﻿104 SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



societies have offered minor sums for the same purpose, and to enable^ 

 the proper experiments and observations to be carried on. 



The decrease which the Phylloxera had caused in the grape pro- 

 duct for the past few years has, however, been made up by an excel- 

 lent average yield in 1874. Notwithstanding injurious late frosts, a 

 severe hail storm and the Phylloxera in some of the southern depart- 

 ments, the yield in the country at large, both in quantity and quality^ 

 has been above the average, and her 2j000,000 hectares (nearly five 

 million acres) of vines, giving employment to 7,000,000 laborers, pro- 

 duced, according to the Econojniste trancais, as much as 70,000,000 

 hectolitres (over 1,850,000,000 gallons) of wine. Indeed, the vintage 

 was so unusually good in the non-infested districts, that there was 

 an insufficiency of casks ; while in some of the ravaged districts it 

 was so poor that the wine makers were glad to sell their casks, for 

 which they had no use, to their more fortunate countrymen. 



M. L. Bazille, of Montpellier, in a recent letter says: 



The Phylloxera continues to commit great ravatres in our vineyards. We are oi» 

 the eve of losing them entirely. Those who can submerge do so and with success. 

 They are convinced of its beneficial effects. The ellorts and sacrifices made to organ- 

 ize and employ this method attest its value. Several persons have built large engines 

 to elevate the water, and others have been at very large expense to obtain and control 

 water. But it is only the few who can afford sucli outlays, and the mass of our grape- 

 growers, in view of the poor success attending other remedies, tall back on the use ot' 

 American vines, through which they hope to be relieved of embarrassment. 



SPREAD OF PHYLLOXERA IN EUROPE. 



It would be out of place in this report to give a detailed account 

 of the spread of the insect-in Europe, and it suffices to say that it con- 

 tinues to widen its territory in France, and that several neighboring 

 European governments have taken stringent measures to prevent the 

 importation of vines from the infested districts of Europe and from 

 America. Just as its presence at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, Aus- 

 tria, discovered in 1872, was easily traced to American vines which 

 had been introduced there ; or as its appearance in Portugal during 

 the same year was referable to the same cause ; so at each new point 

 where it has been discovered, its presence has been easily explained, 

 either by gradual spreading from infested districts or by importation 

 on infested vines. Thus its discovery during the year at Pregny, near 

 Geneva, Switzerland, seemed at first to baflle explanation. The fatal- 

 ists contended that it must have passed from Lyons, France — the 

 nearest infested region — and' declared that it was useless to contend 

 against an enemy which could pass over a hundred miles in a season. 

 M. Dumas, perpetual Secretary of the French Academy, conceiving 



