8 INTRODUCTION. 



had really adduced the strongest argument in their favor, 

 namely, the fact that the phylloxera lived on them without 

 causing injury. 



The indisputable fact should be clearly grasped that 

 phylloxera comes to stay, that the extinction method 

 has proved an utter failure in Europe, no matter how 

 thoroughly and expensively carried out, as in France, 

 Switzerland, Germany, Austro- Hungary, Roumania, Italy, 

 Spain, Bulgaria, Portugal, Russia, Servia. 



In all of these countries without exception, phylloxera has 

 spread and viticulturists bave been finally compelled to 

 reconstitute their vineyards with phylloxera-resistant 

 American vines. 



The vine growers of California have taken hold of that 

 question for a good many years, and helped by the Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station of the University of California and 

 also by the Viticultural Commission have been able to re- 

 establish a great many of their vineyards. There seems 

 nevertheless to be a need for more knowledge on the subject, 

 a thorough understanding of these resistant vines. Their 

 properties, grafting affinity with European stock, degree of 

 resistance, adaptation to soils, becomes a matter of primary 

 necessity as the first step towards permanent reconstitution 

 on a phylloxera-resistant basis. 



The difficult problems which were necessarily connected 

 with the early culture of American resistant stock have been 

 solved in the most practical manner in Europe ; the culture of 

 resistant stock no longer presents any trouble to the intel- 

 ligent grower, and as a result, during the last twenty years the 

 areas successfully reconstituted total some millions of acres, 

 bearing heavier ^nd finer crops than before the advent of 

 the phylloxera. 



All the best knowledge and information on the culture of 

 American vines^has been systematically gathered by Profes- 

 sors Viala and k Ravaz in their world-renowned work, "Les 



