32 " THE LEAVES OF THE TREE Were FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS." 



equable summers favoured the development of the grape, and although it was 

 thought in those days imperatively necessary to irrigate the vines, they found that 

 the Mission always ripened its fruit and would produce large crops, under a very 

 simple and convenient system of prunning, and make a fair drinkable wine in most 

 seasons . . . Many progressive men, encouraged by the evident success with 

 the Mission grape, imported cuttings of choice varieties for trial from France, the 

 .Rhine and Spain, often at heavy expense and risk; they were planted in different 



sections, and mostly found to succeed well Farmers./bimd that the Lands 



they had cropped for cereals, until they were exhausted and would not produce 

 grain, would still yield large crops of grapes for which they had a ready market at 

 home. It is certainly not surprising if they became over sanguine until everybody 

 and their neighbor planted grapes. As the Mission was known to be productive 

 and they could sell all they could grow (the communistic organization at the 

 Mission; their planting of carefully selected cuttings and rooted vines in rich virgin 

 soil, and the main object for which they originally laboured being to produce the 

 choicest wines f^r personal use, with their special facilities for enriching their 

 grounds and for systematically prunning the vines after the most approved con- 

 tinental fashion, as also the snug sheltering tree fringes surrounding their establish- 

 ment, were evidently completely overlooked by neighboring vine-planting farmers, 

 and hence doubtless the origin of existing phylloxera trouble). A good many vine- 

 yards of this (mission) variety were again planted together with a large acreage of 

 Zinfandel and Malvasia. The vineyards were to a large extent planted Dy men 

 who had little appreciation of fine quality, but planted grapes simply for the 

 money they could make out of them," . . . (quite regardless of after conse- 

 quences). 



'' Another mistake which many of our planters have made, is the persistence with 

 which they have planted, and are planting even now, the vinifera cuttings and 

 vines, in districts affected and nearly destroyed by the Phylloxera. They ought 

 to profit by the lessons taught in France, and all over Europ3, by the devastated 

 vineyards which have reduced the crop of France to about one-third of what it was 

 formerly, until the greatest grape growing nition on the face of the globe cannot 

 raise sufficient for her own consumption and has to buy from all her neighbors to 

 meet the demand of her customers. The devastations m ide in our own vineyards 

 should have convinced the most skeptical." (Tne italics are mine). 



The alarming official report which was published at the commencement 

 of this year by the California State Boird of Viticulture, concerning the 

 dreadful condition of vineyards through the Napa county where Professor 

 Husmann's vineyard is should favourably commend his, the professor's 

 good judgment, though heretofore despised by local viueyardists, as the 

 following extract from said report will show: " Every vineyard portion of 

 Napa county has been visited and inspected. . . Since my last report, two 

 years ago, vineyards in this county have been greatly lessened in number 

 and in area, in many portions of the county. Commencing ten years ago 

 in the lower end of Napa Valley, and supposed to have been brought from 

 Sonoma Valley, the phylloxera has spread almost the entire length of the 

 valley in the direction of the prevailing wind. Two years ago a few vine- 

 yards in the Napa District and some in the Yountville District were in- 

 fested. Since that time it has spread with great rapidity. In many cases 

 vineyards of considerable extent have, in the meantime, almost or wholly 

 disappeared, This will account for the smaller number of vinyards re- 

 ported this year. 



" No remedy to prevent the spread of the disease has been discovered . . . 

 In almost every vineyard visited, where the phylloxera has made any headway, the 

 vines were allowed to stand without treatment, the disease taking its course. When 

 the vines were dead or nearly so, they were pulled out." During my visit through 

 the Napa Valley in April of 1892 accompanied by Professor Husmann, I was sur- 

 prised to find nearly all the vineyards most unreasonably crowded with vines, in 

 many, they ranged from three to six feet apart. Amongst the few exceptions was 



