THE VINE AND CIVILISATION. 35 
name is derived from the Latin, ‘ Medeo aque,’ because of its 
being nearly surrounded by water. It is the northern termina- 
tion of the extensive district of sand hills and sand plains 
called Les Landes, which changes to a bank of gravel on ap- 
proaching the left bank of the river Garonne, and forms a nar- 
row slip of land nowhere more than one or two miles broad, 
raised from fifty to eighty feet above the river, which is planted 
with vines. The soil of Medoc is a light gravel, and indeed on 
the spots where some of the best wine is produced, it appears 
a mere heap of white quartz pebbles, about the size of an egg, 
mixed with sand. The best wine is not produced where the 
vine bush is most luxuriant, but on the thinner soil, where it is 
actually stunted, and in ground fit for nothing else, and where 
even weeds disdain often to grow. Yet this stony soil is con- 
genial to the vine, retaining the sun’s heat about its roots after 
sunset, so that it works in maturing its precious juice as much 
by night as by day. Manure is scarcely used in the culture; 
only a little fresh soil or mould is laid on the roots from time 
to time. 
‘* The wines are classed into growths (crues) according to 
their excellence, and only a small part of the strip of land 
above-mentioned is capable of producing the first or premiere 
crues. Indeed, so capricious is the vine, that within a few 
yards of the finest vineyards, it degenerates at once. 
‘* After Chateau Lafitte, Chateau Margaux, and Chateau 
Latour, producing generally about 400 tuns of 240 gallons, 
comes Mouton, Leoville, and Margaux, producing about the 
same quantity, and with Pichon Longueville, and a few others 
producing in the aggregate about 800 tuns of 2me crue or 
second growths. Many of the third, fourth and fifth-rate 
growths are produced in the vicinity of the first-rate vineyards 
at the villages, or in the communes of Margaux, Lafitte and 
