798 



FRUIT CULTURE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



of these ever produce disastrous effects except oidium, phylloxera, and, 

 more lately, mildew. 



Oidium, which at a time endangered the future of the French vine- 

 yards, has been and is still successfully counteracted by the use of flowers 

 of sulphur. They are mixed with an equal quantity of plaster, or a 

 smaller proportion of lime, and carefully sprinkled on the young leaves 

 once or twice before the ripening of the grapes. The wine-growers of 

 this country, who could procure flowers of sulphur at low rates from 

 the important refineries of Marseilles, were in the end benefited by the 

 appearance of the disease, as it opened for the abundant but inferior 

 wines produced in this region a more extensive market, and brought 

 about a decided advance in the prices, which had been as low as G 

 francs per hectoliter (8 cents per gallon). When the rates of 20 and 30 

 francs per hectoliter could be obtained the production of wine increased 

 in a remarkable measure. In 1874 the seven departments of Bouches- 

 du-Eh6ne, Gard, Aude, H^rault (the production of which alone 

 amounted to 13,000,000 hectoliters), Pyr^n^es-Orientales, Var, and 

 Vaucluse, forming J;his consular district, contributed more than two- 

 thirds of the total production in France. 



It was just then that phylloxera made its appearance and raged in 

 this district, where it worked its more pernicious effects. Many vine- 

 yards were entirelj' destroyed, all were attacked, and an idea of the ex- 

 tent of the damage can be formed from the following table, giving the 

 area planted in vines iu thousands of acres and the production of wine 

 in thousands of gallons, in each of the seven departments, for the three 

 periods 1856-'60, 18()6-'70, 1876-'80 : 



lu this connection the following table of importation and exportation 

 at the port of Marseilles may be a more striking evidence of the vicissi- 

 tudes undergone by the production of ordinany wine in southern France: 



Importation gallons . . 



lOxjioitation irallons.. 



185,200 

 267, 544 



1807. 



263, 503 

 i, 046, 848 



1872. 



1,605,202 

 7, 806, 198 



1877. 



1,308,355 

 5,719,651 



1882. 



13, 175, 188 

 4, 602, 89!) 



