24 How TO MAKE GRAPE CULTURE PROFITABLE IN CALIFORNIA 



.soil is gen* rally too rich and deep to be available for this pur- 

 pose, at least the services of an expert would be required to avoid 

 mistakes in the choice of varieties. In the more interior locations 

 a deeper soil is necessary, to maintain the vine properly and pro- 

 duce a good quality of fruit. Clays generally produce a higher 

 sugar and .firmer grapes than rich sandy loams. 



In the preparation of the soil for vine planting, California 

 methods have in the past been so slack that great losses of money 

 or, as in some cases, even bankruptcy have been the consequence, 

 especially where vineyards were planted on steep hillsides of poor 

 gravelly soil. I shall not repeat anything here, that has been said 

 on tr.is subject in the chapter on preventive methods of the Califor- 

 nia vine disease, but shall only make a few completing remarks 

 with reference to mountain regions. Where vineyards have been 

 planted on hillsides, the neglect of properly securing the natural 

 richness of the surface of virgin soils, in preventing its washing by 

 winter rains or loss of organic matter through combustion by the 

 summer's heat, will make itself felt with greatest severity, when 

 these vineyards will have to be replanted on account of the de- 

 structive work of the Phylloxera. The only way such lands could 

 have been remunerative would have been to plow or dig trenches 

 about 3 feet deep and 2 wide horizontally along the slops and filling 

 them up with humus earth from above. Vines planted in such 

 trenches would have produced from 7 to 10 tons p a r acre, where 

 they yield oi'.'y 2 or 3 tons by the go-as-you-please method. 



The grape vine is the most grateful cultivated plant we have. 

 Treat it well and intelligently and it will pay you back abundantly. 

 It is better to have 5 acres producing 35 tons of grapes, than 50 

 acres producing only 100 tons, especially when grapes are cheap. 

 The five-acre vineyard would have paid enough profits to set out 

 an acre or two more every year, as described above, while the fifty- 

 acre one depleted your pocket book in the first place and kept you 

 poor afterwards, all the income from it being required to pay 

 Asiatic labor, as has been the case in a good many instances. 



In reconstituting vineyards destroyed by the Phylloxera or 

 from any other cause, on resistant stocks in places where the land 

 has been under cultivation for 10, 15 or more years, the work be- 

 comes much more difficult. It is best to work over all lands that 

 will wash or slide from winter rains by trenching as described, in- 

 stead of turning the whole of the ground over 20 inches or two feet 

 The better portions should be commenced with and the poorer and 

 steeper ones left for four or five years, to cover themselves with 

 natural vegetation, if this will grow; if not, some cultivated plants 

 which are valuable for green manuring, should be sowed and as- 

 sisted by cultivation. If leguminous plants will not succeed, any- 

 thing that will grow is better than nothing. 



As has been stated, when doing such work, if the surface soil 

 is devoid of humus, do not forget to put plenty of organic matter 

 in the form of brush, dead prunings and vines, straw, stable and 

 green manure into the trenches. The first named should be put 

 in the bottom and the last named about 18 inches below the sur- 



