SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
349 
tun measured. They bear the voyage %vell and have been 
sent with success to India. I'lie nianner of obtaining them 
is as follows ; 
You address vnnr-elt'to any proprietor wh(> drives the 
job to his PitfcCluer des ^ igms, \v ao st '.eels an J anou^e-S 
for sending the cuttin^.sat liif- tii.ie ol the ii iMiinmji in die 
winter. He managc.s the aih-nr and gei.s ilie rei.-ooipenoe ; 
it is only necessary to obtain the poiiTiission of the pro- 
prietor. But if .’iiy one tlnnk.s seriously cf going into the 
business, he should at the .same liim- engage a J ’relecture 
to come and attend to the trimming, whirl) is all-import- 
ant. This would cost liim 800 to 1,000 lranc.s a year and 
passage and support for each Prefecture. With this I close 
what 1 have to say of Medoc. It is ten o’clock, and as I 
get up at 5 to-morrow to visit a vineyur.l some miles off, 
and as I am to return to attend the annual ses.$ion of the 
oldest literary society in the v. orld at 1 o'< lock. P. IB., I 
willgoto bed and leave my letter unlinished until another 
time. 
Nis.Mr'.s, ^laySth. 
A word moi-e on the iMedoc. That place sticks to my 
pen. M. Gl'e.stikr reclaimed a piece of river bottom 
about 2 acres and sowed it in Lucerne. It gave Jiirn for 
3 years, (5 cuttings annually, and 30 horses were fed on it 
for 8 months of the year. The Lucerne is sown in beds 
about 4 or 5 feet wide and the length of the field and they 
give it three or four workings a year between the beds, at 
the same time adding manure if thought necessary. All 
the grains, as wheat and oats, are planted in this matincr 
and worked v.dth tlie plow and hoe. 
I have said that the cultivation of the vipics rfe polus or 
swamp vines diflers from these on the hills. . The soil in 
the swamps is five or si.K feet deep and very rich. The 
planting the same a.s done here, except ih.at the vines are 
placed on the sides of beds (> inches high and six feet wide 
and separated from each ot.her about three feet, and are al- 
lowed to attain tiie height of from three to five feet ; three 
branches are left on each stalk, and two iwig.s oi b.®aring 
wood, furnished wuth two eyes each. There are two large 
stakes to every vine, one fjr each branch, to which the 
shoots are trained. The culture othersvise is pretty much 
the same as that I have described, the hoe replacin:; the 
plow' where that cannot be used, cither because tiie pro- 
prietor cannot ailord it or because thesoil is too soft. Al- 
though the wines produced in tiiesp swamps sell for only 
300 to 500 francs per tun, the profit is greater than in 
growing finer vvines. This is owing first to tlie much 
smaller expense of cultivation, and secondly lo the im- 
mense produce, which is said to be from 10 to 25 iu;.s jjcr 
acre. 
You will form some idea of ilie commerce of wines in 
Bordeaux when I tell you thatM. GcrsTiuR pays 300,000 
francs duties yearly in England, on his wines, while his 
trade with Belgium i.sas great or greater Althou;^h iliere 
had been a strike among the workmen fihe first that had 
ever occurred] just before 1 visited there, 1 saw in the cel- 
lars more than twenty'- five workmen engaged in bottling 
and barrelling wine to be shipped. He uses 100,000 corks 
a month, which cost him one sou each ; and the wine sent 
ofifin casks is more than that in bottles. One of tlie vast 
underground chambers where I was conducted consisted 
of 13 passages each 100 yards long by 15 feet wide and 
0 feet high, and there were some alcoves where the bottles 
stood twenty deep to the height of your waist. The wine 
reaches its nnturity' in about 5 years, and dccline.s after 
10. It matures sooner and is preserved longer in bottles 
than in casks. In the .Sautenie and the adjacent Com- 
munes, where the celebrated wiiiie wines are produced, 
the general fe uures of the counti y are much the same as 
in ^edoc. Tlie land is higher and more roiling perhapis 
and more frequently intersected by swamps. The soil, 
however, dilTers much ; it contains more clay, and some- 
