PROPAGATION OF THE VINE. 



PRINCIPLES OF VITICULTURE RELATING TO DEVELOPMENT 

 OF PERFECT IjOOTS DISCUSSED, 



THE WILD VINE OF CALIFORNIA-ITS VALUE 

 FOR GRAFTING STOCK AND WINE MAKING. 



A CHAPTER ON SILVANERS OR ZIERFAHNLS EUROPEAN VINES OF SYLVAN 

 ORIGIN PHYLLOXERA IN FRANCE. 



REPRINTED FROM THE COLUMNS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO MERCHANT. 



During the period of my observations and 

 studies in France, in 1878, concerning the 

 phylloxera plague, my attention was especi- 

 ally attracted to those remedies which had in 

 view the restoration of exhausted soils and 

 the regeneration of the constitutions of culti- 

 vated vines. 



I found that the weight of evidence was in 

 favor of the use of nitrogenous potash man- 

 ures and of American vines, as near to the 

 wild state as possible, for grafting stock. 

 All specifics, to be used as simple insecti- 

 cides, were found to be impracticable on ac- 

 count of great expense and their failures to 

 provide radical and permanent cures. 



The only permanent resistance was found 

 where constitutional changes were wrought 

 in vineyards. 



Many French viticulturists and scientists 

 adhered to and insisted upon the theory that 

 the resistance of the American plants was 

 solely due to the peculiar constitutional 

 structure of their roots, being impervious to 

 the attacks of the insect and that there could 

 be no regeneration of European vines which 

 would enable them to resist the plague. 

 Some, however, with apparently good rea- 

 sons, ascribed the rapid progress of the dis- 



ease to the impaired constitutions of Euro- 

 pean vines, increased by over-production and 

 the impoverishment of soils; these held the 

 opinion that the American vines resisted be- 

 cause they were pure stocks, not worn out 

 by excessive and vicious cultivation. These 

 latter also thought that the European vine 

 might be restored to a better degree of con- 

 stitutional vigor through regeneration from 

 the seed, which would cause the plague to 

 disappear. It was necessary, therefore, to 

 consider the phylloxera as an ordinary para- 

 site developed into an epidemic by condi- 

 tions favoring the spread of disease. Wheth- 

 er this were true, or not, the fact remained 

 that the addition of potash -to soils from 

 which it had been exhausted retarded the 

 progress of the insect in destroying vines, 

 and that the substitution of certain American 

 vines for the European varieties completely 

 stayed the evil. The American vines experi- 

 mented with were numerous in name, but it 

 must be remembered that they have all been 

 produced from a few original wild varie- 

 ties, either improved by simple processes of 

 reproduction, or hybridization. It Was ob- 

 served that the pure varieties were able to 

 resist the insect (with some doubt concerning 



