280 
For a long time the methods adopted for combating the deadly 
insect proved abortive, until a systematic study was undertaken of 
the conditions under which the Phiyllorera vastatriz, an insect of 
American origin, lived on the American wild vines without percept- 
ibly affecting their constitution. 
The conclusions drawn from these researches are that by a 
slow process of natural selection numerous varieties of American 
wild vines have perished under the bite of the Phylloxera louse, but 
that several varieties have been able to withstand the attacks of the 
insect, and while tolerating its presence on their roots, are able to 
grow without being perceptibly inconvenienced. This much having 
been found, vineyard proprietors who had hitherto been fighting the 
Phylloxera by means of costly chemicals or of methods involving 
considerable outlay of money and of labour, followed headlong the 
line of least resistance and planted for stock anything known as an 
American vine; on these they grafted the choicer European vines. 
Experience, which is generally costly, showed that of the dozen 
or more of known species of wild American vines, two or three only, 
the Vitis Riparia and the Vitis Rupestris, and the Vitis Berlandieri, 
embodied such qualities as made them desirable Phylloxera-resistant 
stocks. Fortunes were spent and fortunes lost before this fact was 
established, so anxious were the vineyard proprietors to speedily 
reconstitute their vineyards. 
Then a Riparia and Rupestris craze set in, and it was argued 
that as these vines were of a wild nature, and had not been modified 
by cultivation and by the handiwork of man, their seeds would 
prove a quick and ready wav of propagating the vines. Disappoint- 
ment likewise followed; a majority of the seedlings proved to be 
different and inferior in the qualities sought for to the mother plant. 
Of Riparias and Rupestris, numerous varieties are known; the 
great majority of them are worthless as stocks for European vines. 
Some take the graft badly; others cannot thrive on the particular 
soil it is intended to plant them; the ground is either too dry or 
wet, or too compact, or contains too much lime, ete. 
It is thus necessary in selecting a resistant vine to know, in the 
first instance, something about the depth, the moisture, and the rich- 
ness of the soil it is intended to plant; and, secondly, which of the 
best varieties as regards aptitude to take the graft and to withstand 
the attack of the insect is more likely to thrive under the conditions 
disclosed by that preliminary inspection of the ground. 
In Europe, where abundant summer showers maintain the soil 
moist during the growing months, the shallow-rooted Riparias (river 
bank vines) have given widespread satisfaction. In California and 
in Australia, as well also as in Algeria, where the summer months 
are dry and the surface ground possesses comparatively little mois- 
ture, the deeper rooted Rupestris (hillside vines) vield better re- 
sults, . 
