42 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 
vegetable. Yet we should rather be surprised that 
the vine has not been completely destroyed by the 
combination of such diverse scourges, and that it has 
effectually resisted them in several regions of France. 
When we consider that for long years the same hoary 
old stocks have been required to produce grapes 
without truce or mercy, and often without taking 
pains to supply to them by a fitting manure the 
nourishment which is withdrawn from them by the 
fructification of the grape, we shall be less astonished 
at the decadence of our vineyards. And, indeed, 
enlightened minds ascribe the attacks of these 
numerous parasites to the weakness and exhaustion 
of our vines, rather than to any accidental cause, such 
as an importation from without. 
The principal remedy may, therefore, be found in 
restoring the strength of the vine by the planting of 
young suckers, and still more of seedlings. Instead 
of attempting to introduce foreign plants, which it 
may not be easy to acclimatize, and which will 
certainly be less valuable than the vines we have 
lost, it would surely be better to seek to regenerate 
our indigenous kinds by crossing the cultivated stocks 
with wild vines, or else, as Millardet suggests, by 
crossing them with each other. The attempt might 
also be made to graft the stocks from Bordeaux and 
Burgundy on wild or American vines, which offer 
a better resistance to the attacks of the phylloxera. 
