lo Nov., 1908.] 



Viticulture in Europe. 



695 



swells up continually and the centre of it after a while dies off. This 

 is particularly noticeable in the case of Rupestris du Lot. At the time 

 of my visit (3/1/98) gangs of men and women — principally the latter — 

 were hard at work removing the wood from the vines, cutting them into 

 suitable lengths — 45 centimetres, or about 18 inches, is the length 

 universally adopted, for cuttings to be bench grafted those to be struck 

 in the nursery ungrafted are cut 50 cm. long — and making them into 

 bundles. 



I assisted at the trial of a machine by which cuttings could be m;Je 

 and automatically counted. The inventor, an electrician employed in the 

 neighbouring electric power works, who had recently patented ^t, objected 

 to my photographing his machine which I saw a few weeks later at the 

 large nurseries of Don Jaime Sabate the well-known nurseryman at 

 Villafranca del Panades near Barcelona who eventuallv purchased the 

 patent. 



PRESERVATION OF CUTTINGS. 



The need for such a machine proves the extent of the trade now being 

 done in resistant cuttings. A photograph of one of the preservation 

 trenches in which cuttings are placed, with their butts in running water, 

 immediatelv after their removal from the vines gives a good idea of it 

 also. 



Don Nicolas has found it necessary to take stringent measures to pre- 

 vent wood being purchased, at the cheap rate at which it is supplied to 

 growers, for resale outside of the province in other parrs of Spain where 

 less ample provision has been made for supplying the demand for resistant 

 cuttings necessary for reconstitution. 



Such is a very brief description of the present state of the viticultural 

 industry in the province of Navarra. I could with advantage have spent 

 some weeks in studying reconstitution under such capable and energetic 

 management but want of time rendered this impossible. I saw enough 

 however to be highly impressed with the good work now being done by 

 the Government which is in such marked contrast to the entire absence of 

 State aid in the first destroyed provinces of Southern Spain. 



