162 AMERICA^ GRAPE GROWING 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE IN CALIFORNIA. 



BY GUSTAF EISEN. 



EISEN VINEYARD, ) 



FRESNO, FRESNO Co., CALIFORNIA, > 

 December 1st, 1879. ) 

 George Husmann, Esq. : 



DEAR SIR. Your kind letter just received. If you 

 had written to me earlier I would have taken pleasure in 

 furnishing you with some notes regarding grape culture 

 and wine making in Fresno. At this late hour I must 

 restrict myself to the most 'preliminary statement, hoping 

 it will not come too late if you should deem it of suffici- 

 ent interest to be used in your forthcoming work on 

 Grape Culture. 



California takes, already, a prominent place among 

 grape-growing countries, and furnishes within its limited 

 area so many different climates and localities, that nearly 

 every kind or variety of grapes will flourish here. For 

 example, in the hills of Sonoma we meet with the most 

 perfect Riessling, producing wines of a light, delicate cast, 

 and 200 miles further south in Fresno Co., the summer 

 is both warm and long enough to produce such wines as 

 Port and Sherry, which, according to such experts as 

 Rev. I. Bleasdale, in Melbourne, equal some of the very 

 finest Portuguese wines. Only six or seven years ago, 

 Fresno Co. was generally considered as a most barren 

 waste, a desert in fact, where the dry, and during the 

 summer, cracked soil, was thought to indicate the utmost 

 poverty. Our plain extends 100 miles, at least, in every 

 direction ; on the north side it is bordered by the large 

 San Joaquin River, and on the east and on the south by 

 an equally large stream, King's River. The fact that 



