4 TRANSLATORS' PREFACE. 



used in Europe, for overcoming one of the causes responsible 

 in no small measure for numerous former failures in recon- 

 stitution with American vines, namely, ignoring the neces- 

 sity for preparatory deep cultivation before planting out. 

 At the same time, those growers not yet invaded would do 

 well to prepare for the inevitable, as, ultimately, judging by 

 European experience, the infection and destruction of all 

 our vineyards by the phylloxera may be accepted as a 

 certainty, being simply a question of time ; every vine-grower, 

 therefore, should feel compelled to study the ways and 

 means for permanent reconstitution. 



The practical experience of European viticulturists proves 

 incontestably, .that successful reconstitution on American 

 vines, necessitates far deeper preliminary disturbance of the 

 soil than that required ordinarily by European vines,* owing 

 partly to radical differences in their root structure and 

 underground development, but, principally, to the fact that 

 phylloxera living on them is only prevented from inflicting 

 serious harm through their more or less resistant and 

 luxuriant root growth. This shows how essential thorough 

 and deep preparatory cultivation of the ground is, in order 

 that the recuperative root system may freely expand, with- 

 out check or hindrance, so as to obtain the utmost benefit 

 from the resistant stock, and enable it to increase in diame- 

 ter at the same rate as the scion, for it is well known that 

 most American stock actually used for reconstitution do 

 not develop in diameter at the same rate as the Vitis Vini- 

 fera scion, without this essential preliminary of deep cul- 

 tivation. This is now so definitely accepted throughout 



* The advantages of deep cultivation, in the case of V. Vinifera, was 

 recognised by the ancients. In the works of the Roman philosopher, 

 Columella, Rei Rusticw Scriptores, written early in the first century, during 

 the reign of the Emperor Claudius I., the following very clear and precise 

 passage on trenching occurs in Lib. III., sec. XIII.: "The soil of the 

 plains should be disturbed to a depth of 1^ feet, hilly soils to a depth of 3 

 feet, and steeper hills to a depth of 4 feet, for, if the bed of soil ploughed 

 with the pastinum is not made much deeper than is usually done on flat 

 lands, the soil falling down from the top towards the bottom would leave a 

 quantity of arable ground barely sufficient to allow it to be ploughed with 

 the pastinum.'' 



