315 
be proved, but that mixed farming — wheat and sheep — can give 
us millions of desirable citizens is amply demonstrated by the 
success which has attended the efforts .of Riverina farmers during 
the past few seasons. The state is passing from a large lonely 
sheep-run, with a city at its gate, into an aggregation of culti- 
vated paddocks dotted with such prosperous inland towns as 
Wagga.- 
• Surely here is inspiration for the promoters of diversified agri- 
culture in Hawaii. If not millions at least thousands of citizens 
ought to find comfortable homes upon lands now unproductive 
and desolate in these islands, raising a great variety of products 
for which Hawaiian climate and soil are congenial. 
MAKING THE LAND WORK. 
In the third quarter of the last century the vineyards of Europe 
were overtaken by the phylloxera, a minute insect which lives 
upon the roots of the vine and eventually destroys it. At first it 
appeared as though no means could be found to combat the pesti- 
lence, but gradually various remedies have been discovered, of 
which the most widely applied has been the employment of Ameri- 
can species of vine as the underground stocks, upon which the 
old varieties esteemed for making wine were then grafted. The 
American vine is strong enough to resist the attack of the para- 
site ; it even confers a new vigor and yielding power upon the 
more delicate vintage grape that it carries, so that by its help 
many of the old European vineyards have not only been regen- 
erated, but also made to produce more wine per acre than before 
the advent of the phylloxera. But the more famous vineyards, 
where are grown the grands crus that bear a name all the world 
over, have hesitated to use the American stock, fearing such a 
deterioration in the quality of the grape as would never be com- 
pensated for by any increase of quantity. The remedy against 
phylloxera on which they have chiefly relied has been the injec- 
tion into the soil of small quantities of carbon disulphide, a vola- 
tile liquid giving rise to a heavy poisonous vapor. It was found 
that this vapor diffused through the soil and killed the phylloxera, 
while the root of the vine took no harm. In this way the phyl- 
loxera can be kept in check if not actually stamped out, but the 
expense of the process limits its adoption except in the most 
valuable vineyards. The point of this story is that a certain 
Alsatian vine-grower before 1894 made the observation that land 
which had thus been treated with carbon disulphide became more 
productive than it was before, even when the destruction of the 
phylloxera was left entirely out of the question. But this obser- 
vation remained unappreciated, just like the similar records of 
the gain in fertility brought about by heating the soil to the tem- 
perature of boiling water. However, confirmatory evidence grad- 
