TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. 



As the area of phylloxera-attacked vineyards in California 

 increases rapidly every year, and the insect has now obtained 

 a firm footing in our most important viticultural centers, 

 we may safely assume, in the light of the history of the rapid 

 spread of phylloxera in European vine-growing countries, 

 that at no distant date every vineyard in California will be 

 devastated by this terrible insect. 



Already we have seen the destruction it caused in the 

 Napa, Sonoma, Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, reach- 

 ing thousands of acres in extent, and it will spread slowly 

 but surely to Southern California. The signal and world- 

 wide failure of the extinction method to check the progress 

 of the phylloxera should be clearly recognized by all Califor- 

 nian vine growers. 



In looking over many serial writings published some twenty 

 years ago, during the early period of phylloxera history in 

 France, and bearing in mind that at present almost the whole 

 of the French vineyards are phylloxera ted and reconstituted, 

 nothing now appears more ludicrous than the constantly 

 reiterated advice tendered by authorities in vine districts free 

 from the insect to unfortunate growers in attacked districts 

 to persevere in their attempts at "total extinction" and not to 

 plant American vines "because the phylloxera and other dis- 

 eases lived on them." Authorities in European States free 

 from phylloxera were especially loud in their praises of the 

 extinction method, but undoubtedly their motives in recom- 

 mending total extinction were not purely disinterested. Mill- 

 ardet one of the early advocates of reconstitution, quaintly 

 remarked that the opponents of the American grafting stock 



