GRAPE CULTURE. 149 



character of each year's vintage through a period of upwards of eighty years ; 

 and there is not an instance mentioned where the grape crop was a total, or 

 even partial, failure, or produced a wine of an inferior quality. This is more 

 than can be said for the best wine countries in Europe, where, during the past 

 sixty years, there have been but eleven good wine crops. 



Since the settlement of California by the Anglo-Americans, fifteen years 

 since, the old mission vineyards have been extended and new ones planted 

 over wide sections of the State. These vineyards are almost exclusively 

 planted with the European wine grape, and cover a list of many hundred varie- 

 ties, and include the choicest and most delicate sorts ; and there are at this 

 time not less than twenty millions of the i-itis vinifcra, or wine grape, in culti- 

 vation in the State of California; while it is estimated that the wine made 

 frc«n these vineyards this season Avill reach two millions of gallons. In fine, 

 it may be stated that the wine grape of Europe has been acclimatized over 

 more than one-fourth part of the territory of the United States ; and if an esti- 

 mate of numbers is made, it will be found that there are more foreign vines in 

 cultivation throughout the nation than of all American varieties put together. 



Believing that the above facts are a sufficient apology for consuming so 

 much of the valuable space of the Commissioner's report, and that the reader 

 will be as well satisfied as I am myself that it was an inadvertency on the part 

 of Messrs. Lippiucott and Campbell in not making proj^er exceptions of those 

 localities where it is shown that the foreign vine is in successful culture, I will 

 now proceed to make some observations on vine culture in the United States, 

 but more especially in the locality of California. 



THE ISOTHERMAL AND METEOROLOGICAL REQUIREMENTS OF THE GRAPE VINE 



This branch of the subject is that upon which success or failui-e in vine 

 ulture depends, in a far greater degree, than on the constituents of the soil 

 r the skill of the vintner. The isothermal and meteorological conditions of 

 the atmosphere have such an immediate influence on the vine that any sudden 

 unfixvorable change will often ruin the crop, especially at that most critical 

 period when the fruit is in the process of hardening its seeds. If the atmos- 

 phere is cold, damp, and chilly, the mildew may appear on the grape soon after 

 the blossoms have set, and u^i to the hardening of the seeds, but not afterwards. 

 The incipient grape during this period has an acetous exudation on its surface, 

 which becomes corroded by the influence of the cold air, and forms the minute 

 fungus called mildew. Or, to state the case more concisely, the grape mildew 

 is an oxidization of the tartaric acid, always found on the surface of the leaves 

 of the vine as well as the grapes during this period, but disappearing fi'om the 

 grape after the seeds have matured, because then the demands of the swelling 

 pulp absorbs whatever of acetous matter is furnished by that most wonderful 

 chemical laboratory, the leaves of the vines, while in their varied stages of 

 gi'owth. If during this period the atmosphere is dry, although at a low tem- 

 perature, there will be fiir less danger of mildew than should it be a time of 

 heavy rains. Even if there are heavy rains, the grape may escape from this 

 great enemy if the rains are warm, with the same condition of atmosphere 

 following. 



No one will deny that the American grape is less liable to injury by sudden, 

 changes of temperature, accompanied by excessive moistm-e, than are the Euro- 

 pean varieties. This may be accounted for on the theory that the leaf on the 

 foreign kinds is smooth and thin, and its acetic exudations more exposed to the 

 weather, in consequence, than it is on the leaf of the American grape, which is 

 thidier and stronger ribbed, and has a down on its under surface which secretes 

 the acetous exudations, and protects it from so du-ect a contact with the atmos- 

 phere. ^3 



