AND WINE MAKING. 



This journey, which extended over six days, was under- 

 taken more especially in the interests of the vine- 

 growers of the great and important district of the Medoc, 

 the centre of the richest vine districts of France. 



" Up to the present time, the ravages of the phyllox- 

 era, although considerable, have not by any means been 

 so serious in the Medoc as in some of the other wine- 

 producing districts of France. In the department of the 

 Gard, for instance, it is stated that out of two hundred 

 and fifty-five thousand acres of vines, two hundred and 

 fifty thousand have been destroyed; while in the Herault, 

 which produced at one time three hundred and thirty 

 million gallons of wine, and the average annual produc- 

 tion of which was two hundred and twenty million gal- 

 lons, the quantity for 1881 fell to seventy-seven million 

 gallons only. From these figures it will readily be seen 

 that the field for inquiry offered by these two depart- 

 ments was an extensive one, and the information to be 

 obtained should be of extreme value as a guide to other 

 districts, and all the more so, as energetic measures have 

 already been adopted by the vine-growers of the South, 

 with a view, if not to save, at least to renew the vines 

 which constitute for them the chief wealth of their dis- 

 tricts. 



" Before proceeding further, we may say that the in- 

 formation and evidence obtained by M. Lalande and his 

 fellow-travellers throws a somewhat new light upon the 

 question of the phylloxera, and seems to show that, seri- 

 ous as the damage caused by this insect has been, and 

 still continues to be, the case is not altogether a hopeless 

 one. Of various remedies, some thousands in number, 

 suggested for combating the phylloxera, three only at 

 the present time hold an important position. The credit 

 of having suggested one of these, that of re-planting by 

 the American vines, is assigned to M. Laliman, and that 

 gentleman shares with Baron Thenard, M. Dumas, and 



