32 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



V. Signoret, of that city. Daring the same year I also established the 

 identity of the gall and root-inhabiting types, by showing that in the 

 fall of the year the last brood of gall-lice betake themselves to the 

 roots and hibernate thereon. In 1871 I visited France and studied 

 their insect in the field ; and in the fall of that year, after making more 

 extended observations here, I was able to give absolute proof of the 

 identity of the two insects, and to make other discoveries, which not 

 only interested our friends abroad, but were of vital importance to 

 our own grape growers, especially in the Mississippi Valley. I have 

 given every reason to believe that the failure of the European vine, 

 ( Vitis vinifera)^ when planted here, the partial failure of many hy- 

 brids with the European vinifera, and the deterioration and death of 

 many of the more tender-rooted native varieties, are mainly owing to 

 the injurious work of this insidious little root-louse. It had been at 

 its destructive work for years, producing injury the true cause of 

 which was never suspected until the publication of the article in my 

 fourth Report. I also showed that some of our native varieties en- 

 joyed relative immunity from the insects' attacks, and urged their use 

 for stocks, as a means of reestablishing the blighted vineyards of 

 Southern France. 



The disease continued to spread in Europe, and became so calam- 

 itous in the last-named country that the French Academy of Sciences 

 appointed a standing Phylloxera Committee. It is also attracting 

 some attention in Portugal, Austria and Germany, and even in Eng- 

 land, where it affects hot-house grapes. 



The literature of the subject grew to such vast proportions that, 

 after publishing a biographical review, containing notices and sum- 

 maries of 483 articles or treatises, published during the four years of 

 1868-71, MM. Planchon and Lichtenstein gave up the continuance of 

 the work as impracticable. 



At the suggestion and with the cooperation of the Societe Oen- 

 trale d'Agriculture de I'Hcrault, the French Minister of Agriculture 

 last autumn commissioned Prof. Planchon to visit this country and 

 learn all he could about the insect and iC^ effect on our different 

 vines. Prof. Planchon arrived here the latter part of August and re- 

 mained over a month, during which time he visited many prominent 

 vineyards in the Eastern States, on Kelley's Island, in Missouri, and in 

 North Carolina. His investigations not only fully corroborated all 

 my previous conclusions regarding the Phylloxera, but gave him a 

 knowledge of the quality of our native grapes and wines which will 

 be very apt to dispel much of the prejudice against them that has so 

 universally possessed his coutrymen, who have not followed our recent 

 rapid progress in viticulture and viniculture, but found their opinions 



