492 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



Mr. Kaller. Before I say anything further I want to say that I 

 have read every bulletin issued upon any subject. I have had my 

 attention called to various bulletins that have been written on this sub- 

 ject, on any subject that is of interest to the grower, but when I came 

 here I came with the information that I was meeting a virgin soil. And 

 men come here and are brought here and allowed to invest here, thinking, 

 and are made to believe, that they have to deal with perfectly virgin 

 soil. It takes a few years before you come to the conclusion that you 

 have made a mistake and that your soil is not virgin. They have to 

 begin investigating in an attempt to find out what is needed, and I have 

 been here now six years, and two years ago only found out that fertiliza- 

 tion was needed. There are hundreds, thousands, of people that have 

 come here who are utterly unable to cope with this condition, because 

 when they buy their vineyard they go in debt, and I think it is the 

 curse of this country that too many poor people are brought in here 

 believing that they have to deal with soil that will yield crops, and they 

 know nothing about such work as fertilization or other work that Pro- 

 fessor Bioletti has told us about. They have come, starting down at the 

 bottom, and are unable to stand the cost ; they started in, many of them, 

 in debt, and didn't have anything to go on with. And I say. while I 

 appreciate your country very much, it took me four years before I found 

 out that there must be something else. I have done everything on my 

 vineyard that I could, and when I found it did not grow and produce 

 to my satisfaction, then I took a piece of soil up to Berkeley and had it 

 analyzed. 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 



Chairman Cook. Our first address this afternoon will be given by 

 Mr. Frank T. Swett of Martinez on the subject of "Viticulture in the 

 Interior Valleys. ' ' 



VITICULTURE IN THE INTERIOR VALLEYS. 



By Feawk T. Swett, Martinez, Cal. 



If the 1912 prices for Tokays and Malagas had been better by $300 a 

 car ; if the wine grapes of the San Joaquin had brought $14 a ton instead 

 of $6 a ton ; if raisins were above instead of below the cost of production, 

 it would be a delight for us all to consider the best ways of increasing 

 and making permanent a greater vineyard acreage in the vast valleys of 

 the interior. 



It would then be worth while considering the best ways of controlling 

 that capricious and unsatisfactory pest, the phylloxera, whicli works 

 with unremitting energy in the Coast counties, where grapes sell for $16 

 a ton, but takes things easy in the sections where grapes are worth only 

 a trifle more than the cost of picking and hauling. 



Were it not for the work of the phylloxera there might be an overpro- 

 duction of grapes in the coast counties, but, owing to its steady progress, 



