SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
The Grape in Australia. 
An Aid to Closer Industry that Wants 
Settlement. Encouraging. 
“*T often wonder what the vintners buy 
One half so precious as the goods they sell.’’ 
OMAR. 
By JOHN DUCE. 
HERE is, perhaps, no industry for which Australia is so 
peculiarly suited as the wine-making industry, for whereas in 
Europe, owing to their moist and uncertain summers, they 
can only produce a “vintage wine” about once in five years, 
our dry, rainless summers enable us to produce a perfect wine 
every year. Australia should be, not only the “ Empire’s 
Vineyard,” but it should produce the export wines for the whole of 
the world. 
No industry is so conducive to close settlement as the “ Wine 
Industry.” At a very conservative estimate every 8 or 10 acres of 
wine-grapes should provide in vineyard, cellar, cooperage, transport, &c., 
full employment for one adult—in other words, should maintain one 
family. The annual value of all our Australian agricultural, pastoral, 
dairying, poultry, bee-farming, forestry, fisheries, mining, and manu- 
facturing industries, amounted in pre-war times to only £195,000,000, 
and we are told that only by increased production can we hope to meet 
the costs of the late war. Then why do we not take seriously in hand 
‘the wine industry. We are at present producing the comparatively 
insignificant quantity of about 6,000,000 gallons per year, worth prob- 
ably about £1,000,000. Compare this with the— 
French vintage of oe .. 1,800,000,000 gallons, 
Italian vintage of at st 947,000,000 gallons, 
Spanish vintage of .. ise 520,000,000 gallons, 
and consider that the French vintage alone, at an average price of Qs. 
per gallon, represents an annual value of £130,000,000—just about two- 
thirds the value of everything that is produced in Australia. It is also 
estimated that about 25 per cent. of the French population live either 
directly or indirectly upon. the wine industry, and where can one find 
a braver, healthier, more prosperous, more contented, or more sober 
people than the French? 
Centuries of experience and keen competition have taught European 
vignerons that certain classes of vines produced their best results in 
certain districts, and it has consequently been many generations since 
any attempt has been made in any one of those districts to make more 
than the one variety of export wines for which it has proved itself to 
be especially suited, and we find, upon reference to the map of Europe, 
that the Sherry district is situated about 36° N. lat., the Port district 
about 41°, the Burgundy district about 45°, the Claret district about 
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