AND WINE MAKING. 269 



dustry in various sections of the State, though not 

 spreading with the same rapidity, or being so immedi- 

 ately fatal as it is in France. It has made its appearance 

 in so many sections of the State, that we may take it for 

 granted that it will appear .everywhere in time, although 

 it may never gain a firm foothold in those districts where 

 the soil is very sandy, and it can be submerged. That 

 its inroads can be serious enough even here, can easily be 

 seen in the devastated vineyards of Sonoma and Napa 

 counties, where hundreds of acres of once nourishing 

 vines have already succumbed to it. While it is un- 

 doubtedly true that vines in exhausted soil, impoverished 

 by constant crop?, yield to its attacks quicker than those 

 on richer soil, or fertilized with manures, there can be no 

 doubt that all Vinifera varieties will succumb to it in 

 time, even in the richest soil. It is also just as apparent 

 that resistant vines, planted in soils where the Vinifera 

 varieties have been entirely destroyed, and the ground is 

 full of the insects, will live, thrive, and produce abun- 

 dantly. The best and only safe course for the planter is, 

 therefore, to plant resistant vines; and I would consider 

 it the hight of folly for any one to plant Viniferas in an 

 infected district. Let them not rely on insecticides as a 

 partial remedy. It is much cheaper, indeed, to plant 

 resistant vines at once, and be on the safe side, than to 

 doctor a vineyard where the insect has once appeared. 

 The plantings of Messrs. Dresel and Gundlach, in Sono- 

 ma Valley, as well as my own, of over two hundred and 

 eighty acres of resistant vines, have fully demonstrated 

 the fact that the riparia and its varieties will thrive in 

 all soils, and grow even more vigorously than the vini- 

 fera, wherever it will succeed. My course would there- 

 fore be to plant riparia and rupestris, which will grow 

 easily from cuttings, and graft them as described in the 

 preceding pages. I am glad to see that the last Con- 

 vention of Grape Growers, at San Francisco, took a de- 



