268 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 



REPORT AND MEMORIAL PRESENTED TO THE SENATE OF CALIFORNIA, AT 

 ITS EIGHTEENTH SESSION, B"£ THE COMMITTEE ON CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 



Your Committee on the Culture of the Crape, realizing that the sub- 

 ject matter intrusted to them concerned one of the most vital interests 

 of California, have given it careful consideration, in all its bearings, and 

 as the result of their deliberations, beg leave to present the following 

 report, together with the accompanying concurrent resolution and 

 memorial to Congress : 



REPORT. 



Perhaps no other country on the globe, and certainly no other portion 

 of the American continent, is so well adapted, in all respects, to the 

 successful and profitable cultivation of the grape, as the State of Cali- 

 fornia, which, indeed, seems as it were, to be the natural home of the 

 grape, where it grows readily, from cuttings, upon the most arid hill- 

 sides, and without irrigation. 



The culture of the grape gives more employment to labor than any 

 other branch of farming, and its development w T ill tend greatly to the 

 rapid peopling of our State with immigrants from among the honest, 

 industrious and moral natives of the wine growing districts of Europe. 



To the immigrant who comes to California without means, with the 

 expectation of a dependence upon farm labor for support, the districts 

 devoted solely to the culture of the cereals offer small inducements; for, 

 while the demand for labor is comparatively great and the pay liberal, 

 for a short period during the rush of gathering and harvesting the crop, 

 it is succeeded by a long interval of inaction, when there is little or no 

 need of hired labor, and the employe is turned adrift, perhaps to suffer 

 from want before another Job offers; besides, in our country, where the 

 use of labor-saving machinery in agriculture is so universal, the demand 

 for manual labor is comparatively small, and is decreasing every year. 

 This is not the case in vine culture; the careful planting and annual 

 pruning of the vines, and the gathering of the ripened fruit, can only be 

 done by the employment of human hands. 



The growing of the grape is not in conflict with anj T other branch of 

 agricultural industry, but can be made auxiliary to nearly all other kinds 

 of farm labor, as for example : if you raise grain, your seeding is over 

 before the labor of pruning the vine commences, and at the time of 

 grain harvest there is little or no work required in the vineyard; and if 

 the cultivation of the mulberry and feeding the silkworm should prove 

 a success in California, its prosecution will present no conflict with the 

 vintage work. And in a country blessed with so genial a climate and 

 fruitful a soil as California, where all these several branches of agricul- 



