Author's Preface. ix 



absolute necessity of substituting the plow for the hoe, wher- 

 ever that implement can be used. Then, again, the constantly 

 increasing price of stakes must require the adoption of some 

 cheaper mode of support. Railroads, which penetrate every 

 portion of the empire, have opened markets to the most re- 

 mote parts, and have thus enhanced the value of the products ; 

 this, in the south, will tend greatly to diminish the produc- 

 tion of brandies, because of the greater value of the wine. 



These increased facilities of transportation have induced 

 great changes in the culture of some vineyards. Thus the 

 cheap wines of Languedoc are now easily carried to Switzer- 

 land, and come into competition with those of the Jura, 

 which are thus almost driven from the market. It will there- 

 fore be necessary to cheapen the production in the vineyards 

 of that region. Elsewhere, as in 1'Aunis and Saintonge, one 

 half of the northern wines are mixed with a small proportion 

 of brandy, flooding the market under the name of "Cognac,"* 

 very sensibly lowering the price of brandy wines. In those 

 regions it will be necessary to substitute, to a large extent, 

 vines that will produce good table wines, in place of those 

 choice varieties now grown. 



The increasing value of choice wines should direct our 

 attention to the inquiry whether it would not be profitable to 

 endeavor to shelter the vines that produce them, and thus to 

 protect them from sudden changes of temperature, which so 

 often diminish the vintage. 



The various modes of cultivating a vineyard in different 

 places are no doubt the result of long-continued observation 



*Not Cognac Brandy but Cognac Winct. 



