The Wine Crop of New South Wales. aa 
of Victoria and South Australia, the rate of progress has 
been much greater. 
In this colony the principal increase has been to the 
westward of the main range, and it is in that quarter that, 
in the opinion of some competent judges, we are to look 
in future for our chief supplies of the best wine. Our coast 
country is said to labour under two disadvantages ; first, 
there is too little lime in the soil—a defect, however, which 
can be remedied by the application of bone-dust or phospho- 
guano ; and, secondly, there is too frequently rainy weather 
at the vintage. This latter is an objection that cannot be 
conquered, and it places the vignerons completely at the 
mercy of the seasons. For making good wine it is desirable 
that the grapes should not be gathered till they are dead 
ripe, but if the vigneron is in daily dread of heavy rain, he 
is temptedto pluck the fruit before it has attained a thorough 
maturity. his year there was no such temptation. So 
far from there being any apprehension of rain at vintage 
time, the country was only too earnestly longing for it, and 
looking vainly for the faintest indication of its approach. 
The fruit, therefore, has ripened well. The quantity of 
wine is a little short, from the want of sufficient rain to 
swell the grapes, but the quality is excellent. So good a 
vintage season has not been known for several years, and as 
“we may trust the vignerons now to do justice to their special 
commodity, it is fair to anticipate that the produce of 1866, 
when it is fit to come to market, will have a special ex- 
cellence. 
But, in spite of all drawbacks, the wine of New South 
Wales has already attained a great reputation, quite enough 
to establish it as a wine-producing country, and calculated 
to encourage the greatest hopes for the future, when the 
best situations for vineyards have been more thoroughly 
explored, and when the proper treatment, both of the vine 
and the wine, is more thoroughly understood, and when 
the theories of other countries have been reinforced or 
corrected by local experience. 
There has been a great extension of vine-growing in the 
Albury district, very largely brought about by the enter- 
prise of some immigrants from Victoria, who, not finding 
the climate of the Geelong district altogether satisfactory 
for their purpose, crossed the Border, and found what they 
wanted in the environs of Albury. The soil, the situation 
and the climate in that locality seem all highly favourable 
to the production of wine, and though the industry there is 
NEW SERIES.—VOL. I. D 
