SEPTEMBER 207 



juice direct into one or another of the great vats 

 below. Then delicate instruments have been invented 

 for testing the sweetness and strength of the ' must ' or 

 fermenting juice; but steam and electricity agencies 

 which have transformed so many industries bear no 

 part in the manufacture of claret or burgundy, wines 

 which remain, as they always have been, the pure, un- 

 mixed juice of the grape, chemically altered, indeed, by 

 fermentation, but owing none of their character to 

 added material, such as has to be used in making the 

 wines of Spain and Portugal. The grapes of the 

 Peninsula are so much sweeter than those of France 

 that fermentation must be checked at a certain stage 

 by the addition of spirit, which increases the strength 

 of the wine and makes it a compound instead of a 

 simple beverage. 



One has to remain long enough in one of the great 

 wine-producing districts of France to understand the 

 magnitude of the industry and its importance to the 

 country before he can realise the disaster which over- 

 took one district after another, and many districts 

 simultaneously, in the visitation of the vine-louse. 

 One cannot pass through this scene of universal, 

 feverish industry one cannot watch the rows of men 

 and women at work, waist-deep in thick foliage, the 

 great, patient dun oxen, ' strong to labour,' the carmine 

 stream flowing from the pressoir into the vat without 

 remembering how all this fruitful toil was arrested 

 throughout the whole district for several years by one 

 of the most insignificant of living creatures. 



It was about the year 1875 that the vine-louse, 



