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TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



THE WINE INDUSTRY AND ITS FUTURE PROSPECTS. 



By PERCY T. MORGAN, of San Francisco, 

 President of the California Wine Association. 



After fifty years of hard and intelligent effort on the part of handlers 

 of California wines the industry has been established on a firm basis. 

 The quality and general excellence of the i:)roduct are no longer in 

 question. 



Wine-drinkers in this country, unfortunately, form but a small 

 minority, but a great proportion of the wine they consume is of domes- 

 tic production. California alone grows and markets over ten times the 

 total quantity that is imported from abroad, while Eastern vineyards, 

 also, produce a great quantity that finds a domestic market. 



The per capita consumption of wines in the United States, however, 

 does not equal one-fiftieth of that of wine-drinking countries like 

 France and Italy. Consequently the field- is not as wide as might be 

 desired or at all in consonance with the great possibilities of California 

 as a region in which wines of the highest excellence can be produced. 

 If the per capita consumption of the United States equaled that of 

 France, there would be a domestic market for over two thousand mil- 

 lion gallons of wine, and almost every rolling hill and fertile valley of 

 California could be profitably covered with vines. 



In France, a country with a population of but little over one-half 

 that of the United States, there are 4,250,000 acres of bearing vines; 

 from which it will be seen how comparatively insignificant the United 

 States is as a wine-producing and wine-consuming nation. 



The future of the California wine industry is principally, if not 

 entirely, dependent upon an expanding market. Whenever the demand, 

 be it domestic or foreign, shall exist, a vast acreage in California suit- 

 able for the growing of wine grapes can very soon be brought into 

 bearing. 



For two or three years past a brisk demand for wines from first 

 hands, caused by a succession of short crops, has given a great stimulus 

 to grape planting, and a considerable area — estimated by some as high 

 as 70,000 acres — has been planted to vines, principally in the sweet-wine 

 districts, extending from Yolo County in the north to San Bernardino 

 County in the south. The greater part of this new acreage was planted 

 to wine grapes, though some portion was table grapes, which in late 

 years have given such phenomenal returns. 



In 1902 the vineyards then bearing gave an enormous yield, and, at 

 the beginning of the 1903 vintage, cellars were crowded with previous 

 years' wines. The prediction freely expressed, that the grape yield 

 would equal that of the previous year, filled wine-makers with feelings 

 akin to dismay, for another such vintage as that of 1902 could only be 



