512 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



State might some day make wine of a superior grade and eventually 

 rival some of the better wines of European countries. 



After fifty years of patient, costly, experimental work, and the 

 expenditure of vast sums in repairing the ravages of the phylloxera and 

 Anaheim disease, the great goal has been reached and to-day California 

 wines are considered the equal of those produced in any section of the 

 world. Even abroad they admit this, for at the International Exposi- 

 tion at Turin, Italy, last fall, a new brand of California champagne 

 received the "Grand Prix." the highest award which the exacting jury 

 eoukl confer. 



While conditions have been discouraging to the wine grape grower 

 during the past few years, there is no question but that the industry 

 will eventuall}^ be put on a stable foundation and then, instead of 

 pulling up vines, a vast new acreage will cover our idle hillsides and 

 other lands that are practically fitted for nothing else. In fact, as soon 

 as the demand will justify, there is no reason why we cannot plant 

 hundreds of thousands, yes, even millions of additional acres in grapes. 



Future Possibilities. 



God Almighty has been good to California in giving us a variety of 

 favorable climates and an equal variety of good soils. In the coast 

 counties and those contiguous to the bay of San Francisco, where the- 

 wine grapes mature at a high acid point and a low sugar point, we have 

 a dry wine section that cannot be surpassed anywhere. There flourish 

 the grapes that produce types analagous to the Claret, Cabernet, 

 Burgundy, Sauterne, Chablis and Riesling wines. In our hot interior 

 valleys, where the grapes, on the other hand, mature at a high sugar 

 point and a low acid point, are to be found those varieties that make 

 our Port, Sherry, Madeira, Angelica, and other sweet wines. 



In fact, there is very little of the arable lands of California from the 

 Vina vineyard of Stanford University, in Tehama County, on the 

 north, to the Escondido Valley, in San Diego County, on the south, that 

 is not capable of producing abundant crops of good grapes. Most of 

 the states of the Union, Canada and Mexico can grow a limited variety 

 of grapes in more or less limited quantities, but no region in the whole 

 of North America can hope to compare with California successfully in 

 the quantity, quality, and variety of her wine, table and raisin grapes. 



The Labor Problem. 



One of the most serious difficulties which we must overcome, if we 

 hope to compete successfully with France, Italy, Germany, and Spain 

 and Portugal in the Mdne market of the world, is the labor problem. 

 This fall, pickers were at a premium in the vineyards, and, as a result, 

 prohibitive prices had to be paid to the Japs, Hindoos and other avail- 

 able help that could be pressed into service. 



But with the opening of the Panama Canal, it is expected that the 

 influx of immigration from Southern Europe will help to adjust this 

 vexing problem. According to Guy B. Barnham, who recently returned 



