PRACTICAL PAPERS—VINE CULTURE, ETC. 305 
use here, in any stage of vine-raising or wine-making, con¬ 
cerning which there is not a confusion of practice and a con¬ 
flict of theory, such as it would be hopeless to attempt to rec¬ 
oncile. Probably sound reasons for much of this diversity 
may be found in peculiarities of soil and varieties of vines 
that are local and special, and with which we have nothing to 
do. Still, a pretty thorough tour among the wine districts of 
France has not been wholly barren of suggestions. 
SOIL AND EXPOSURE. 
The soil of Medoc, where stand “ Chateau Margeaux,” 
“Chateau La Fitte” and “Chateau La Tour,” is a bed of 
coarse gravel, among whose pebbles the eye can barely 
detect soil enough to support the lowest form of vegetable life. 
In the vicinity of Bezires, on the other hand, the land is rich 
and strong enough to yield any kind of a crop ; yet Medoc 
grows wine that often sells for ten dollars a gallon, while that 
of Bezires sometimes sells for the half of ten cents per gallon. 
In Burgundy there is a long hill, on whose dark red ferrugin¬ 
ous limestone sides a wretched thin covering of earth lies, like 
the coat of a beggar, revealing, not hiding, the nakedness bet 
neath. Here stand little starvling vines, very slender and 
very low ; yet here is the celebrated “ Clos Yaugeot,” and 
this is the hill, and these are the vines that yield a wine rival¬ 
ing m excellence and value that of Medoc, and to the fortun¬ 
ate proprietor the Cote d'or is what it signifies, “ a hillside of 
gold.” At its base spreads out a wide and very fertile plain, 
covered with luxuriant vines, whose juice sells from ten to 
twenty cents per gallon. 
As you go further northward and examine the hills of 
Champagne, you will find them to be merely hills of chalk ; 
and these instances only illustrate the rule derived not from 
them alone, but abundance of others, that, for good wine, you 
must go to a dry and meagre soil. Yet we should be sorry to 
have to extend the rule, and say that the poorer the soil the 
better the wine, for there are certainly very few patches of 
ground in America that can match in poverty the mountains 
Ag. Tr.—20. 
