Inclement Weather^ Diseases, Etc. 295 



in 1852 by a great number of wine-growers at Thomery, 

 yielded results much less satisfactory than flower of 

 sulptiur. 



During the winter of 1 852— 53, M. Rose-Charmeux, 

 a vine-growing land-owner of Thomery (Seine-et- 

 Marne) was warming vines under glass, by means of a 

 hot-water apparatus. The idea occurred to him of 

 spreading a trail of flower of sulphur along the cop- 

 per pipes of his apparatus. The heat of boiling 

 water was sufficient to create a sulphurous emanation, 

 which completely prevented the appearance of oidium. 

 Made sanguine by this discovery, he determined during 

 the summer of 1863 to submit all his open-air trellises 

 to the action of dry sulphur, and he advised the growers 

 in the vicinity to do the same. That year, almost all 

 the trellises of Thomery were subjected to dry sulphu- 

 ration, and the crop was unaffected. 



The excellent effects of this process have been ad- 

 mitted by an official commission, appointed, on our 

 representations, by the Minister of Agriculture, and the 

 report of that commission, inserted in the Moniteur, 

 confirms the claim which M. Rose-Charmeux has to 

 the gratitude of all vine-growers, as the inventor of 

 the only truly practicable and efficacious means of com- 

 bating this terrible scourge. The indications furnished 

 in that report have served as a starting point for all sul- 

 phur operations now applied to our vineyards and trel- 

 lises. 



M. Laforgue, a vine-proprietor of Beziers, was the 

 first to apply it on a large scale. Messrs. Mares, of 

 Montpellier, and Vial, of Beziers, by their writings. 



