WINE-MAKING IN CALIFORNIA. 25 



freights and time of transit formerly were almost prohibitory. 

 In summing up the past and looking at the present, what 

 do we find ? A great industry, which forty years ago was 

 hardly thought of; an untried field, over which we have 

 worked and experimented with bright hopes, alternated with 

 discouraging reverses, but which has already brought forth re- 

 sults of which we may feel justly proud, and which ought to 

 encourage us to renewed exertions in the future, We have 

 already produced wines which can safely compete with the 

 best foreign importations, and have the great advantage of 

 being sold at less than half the price. I speak knowingly, for 

 I have had frequent opportunities of testing the best importa- 

 tions, even including the finest Johannisberg, Forster 

 Traminer, Chateau Yquem, and Clos Vougeot; and with only 

 four exceptions h^rve tasted as good and better wine in Cali- 

 fornia. We can produce a good, sound wine every season, and 

 will have a great improvement in its general quality in the near 

 future. That manifold mistakes were made and errors com- 

 mitted was but natural; and I have enumerated some of them 

 not actuated by a spirit of fault finding, but by the conviction 

 that we must know our shortcomings to enable us to do 

 better in the future. We can make all kinds of wines, from 

 the light, pleasant wines of France and Germany to the 

 heavy and fiery ports and sherries of Spain and Portugal, and 

 they have already been introduced in England, Germany, 

 Holland and Belgium, the Sandwich Islands, even Japan and 

 China, Mexico and all the States and Territories. If they 

 have not always given satisfaction, they can be made, and 

 will be made to do so as soon as could possibly be expected. 

 The State has fostered and encouraged the industry, by 

 creating and endowing the State Board of Viticulture; it is 

 well represented at our State University, and thousands of 

 industrious and thinking people have chosen it as their occu- 

 pation. We can boast already of the largest vineyards and 



