JouniaL of Agriculture. [8 Jan., 1908. 



seco:nd progress report ox viticulture UN 



EUROPE. 



b . de Castclla. 



I have the honour to report as follows on the work done during the 

 month prior to m\- arrival in London. 



As already stated in letters, after having inquired in.o Swiss methods 

 and results, at Lausanne and other points in the Canton de Vaud, and at 

 Colombier, Auvernier, etc., in the Canton of Neuchatel, I proceeded to 

 Dijon, whence I went south again as far as Viilefranche, the capital of the 

 Beaujolais district, where wines of a quality intermediate between the 

 cheap wines of the " !Midi '" and the celebrated Burgundies of the Cote 

 d'Or, are produced in very large quantities. These wines are among 

 the best of the cheaper wines of France; they are of sufficient quality to 

 be worth bottling and keeping for a few years, instead of being consumed 

 before they are eighteen months old, the fate of the cheap " vins oxdi- 

 naires " of the Midi, which seldom improve sufficiently in bottle 10 be 

 worth maturing. The Beaujolais wines are of similar quality to man\ 

 of our Australian light wines, though still Ijghter. They are very agree- 

 al)le, and the type of wine a French business man likes to take with his 

 lunch. 



As was the case in Hermitage, the Beaujolais district resembles Aus- 

 tralia in the absence of excess of lime in its soils. The climate is colder, 

 though, than that of our Victorian wine districts. 



In Beaujolais I visited vineyards, experimental plots, and collections at 

 Viilefranche, Belleville and Chiroubles, and also in the adjoining !Maconais. 

 This district is intermediate between Beaujolais and Burgundy, so far as 

 geographical situation is concerned, but the quality of the wine is scarcely 

 equal to that produced in those districts. 



Burgundv was next visited. Reconstitutinn here has been completed 

 for a good manv years, though not for quite so long a time as in the south 

 of France. 



Though the climate of Burgundy and Beaujolais is colder than that 

 of the parts of Victoria where most of our vineyards are situated they 

 are famed for qualitv. I thought it well to examine these districts rather 

 fully, and to inquire more particularly into the effect of grafting on resis- 

 tant stocks on the quality of the wine. Throughout central and eastern 

 I'rance and Switzerland one is struck by the amount of experimental work 

 which is being done, wuth the happiest results so far as the instruction of 

 growers is concerned, and the confidence in ultimate success with which 

 they have thus been enabled to tackle the problem of reconsiitution on a 

 practical scale. In Switzerland experimental plots are usually conducted 

 on private land, with the assistance and under the auspices of the viti- 

 culturai branch of the State Department of Agriculture, whose well-known 

 Viticultural Station at the Champ de L'Air, near Lausanne, has a Euro- 

 pean reputation. 



I am pleased to he able to record a continuance of the same courteous 

 receptions and hearty assistance from all those with whom the work of my 

 mission has brought me in contact, to which I referred in m\ first rc-yort. 



