568 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



the cool season in the drier inland districts [J. S. Edgar]. G-rapes 

 have also been grown on the mountains in the New Hebrides, 

 according to the missionaries. In tropical countries vines should be 

 strongly manured to make them productive [C. Merton]. In Italy 

 vines are often trained high up over maples, willows and elms, since 

 Pliny's time ; in the Caucasus they sometimes grow on Pterocarya. 

 Vines attain an age of centuries and get stems 3 feet in diameter. 

 The doors of the dome of the Ravenna-Cathedral are of vine-wood 

 [Soderim]. Tozetti saw a vine with branches extending diamet- 

 rically, as a whole, over 3,000 feet at Montebamboli. Rezier notes 

 a plant, bearing about 4,000 bunches of grapes annually at Besai^on 

 [Regel]. A single plant of " Black Hamburg " under glass at Rock T 

 hampton, England, bore annually 900-1,000 Ibs. of grapes [Davis]. 

 A vine of enormous magnitude at Hampton-Court has also gained 

 wide celebrity. One of the largest vines in the world is growing at 

 Oys (Portugal), which covers an area of 5,315 feet, and the stem 

 near the base measures over 6 feet in circumference. It was planted 

 in 1802, and gave in 1862 grapes for 165 gallons of wine, in 1874 

 for 146 gallons ("Journal Society of Arts"). A vine near Santa 

 Barbara, California, which was planted 68 years ago by a Mexican, 

 has a stem-diameter of one foot, the branches covering an area of 

 12,000 square feet ; it produces 10,000 to 12,000 Ibs, of grapes 

 annually [H. Gardner]. Another grape-vine, growing in the same 

 district, measures 5 feet 10 inches in stem -circumference and has 

 produced 4 tons of grapes in a year [Meehan]. Shoots 18 feet long 

 have been produced in a season on the Campaspe-River, Victoria 

 [W. Napier], Instances are on record of bunches of grapes having 

 attained a weight of 20 Ibs. ; those of Canaan, alluded to in holy scrip- 

 ture, must have been still heavier. A Victorian seedling, the Cen- 

 tennial Grape, raised by Mr. G. W. Knight is very fine, the grapes 

 having been sold by auction in Melbourne at 2 6s. per case. In 

 Italy the establishing of vine-plantations on ordinary culture-land is 

 regarded as enhancing the value of the latter four or five fold, and 

 elsewhere often even more (whereas cereal-land is apt to deteriorate), 

 provided that vine-diseases can be kept off. The imports of wine 

 into the United Kingdom in 1886 amounted to about 15 million 

 gallons, worth more than 5,000,000, of which only a very small 

 proportion came from British colonies. The average annual pro- 

 duction of wine in France for the 10 years 1884-1893 was 660 

 million gallons, the area under cultivation about 4| million acres; 

 the acreage and produce of Italy were not much less. The " Bulletin 

 de Statistique " states that, the production of wine in France for the 

 year 1890 amounted to 603 million gallons. In Italy, where the de- 

 vastations by the Phylloxera have not been quite so great, the yield 

 was 621 million gallons according to the returns published by the 

 Minister of Agriculture. Chili produces about 33 million gallons per 

 annum. Major B. C. Trumon estimated the yield of Los Angeles, 

 California, at 17 million gallons in 1888. The Champagne-grape is 

 reared on chalky soil. The production of raisins in that state reached 



