8o Voyage of the Novara. 



of the malady amounted in the autumn of 1852 to 1,137,990 

 Spanish piastres, £190,000,* and after having waited in vain a 

 period of five years, for a better state of things, the impoverished 

 landowners entirely gave up cultivating the vine. A traveller 

 who chances now to visit Madeira can scarcely believe that 

 but a few years ago the greater portion of the island was 

 covered with the plant. The cause of its disappearance 

 must, however, not be ascribed entirely to the disease, but 

 partly also to the utter neglect of its culture in favour of 

 that of other products, so much so that of late it was scarcely 

 possible to procure a sufficient quantity of grapes for invalids to 

 whom they were medicinally prescribed. Moreover, the sugar 

 plantations, which annually increase in extent, have contributed 

 to the destruction of the vines, as the former require irriga- 

 tion, which causes the roots of the latter to rot in the humid 

 ground.-j- 



The present situation of the people of Madeira claims 

 alike the sympathies of the philanthropist and the attention 

 of the political economist. We here behold a population 

 of upwards of a hundred thousand souls, deprived at once 

 of a product, which has been for more than three centuries 



* The quantity of wine prodticecl amounted, in the year 1851, to 10,374 pipes ; in 

 the follo^ving year (1852), only to 1413^ pipes. 



f The vine disease seems, however, to have been akeady prevalent in Madeira 

 at a former period. In an old lease, referring to land or property in the west of 

 the island, there is a clause to the eiiect that " In the event of tlie yoimg gi'ape 

 being covered with mildew {mangra), the contract would be null and void." In 

 Portugal also, the disease is said to have existed more tlian fifty years ago, tliough 

 not to a great extent. 



