19G KESaUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



For raisins the Mission grape is unsuitecl, because it is all 

 juice and lacks meat. Again, we want various kinds of grapes 

 to make different kinds of wine, and to give variety to our 

 tables ; and w^e wish also to have early and late grapes, so that 

 our wine-making may extend through a long season, and that 

 our tables may have grapes upon them from August to Decem- 

 ber. The foreign grapes, it has been observed, are stronger to 

 resist the frost than the Mission grape. The latter is there- 

 fore doomed, if not to destruction, at least to a subordinate 

 position. 



About two hundred varieties of grape are cultivated in Cali- 

 fornia, including the most noted stocks of Spain, France, Ger- 

 many, Hungary, and the Eastern states. Nearly all of them 

 thrive, and it can scarcely be said authoritatively that any one 

 of them has proved a failure. The Catawba and Isabella do 

 well; the latter furnishing our finest table-grape for some 

 tastes, while others prefer some of the Muscatels. 



The total number of grape-vines planted in vineyard in the 

 state is about three and a half millions, or four thousand five 

 hundred acres, of which more than one-third are in Los An- 

 geles county. One-fifteenth of these may be foreign vines, of 

 which one-half are in Sonoma county. There were probably 

 two hundred thousand bearing vines in the state in 1848, and 

 they still continue productive. Very little was done to increar^^e 

 their number until 1856, and then the business of grape-grow- 

 " ing and making wine for the market was commenced. The 

 new vineyards then set out were planted with Mission grapes, 

 the only variety of which cuttings in large quantities could be 

 obtained. A few foreign vines had been imported in 1853, 

 '54, and '55, by nurseiymen, but there was little demand for 

 them. When it became clear that California would produce 

 wine largely, the foreign varieties came into demand. It was 

 not until 1859 that the superiority of the foreign grapes as a 

 class over the ]\Iission grape was established by trial. 



The advantages of California for the cultivation of the grape 

 are the following : 



