2i8 A'MEKICAK GEAPE GROWING 



fact that the great bulk of wines were made from the 

 Mission grape, many of them poorly made and handled 

 carelessly; at that time wines went a-begging at ten to 

 twelve cents per gallon, and grapes could hardly find 

 buyers at eight and ten dollars per ton. These facts 

 ought to show us that our wines, to gain and secure a 

 world-wide market, and even to take the place of for- 

 eign importations in this country, must be of a quality 

 that need not shun competition anywhere. That we 

 have the material to do this, no one can doubt who has 

 seen and tested some of the really choice wines already 

 produced, made by some of our best vintners in differ- 

 ent sections of the State. But the great trouble is now, 

 that we have not enough of these really choice wines to 

 supply one-tenth of the demand for them, and that our 

 dealers are forced to blend the finer wines with the low 

 grades, in order to get rid of the inferior stock at all. 

 The grower should consider in the first place, that those 

 who buy his grapes must spend the same amount for labor 

 to make and handle a poor product, that it takes the same 

 amount of casks and apparatus to make and keep the 

 wine, that it is more difficult to handle, and that it 

 costs the same amount of freight to send a gallon of 

 poor or inferior wine to the Eastern markets that it 

 does for good. It takes a greater amount of labor to sell it 

 even at half price; for it is an old saying, that " good wine 

 needs no bush," and the grower would perhaps not cen- 

 sure the dealer so much for what is mostly his own fault. 

 Let us therefore all strive to plant only the best varieties, 

 suited to our soil and locality. Our red volcanic soils 

 are better adapted to the production of choice red wines, 

 as are most of our adobe lands, than the valleys, which 

 will make lighter colored and milder wines, and are 

 therefore better suited for the production of white wines 

 than of red. 



That the selection of varieties for such a diversity of 



