42 CULTIVATION 



If we could get one dollar per gallon for wine when 

 ready for market, or fifty cents at the press, what a 

 source of wealth it would be ! Set it down at half 

 these figures and the gold mines of California 

 would be poor in comparison. Only to think, that 

 one hundred acres in vineyard, the product at fifty 

 cents per gallon, amounts to $20,000 per annum ! 

 A man having five acres which he could manage 

 himself, would find them more profitable than a 

 Kentucky farm of two hundred acres, with three 

 negroes to cultivate it." 



In referring to national advantages in this busi- 

 ness, a writer in Putnam's Monthly, observes : " The 

 actual returns from the departments of France, show 

 a grand total of 924,000,000 of gallons, as the yearly 

 produce, of which about 24,000,000 are exported. 

 It is impossible to estimate the value of these wines, 

 so various are the qualities and prices; the vintage 

 of a favorite year in some districts, will gommand 

 double "and treble the price of those preceding or 

 succeeding; estimating the entire crop at fifteen 

 cents the gaUon, however, we find the net income 

 reaches ^thc total of |138,600,000! and this from 

 wine at five cents a bottle ! A sum more than suf- 

 ficient to pay off our national debt, or purchase 

 Cuba, or buy a large piece of South America; per- 

 haps enough to include the Amazon, and all in a 

 single year. Here, in a country of such vast 

 extent, embracing every climate, with hill-sides and 

 plains favorable for the cultivation of the grape, 

 and native vines overspreading the forests and 



