FRENCH SPORT 



of birds, who are, as we shall see, the natural police of the 

 world. 



The Phylloxera, for instance, which ruined the old and 

 valuable vineyards in France, is a terrible little acarid, or 

 mite, which attacks the roots. Too small to see, and im- 

 possible to kill without killing the plant, it laid waste the 

 fertile hills and valleys of all South and Central France, 

 causing millions of pounds damage. One reason for this 

 destruction sprang from the universal sporting instinct 

 innate in every Frenchman. Everybody goes out with his 

 gun to destroy any lark, sparrow, or titmouse that is idiotic 

 enough to remain in the country. Only birds can deal 

 efficiently with insect pests. Take this horrible little Phyl- 

 loxera, for instance ; a single female in her life of forty-five 

 days will lay about two hundred eggs. Each egg becomes a 

 little grub, which after a few moments of uncertainty and 

 agitation settles itself, and begins to suck steadily at any 

 unoccupied part of the vine root. After ten to twelve days' 

 life it will be laying eggs as rapidly as its mother. Thus in 

 an ordinary summer the number of young ones produced 

 from B. single female becomes quite incalculable. 



These pests are natives of America. Imported on Ameri- 

 can roots about 1868, they had in thirteen years practically 

 ruined the vineyards in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and 

 Germany. 



All sorts of remedies were tried — saturation of the ground 

 by poisons, flooding the vineyards to drown them, artificial 

 cultivation of their insect and plant enemies, and many others. 



The correct and satisfactory method has been at last dis- 

 covered. American vines of sorts which are able to resist 

 these Yankee mites have been imported, and the valuable 

 French vines have been grafted on to them. 



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