3i6 Journal of Agriculture. [8 ^Iay, 1908. 



trouble and in them the American stocks which sujjjMjrt tlie highest pro- 

 portion of Hme do not give complete satisfaction. 



The subsoil of this class of land consists of a soft bluish-grey marl, 

 exceedingly rich in lime, which easily breaks down to soil when exposed 

 to the air. It is met with at a \ar\ ing depth, sometimes as near the 

 surface as a foot or so but usually <leeper. This marl is known in 

 Spanish as To.sca ; it is in the soils where it appears nea'- the surface 

 that reconstitution has given most trouble. Strange to sa\ , these were 

 often the \ery soils which, prior to the appearance of phylloxera, produced 

 wines of the highest quality. All the soils, of Jerez contain much lime, 

 even the sandy ones, but in these it is chiefly in the subsoil. It is in the 

 Afuera .soils which produce wines of truly extraordinary quality that the 

 carbonate of lime percentage reaches a really high figure, sufficient to 

 seriously interfere with the problem of reconstitution. 



The Barros are a less distinct type ; they are clays containing a varying 

 proportion of sand. They also contain a good deal of lime. 



The Arenas or sands vary considerably. Large areas of them exist in 

 several parts of the district. Their reconstitution has been comparatively 

 easy. 



At San Lucar itself the soil is verx sandy, chiefly sea sand washed 

 up from the sea, but at a short distance from it towards Babaina one 

 gets into low hills of the regular Afuera type very rich in carbonate of 

 lime, luit these are looked upon rather as belonging to Jerez, all their 

 wine going to the latter town. Along the coast we also have Chippiona, 

 famed for its Muscat, Rota for its Tintilla, and other small places. 

 These are situated in very sandv soil and in this part of Spain as else- 

 where sand maintains its pror^ertv of t-nal)ling the ungrafted European 

 vine tn resist phylloxera. The sand\ soils cf Jerez, San Lucar and 

 Chippiona are decidedly less resistant than thfise of Portugal or France, 

 and all hough the vines growing in them are not killed immediately they 

 suffer from the effects of phylloxera and after a certain number of years 

 cea.se to possess sufficient vigor or to yield profitable crops. The length 

 of time the vines last after they have been atlacked varies greatly ; quite 

 near Jerez there are even now a good manv ungrafted European vines 

 still alive after a ten or twelve years" struggle with the insect. The 

 crops thc-y are giving are poor and these vineyarfls are being gradually 

 rooted out and replaced bv resistant ones. Their slow destruction is in 

 s-rong contrast with the rapid extermination of all the vineyards planted 

 in the Afuera .soils where the action of phvlloxera was far more deadly. 

 In the still more sandv soils of San Lucar and Chippiona the vines resist 

 ionger, and about here a good many vineyards continue to give fair 

 results ungrafted ; but even here reconstitution is now lieing pu.shed on 

 actively. 



The resistance of sandv soils seems to depend on several factors, one 

 of the most importan*" of which appears to be the percentage of lime in 

 the soil. According to Dr. D. Juan Gavilan, a Spanish authority who has 

 studied the subject, sandv soils capable of resisting phylloxera contain at 

 least 60 per cent, of sand, not too fine ; not more than i per cent, of 

 lime carbonate and less than 4 per cent, of clay. The tertiary sandv 

 soils of Jerez contain a consideraljle proportion of lime, and ihis pro- 

 bably prevents tht-m from resisting as Avell as other sanfls similar to them 

 in aT)pearance. 



The r)oint is one which interests us in Australia, the freedom from 

 excess of lime of most of our sandv soils is thus .strongly in their favor. 



