60 FIFTH AKNUAL EEPORT 



should not be taken into account. In the fall, before cold weather 

 set in, he cut 150,000 grape cuttings, which he put in a frost-proof 

 cellar and preserved carefall}/- ; after putting them in sand they cal- 

 loused and rooted well, but many had not enough vitality to push the 

 eye, so that he did not make more than one-third of them live, though 

 there was no chance of winter-killing, as the cellar was kept at an 

 even temperature of about 55 deg. F, 



That the excessive drouth had much to do with our grape-vine 

 mortality, as it had with the mortality of evergreens and other plants, 

 is quite evident. But that it was not the direct cause there would be 

 serious reasons for believing, even were there no evidence of the fact 

 in the above-quoted experience of others. The Grape-vine rather 

 delights in dryness, and has been known to do well and yield abund- 

 antly under conditions of drouthiness which have killed evergreens 

 and other trees. Moreover, this inlluence alone will not fully explain 

 the irregular manner in which vines, under precisely similar condi- 

 tions of soil and elevation, were affected; nor the greater mortality 

 of some varieties than of others under such similar conditions. 



Nor can the result be attributed to overbearing alone, for though 

 cases of overbearing may have occurred, there is abundant evidence 

 of vines dying where the yield, the year preceding, had not been 

 larger than it is wont to be. Remembering also that in the spring of 

 1S71 there was a late frost on the 17th of April, which cut off almost 

 universally the first fruit in the more central portions of our own 

 State, and that the crop consisted of the latent orsecondary bunches, 

 it is difficult to conceive how our grape-vines, speaking generally, can 

 be said to have overborne, except where — already sick and injured 

 from other causes — they were making that final effort at fruitfulness 

 which so often precedes death ; and where, consequently, such undue 

 fruitfulness was the effect rather than the cause of disease. Mr. 

 Horace Holton's vineyard at Webster Groves was so severely injured 

 by the late frost of 1871 that it bore no fruit whatever that year; 

 yet his vines suffered with the rest in 1872. 



If then the undue mortality of grape-vines can not be solely attri- 

 buted to either of these causes, what other influence would most 

 nearly account for the facts in the case? I unhesitatingly answer 

 Phylloxera! There is much that would go to prove this in the 

 writings which I have quoted, as indicated by the italicized passages. 

 We find that (1) the death has been noticed in streaks and stretches 

 in the vineyard ; that (3) in the same piece of ground some vines were 

 sound and healthy, while others were either sickly or dead, and that 

 (4) those varieties which most succumbed were those having a large 

 per ceritage of foreign blood in them, or (5) else Labruscas, or, in 

 short, just the very varieties which I have shown to be most injured 

 by this insect. The fact (2) that there was no special or direct evi- 

 dence of the root-louse " hehig at work^ or that neither the naked eye 



