AGRICULTURE AND SOILS OF CALIFORNIA. 505 
the mavy points in which the vinicultural practice of California seems 
susceptible of improvement. We find elsewhere that long experience 
teaches the vintners of each country how to obtain the best possible re- 
sults under their particular conditions; and it is not surprising that 
during the short period of experience had in California, and with the 
tendency of Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, French, and Germans to 
introduce each the practice of his own country under circumstances so 
different, the best methods and uniformity in quality should not yet 
have become fixed. What is true of wine-making proper is equally so 
of the modes of culture. The padres naturally adopted the system of 
short pruning prevailing in their own country, and the later comers as 
naturally continued it, and, oddly enough, applied it almost indiscrimi- 
nately to the other grape varieties brought from Northern France, Ger- 
many, and Hungary, in some cases even to the varieties of the native 
American stock, altogether unused to such summary treatment. The 
experimental stage in California wine-making is also strikingly evi- 
denced by the great variety of grapes still found in the vineyards of 
progressive growers, as the result of which we find in the markets and 
in fairs a most tempting and beautiful display of the grape varieties of all 
countries; and nothing can be more convincing as regards the peculiar 
adaptability of the State to this industry than the excellence of most of 
these often surpassing in this respect the best of their kind in their 
original homes. Yet we can hardly wonder at this in a climate which 
allows the currant and the orange to ripen side by side. 
Another drawback to the quality of the wines thus far is the tend- 
ency of each vine-grower to make his own wines, involving not only 
an unnecessary multiplication of costly buildings, caskage, &e., but 
also the unfounded assumption that wine-making is an easy thing and 
can be managed by any one having a moderate amount of common 
sense; whereas, on the contrary, the production of the best possible 
result from a given material requires in this case, as in other manufact- 
uring industries, a very considerable amount of knowledge and good 
judgment, which can bein some degree replaced by mere practice only 
‘in countries where long experience has settled all into a regular routine. 
The introduction of large wineries, managed by professional experts, 
(like the magnificent establishment of Buena Vista, near Sonoma Town), 
has gone far toward redeeming the wines of California from the re- 
proach cast upon them by the hasty marketing of first crude efforts, 
which has, until lately, caused much of the native product to be sold 
under foreign labels. They have always possessed at least the merit 
of being made of the grape pure and simple, ungallized and unpainted, 
not so much, perhaps, as the result of superior virtue of wine-makers 
on the Pacific coast as because the superabundance and low price of 
grapes reduces the temptation to adulterate or “correct” the natural 
product to a minimum. .Even within the last few years some vineyards 
in the interior have been in part harvested by turning in hogs; and 
other uses for the surplus product have been sought and found in the 
making of an excellent sirup by evaporation of the must. The growing 
appreciation and consequent better price of California wines will prob- 
ably hereafter prevent recourse to such expedients. 
A detailed consideration of the methods of wine-making is beyond 
the limits of the present article, but it should be said that after the 
picking of the grapes (usually by Chinese) the means and appliances 
used in the succeeding processes are generally (as in other branches of 
agriculture in California) of the most approved and efficient kind, and the 
operations conducted in the most cleanly manner. The reported tread- 
