Vineyard Culture 



IMPROVED AND CHEAPENED. 



LIKE most of our most useful food plants, the vine, 

 ^ Vitis vinifera of the botanists, appears to have 

 come originally from Asia. From the time of Homer 

 it was found in a wild state in Sicily and Italy; but 

 prior to this the PhcEnicians had introduced it into 

 cultivation, first in the Islands of the Archipelago, in 

 Greece, then in Sicily and Italy, and finally in Mar- 

 seilles. As it progressed into more temperate regions 

 the products of the vine became successively meliorated. 

 The mild climate of France is the most favorable for 

 the production of good wines ; and so this branch of 

 culture has extended so greatly that in 1815 it occu- 

 pied a surface of two millions hectares, producing near- 

 ly forty millions of hectolitres of wine, valued at a 

 billion, paying to the State and to the communes, more 

 than two hundred millions, and furnishing occupation 

 to more than eight millions inhabitants. This has, 

 therefore, been placed in the second rank in the scale 

 of the land interest of the country. 



M. de Gasparin has well remarked that in the center, 



and especially in the south of France, the vine yields a 



harvest, the product of which is almost certain, whereas 



other crops are not always to be depended on ; that it 



2 (i) 



