454 



F A R M E R S' REGISTER 



of Burgundy and Orleans, to give them strength 

 and color. The mixture of the hrandy has, they 

 say, a double purpose. It enable^; them lo ship 

 the wines when 14 or 15 months n!il, without risk 

 of their turning sour, which could not be done for 

 twelve months more without the admixture; and 

 it enables the Parisians to mix a portion of water 

 in order to reduce the wine in strength, and thus 

 to save a part of the municipal duty which is le- 

 vied on wines entering Paris. The latter is, I 

 ihirdi, the only valid argument. Being desirous 

 of procuring some of the wine of Collioure, Mr. 

 Mas sent a person with me whom he was accus- 

 tomed to employ in such matters, and alter com- 

 pleting my purchase, I went with the proprietor to 

 the vineyard where it was produced, and obtained 

 four varieties of grapes which were not in Mr. 

 Durand's vineyards. This vineyard vvas on the 

 side of a very steep hill, and appeared to have 

 been planted with great labor; the terraces diil 

 not exceed from eight to ten leet in width, and the 

 walls were irom two to three feet in iieiixht. He 

 said the annual average Irom 500 plants was about 

 two charges of wine. This, according to t[ie dis 

 tance they were planted, was rather more than 

 double the quantity stated by Mr. Mas; but it 

 was probably only a guess, altliough ! am mclined 

 to think the estimate of the latter was under the 

 truth. There vvas, however, no vi-ay of coming 

 nearer the true state ol' the case, (or he knew nei- 

 ther the extent of the hectare, nor of the arpent. 

 The wine of Cosperon, which is celebrated as a 

 vin de liqueur, \s the produce of a larm which 

 vvas pointed out to me by Mr. Mas, under one of 

 the hills which we passed over. It is, according 

 to his account, nothing more than a mixture of 

 brandy with the unfennented juice of the grape. 

 After the grapes (of the Grenache kind) are very 

 ripe, they are gathered and allowed to dry a few 

 days in the sun ; they are then pressed, and the 

 juice is put into a cask, where it is niixed with a 

 large portion, Mr. Mas thinks from a third to a 

 hail of its own bulk, of brandy. The brandy pre- 

 vents the iermentation, the liquor retains the 

 svveetness and flavor of the fruit ; and this is the 

 vin de liqueur of Cosperon, which has acquired 

 a great name in the south of France. 



3Ionday, 2lst November. — Having returned ear- 

 ly yesterday morning from Collioure to Perpignan, 

 I found the Messrs. Durand had sent to my hotel 

 nine bundles, containing fifty each, of nine dis- 

 tinct varieties of vines, and on visiting them at 

 their house, I was again pressed to dine with 

 them, but on this occasion excused myself The 

 kindness and attention of these gentlemen to me, 

 a perlect stranger, without the slightest claim to 

 their notice, is worthy of remark. They are the 

 sons of Mr. Durand, the deputy for the province, 

 and are now managing his affairs in his absence. 

 Their mercantile as well as their agricultural con- 

 cerns are of great magnitude. The latter they in- 

 formed me yielded only about 5 per cent, upon the 

 money invested, but they make no allowance for 

 the value of the improvements, which were very 

 extensive. Besides the prop(^rties I visited with 

 them, the one consisting of 700, and the other of 

 5G0 acres, they had two other estates in the neigh- 

 borhood of Perpignan, and all in their own hands. 

 The irrigated land is worth 1500 li'ancs (about 

 £G0) per hectare, the vineyards not more in ge- 

 neral than one-third of that sum ; but that pro- 



portion vvas, I believe, intended to represent the 

 value of the land before planting. On one of the 

 estates there is a handsome mansion, with exten- 

 sive gardens, and a green-house. I was happy 

 to promise that I would, in return for their atten- 

 tion to me, contribute to stock the latter by send- 

 ing a packet of Botany Bay seeds, a present which 

 I was glad to find would be highly agreeable to 

 one of the brothers, vvlio has a taste for horticul- 

 ture and botany. 



After having engaged my place in the diligence 

 for Montpelier, (which vvas to start at seven in the 

 eveninir,) I procured a guide, and proceeded to 

 visit Rivesalies, wfiich is li^mnus for producing the 

 first sweet wine of France. Rivcsaltesis a town 

 containing about 3000 inhabitants, situated in the 

 middle of an irritrated plain, about lour miles from 

 Perpignan. The vineyards are on the extremities 

 of the plain, where there is a dry granitic soil; 

 and on that portion which separates the meadow 

 land of Perpignan fion) those of Rivesaltes, it is so 

 thickly covered with stones of various colored 

 quartz as to make it difficult to tread upon it. In 

 many places where the vines appear to grow with 

 great vigor, and to have attained a areat age, the 

 soil is of such a natuie as would with us be consi- 

 dered absolutely sterile. They were very gene- 

 rally entra</ed in the vineyards in pruning and hoe- 

 inir. The pruning was here, as elsewhere, uni- 

 versally in the spur fashion ; from 3 to 7 or 8 knots 

 being left on each vine, according to its strength. 

 The stocks were in general close to the ground, 

 and, indeed, where the soil was newly dug up, 

 and gathered up into the form of a small ridge be- 

 tween the rows of plants, they scarcely seemed to 

 be upon a level with it. 1 examined a plantation 

 of young vines wlfich had been planted last year, 

 and found that more ilian one halfthe number had 

 failed. Here also they never think of trenching 

 the soil be'ore planting ; but after hoeing it the 

 ordinary depth, they make a hole with an iron 

 dibble and thrust in the plant. As they never 

 afterward take the trouble lo water them, it is not 

 surprising that in so dry a soil so large a proportion 

 of the cuitinss should never take root. At Rive- 

 saltes, for the first time in France, I observed 

 them manuring their vines with strong stable 

 dung, and 1 vvas informed that this vvas the usual 

 practice here, although Messrs. Durand never 

 used manure to their vines. The Muscat is the 

 grape commordy cultivated, and by visiting diff'er- 

 ent parties who were engaged in pruning, I ob- 

 tained a lew cuttings of this,"and three other sorts; 

 two of these lour were entirely new to me ; of two 

 of them I had procured two or three cuttings each 

 at Collioure. 



The Muscat wine of Rivesaltes is made in the 

 Ibllovving manner: The grapes are allowed to 

 hang upon the vines till they are so ripe that they 

 begin to shrivel ; thny are then cut and left on the 

 ground under the vines where they grew, for eight 

 or ten days, unless the weather shoiild prove unfa- 

 vorable, after which they are pressed, and the juice 

 is put into a cask, leaving the bung out ; about a 

 month after this, it is drawn off to a fresh caek,_ 

 which is prepared by burning a match, not of 

 sulphur, but of strong brown paper, steeped in the 

 strongest brandy. They use this, they say, be- 

 cause'the sulphur tastes the wine. The Muscat 

 wine of Rivesaltes sometimes brings the proprietor 

 300 francs the charge of 118 litres (bottles) when 