times is of a reddish tinge and everywhere you find lime- 
stone at a short distance. The stone and gravel still 
; a'.vi here as in i'dfidoC; the S'oil is valued accord- 
iiijT to the size t tid abundance of the pebbles. The. genc- 
rei sy^li-•nl of luhii.e is tlie same as 1 liuve described ; the 
laijje pjiojjiiel. ii>^ use tlie plow, uoL like that in 5ieUoc, but 
for tlie same pui'pose t.f cuveiing and uncoveiiug tlie roots 
and evcryv/iiere deepi working is the rule. The vines 
arc pdamed either in beds such as 1 have described when 
speaking of the swamp vineyards, or in rows of 3 by 4 
feet. Tiiere is .i strong stake feet high allowed to each 
vine, and the lieight of the vine and the number of the 
branches, seem to vary to suit the fancy or neeessities of 
the proprietor. Sometimes they are veritable tiees, more 
than 8 feet high and furnished with numerous large twist- 
ed branches. But in the retd vine vineyards they are 
trimmed from 1 to 3 feet higli and have one and some- 
times two branches, furnished with bearing wood about 
two inches long. The great dilTercnce is in the vintage — 
the grapes being gathered at dilferent times as they ripen 
and not all at once as in Yledoc— and they are left on the 
vines until they begin to rot and the skin sticks to the 
fingers in liandling them. Tlie wines are of great sweet- 
ness. 'J'hey might be classed among the Cordials, and 
are exceedingly strong. On the contrary, the while wine 
of the region called ' As Graves,’' and which pass with us 
under the name of Sautenie, is, as you know, very dry, 
light and sour. The grapes of which is made are not left 
so long on the vines as at Saulerne, and are all gathered at 
the same time, to wliich tliis dift’erence is attributed. The 
“Grave.s” sell — the best — at from 300 to 700 francs the 
tun, while the rich v/ines of Sauterne and the neighbor- 
hood command 1,000 to 3,000 francs the tun. 
AlLibourne, I was conducted by YL Ohsieal, dealer 
in wine (to whom his uncle, YI. Lo.mjut, gave me a letter) 
through the principal vineyards of St. Emiline. The soil 
here is much richer than in the other districts which I 
visited, and although the stones still abound, there is a 
good deal of clay wliich renders it tenacious and slippery 
in wet weather. The limesmue is found from 3 inches to 
2 feet below the surlace, and it crops out in the best vine- 
yards. 
The vine is trimmed much as at Sauterne, an,d the 
planting and cnltivation the .same, except that the pilow is 
rot used. The wine-t arc very strong, the best sell at lOOO 
to 1,200 francs die tun, and yield from four to five barrels 
per acre: in the second quality vineyards, i. c., where the 
.stone lies deeper, the yiekl is 12 barrels the acre. 
After trud^ring af'out several hours in the mud and rair-i 
I went home v.’iil) Yl. 0;isib.vl and took dinner with him. 
Among other delicacies he gave rne a glass of old brandy 
which surpassed anytliing bearing tiiat denomination 
v.'hich I have ever tasted or imagined. He told me that 
tl ’,0 best Ijjandy sold at about 5 francs the bottle. In all 
other vineyards whicli I have described and which pro- 
duce diliererft kinds and qualities of wine, I must remark 
that whatever the other dilTeienres are, you will find 
with every change a new species of wine and for every 
shacle a mixing in dilfercnt proportions of the different 
specie.s. 
The next morning f bid farewell to Bordeaux and lug- 
ging my cajpet bag, (i’ur I am making the tour of France 
-with nothing but a carpet bag) on board steamer I turned 
my face towards Agen and Toulouse. We were 12 hours 
in reaching Agen, ilie head ol .'-teamboat navigation on tiie 
Garonne, umi about 150 miles distant from Bordeaux. A t 
Agen w'e rested half an hour and 1 took my place in the 
Diligence lor J'oulouse. For fourteen mortal sleepless 
hours we jolted on. Night came and passed, and with 
the grey dawn a keen fre-,h wind came blowing the dust 
out of our feverish eyes and revealing in the distance tlie 
long line of the Pyrrennes with their blue bases and sum- 
