MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 413 



cause they were the best of all the white wines exhibited at the firs t 

 World's Fair in this country. At the Vienna Exhibition, that great 

 world's fair in that historical city on the Danube, the product of Mis- 

 souri vineyards, was awarded the first prize as the best red wine, in com- 

 petition with all the wines raised in the wine-renowned districts of the 

 world. Is this not worth praise enough to make any Missourian proud 

 of his State ? And should not this stimulate every vineyardist to greater 

 exertion ? Every man has his ups and downs, his trials and tribulations 

 in this world, and the vineyardist not excepted. Fifty years' trials in the 

 Missouri vineyards bear testimony to that effect. The viticulturist had 

 to fight against many adversities; he has to be in constant war with 

 birds, insects and disease, and, in spite of so many obstacles, ingenuity, 

 incessant industry and perseverance, have helped him to win a glorious 

 battle. 



By meditation, observation and experiments, he has learned during 

 these past years of failure and diseaase in his vineyards, that great 

 lesson, that want of fertilization is the main cause of disease. If we take 

 a crop of fruit from our vines year after year, without restoring the 

 proper nutriment, as a matter of course, failure, and finally disease must 

 set in, and the indolent and lazy vineyardist is at a loss 



Many years ago, a man, connected with a large vineyard, was asked 

 the question, "how is that vineyard doing i"" "Oh, he said, it appears to 

 be all right, I believe, though it ought to be manured." And for more 

 than twenty-five or thiity years there have been crops of fruit taken from 

 that vineyard without the least effort to make any use of fertilizers. 

 And the large casks in those spacious wine-cellars, which were filled with 

 the crop of the year 1874, have never since experienced any such 

 amount of wines. Disease has set in. some say Phylloxera; and, in my 

 opinion, it is worse than that — it is nothing else but starvation. 



As it is said, "ingenuity helps many a man to overthrow obstacles," 

 so in the production of wine. The production of pure wine could not 

 meet the demand, consequently the unscrupulous vintner resorted to 

 adulteration and overflooded the country with that stuff, damaging the 

 interest of viticulture and the sale of a pure article of wine. Besides all 

 that, viticulture was damaged by the laws of the land, which prohibit 

 the sale of wine in the hands of the producers. It was reported that the 

 vineyards were more or less in a state of neglect or carelessness, and 

 how could they be otherwise.^ The natural result of such a state of af- 

 fairs could not bestow any courage to the vineyardist, hence the neglect. 

 It is no wonder, when the sturdy, industrious worker in the vineyard 

 turns a cold shoulder to his grapes and seeks another and more remu- 



