THIRTY-THIRD BlENNIAI, SESSION 
: 33 
We must improve our distributing mediums, especially for wines. 
Pure, good, wholesome wines should be sold through agencies that know 
how to handle them and are interested in them. The juices from good 
grapes, fermented or unfermented, when pure and unadulterated, are 
natural beverages of intrinsic food value and promoters of temperance 
and health when taken in reasonable quantities. We must educate our 
people to appreciate the real merits and value of the grape and its many 
products, which, when pure, are so healthful and nutritive. Each and every 
grape grower should do something to develop and increase the sale and 
consumption of grapes and to secure for them the recognition that they so 
justly deserve. 
Some credits that should be placed to American viticulture are as 
follows : 
We are constantly improving on the packing, handling, storling, and 
marketing of table grapes. We have corralled the raisin market of this 
country and are becoming exporters of them. We are rapidly improving 
on our methods of fermentation and general care, handling, ageing, and 
transportation of our wines. Our sparkling wines from American grapes 
have made a reputation for themselves; these and sparkling wines made 
in California from vinifera varieties bid fair to entirely replace those here- 
tofore imported. The unfermented grape juice business is growing by 
leaps and bounds. We are making and consuming a number of new products 
from the grape. In grape handling machinery we lead the world. American 
native grape varieties as phylloxera resistant stocks have been the means 
of saving the viticulture of the entire world. We have learned to control 
black rot, anthracnose and other grape diseases. 
However, the industry in this country is as yet in its infancy. A be- 
ginning has just been made in a commercial and business-like manner 
to improve methods and expand markets. Achievements at expositions 
and on public occasions are really far in advance of what has been done 
in the way of production. So far, the juice output for the entire country 
has never exceeded 75,000,000 gallons per annum. The output in this 
direction is far surpassed by each of the following countries: France, Italy, 
Spain, Portugal, Austria, and others. 
The raisin industry of this country has only supplied the small demand 
of 150,000,000 pounds per annum; whereas, our country’s population, were 
it to consume as much per capita as some other countries — say Great 
Britain — should now use 750,000,000 pounds annually, not to say anything of 
extending markets and exporting to other countries. When it is considered 
that France annually produces more than one and one-half billion gallons of 
wline, as compared to our 75,000,000 gallons, and it is considered that Cali- 
fornia alone has a grape producing area almost equal to the whole of 
France, some idea can be formed of the great possibilities of the industry! 
A beginning has been made; what the industry will be remains largely 
with those who engage in it. No reason presents itself why varieties 
should not be cultivated wherever the wild vines flourish, and some of these 
are found in nearly all parts of the Union. 
