NEW VINE SCOURGE. 
319 
Your Lordship will have gathered from these papers 
that the Phylloxera attacks the vine in a part 
— namely, the root — in which it is not only very 
sensitive to injury, but to which the application of 
any topical remedial agent is exceedingly difficult. 
Considering the undoubted injury which the 
culture of the vine has already received from the 
Phylloxera, and our present ignorance of any effective 
means of arresting it, it is impossible to view without 
alarm its gradual extension in vine-growing districts.. 
The extreme anxiety which is felt upon the matter in 
France is evidenced by the extensive literature which 
has already been devoted to it. A summary of this up 
to the end of last year, and dealing with no less than 
500 separate papers and articles, has been recently 
published by MM. Planchon and Lichtenstein, under 
the form of an extract from the proceedings of the 
thirty-fifth session of the " Congres Scientifique de 
France," held at Montpellier. 
It appears from this that no remedy really effective 
has at present been devised, except that of flooding 
the vineyards during winter, by which means the 
insect is destroyed in its hybernating condition. Un- 
fortunately, though this is practicable in the lower 
part of the Rhone valley, it is obviously not possible 
in others, and these the most important of the French 
wine-growing districts. 
The attention of the Portuguese Government 
seems to have been thoroughly roused to the import- 
ance of the subject. A communication from the 
French Consul at Lisbon, published in the Comptes 
Rendus, for 9th September of this year, "signale la 
presence du Phylloxera dans quelques vignobles 
