134 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



from age, and by selling, as the produce of their own 

 vineyards, only such vintages as were calculated to ac- 

 quire or maintain its celebrity. By these means have 

 the vineyards of a few individuals acquired a reputation 

 which has enabled the proprietors to command almost 

 their own prices for their wines ; and it was evidently 

 the interest of such persons that the excellence of their 

 wines should be imputed to a peculiarity in the soil, 

 rather than to a system of management which others 

 might imitate. It is evident, however, that for all this a 

 command of capital is required, which is not often found 

 among proprietors of vineyards ; and to this cause, more 

 than to any other, it is undoubtedly to be traced, that a 

 few celebrated properties have acquired, and maintained, 

 almost a monopoly in the production of fine wines. 



On my arrival at Paris, I waited upon the Director of 

 the Royal Nursery of the Luxembourg, and inquired 

 whether I could get the deficiencies supplied in my list 

 of vines procured at Montpelier. He replied, certainly; 

 there would be no difficulty in the matter, for any plant 

 could be procured from the nursery at a regulated price 

 That for vine cuttings was two francs and a half per 

 hundred. I therefore delivered him my list, with the 

 deficiencies marked, to the number of 188, and of these 

 110 were supplied, two plants each. I here also procured 

 six cuttings each, of sixteen of the most valned varieties 

 of vines which are cultivated in those provinces which I 

 did not myself visit ; and after very considerable diffi- 

 culty, I obtained a copy of the printed catalogue of the 

 Royal Nursery of the Luxembourg, including a list of 

 the collection of vines. 



END OF THE JOURNAL, 



