68 GRAPE CULTURE AND 



acre, more than the general annual cost of cultivation, and 

 this is only a temporary remedy, which must be renewed 

 every few years, to be of use at all. Besides, great care must 

 be exercised in their application, for an over-dose will kill or 

 fatally injure the vines. The pest is liable to reappear at any 

 time, and thus it needs constant doctoring with costly reme- 

 dies, to keep the patient even in a state between life and 

 death. But when a vineyard is -once established on Ameri- 

 can roots, of a variety suited to its locality, I believe it to be 

 fully efficacious, and European experience, as well as our 

 own here proves it to be so. Any one who has seen the mag- 

 nificent and flourishing vineyard of Messrs. Dresel and Gund- 

 lach, in Sonoma County, re-established on American roots, 

 when the vinifera had been totally destroyed on the same soil,, 

 and the ground was full of the insect, cannot help to believe 

 them entirely and fully resistant. During the five years that 

 I had charge of the Talcoa vineyards, near Napa, where the 

 insect is gradually destroying the old vineyard of 70 acres, 

 where I planted over 300 acres with American vines of differ- 

 ent species, and replanted fifteen acres with American vines, 

 which had been destroyed by the phylloxera; I could fully 

 convince myself. These vines, mostly wild Riparia, and Riparia 

 Varieties, are now in their third summer, and although planted 

 on infested soil, and ground naturally not very rich, that had 

 been impoverished by over 20 years of constant bearing of 

 the vinifera, which occupied the ground before, but suc- 

 cumbed to the insect. The most striking illustration of the par- 

 tial resistance of all American vines, was presented by some 

 old vines of Catawba, Isabella and Clinton, which had been 

 mixed in among the Mission vines and scattered among 

 them, about 50 in all, over perhaps two acres. These re- 

 mained fresh and vigorous, producing fair crops and good 

 growth every year, where Mission and other varieties were 

 utterly destroyed. 



