction and in his official cliaracter, 

 receive and analyze, for a fair compensation, to be paid by the applicant, 

 the soils of different localities, and the juice of grapes grown in the differ- 

 ent wine growing districts, and keep a careful record of his operations, 

 to be reported to the Board ; and if at the same time they were to enlist 

 in their service, as committeemen, intelligent and practical cultivators of 

 the vine and wine manufacturers in the different localities, who should 

 also report their observations, experience, and opinions to the Board, all 

 to be embodied in the published transactions, they might perhaps be able 

 to form some well defined landmarks, which may serve as incentives to 

 enterprise, and guides in the prosecution and development of this great 

 resource of wealth and prosperity. If successful in the accomplishment 

 of this object, the society would have rendered a service to the people 

 and the State greater and more lasting than if, b}" some supernatural 

 power, they were to convert the whole bu^c of Mount Diablo into gold 

 dollars, and distribute them equally between every man, woman, and 

 child within her borders. 



The present anomalous condition of the general stock raising interest 

 of our State may well attract the serious apprehension of and engage 

 the attention of the political economists and the best business minds 

 among us. The annual record of death by starvation of a lai'ge per 

 centage of the stock of our State, has become almost as much a matter 

 of course as the periodical return of our rainy seasons. During the 

 unusually dry season of the past summer, a great number of stock were 

 driven to the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Eange, where 

 they found an abundance of food to carry them safely through the dry 

 season, but to return to the valley ranges to enrich the soil with their 

 decaying carcasses. Many others were driven to the low land surround- 

 ing the confluence of our large rivers, where sufficient feed for the sub- 

 sistence of nearly half of the stock in the State, during the summer 

 seasons, has for years past been allowed to go to waste annual!}'; but 

 when forced from these luxuriant fields by the sudden rise of the waters, 

 the same destructive fiite awaited them as did those from the mountains. 

 The last was an extraordinary season, it is true; but if the owners of 

 ]arge herds of stock would pursue the same course in ordinary seasons 

 that they did the last, they would make a great improvement over the 

 usual custom of pasturing them on the same ranges during the summer 

 on which they are compelled to keep them during the following winter. 



