After a while it was demonstrated that the fine wine grapes of Europe would succeed and flourish in different parts of California. And then French, German and Italian vintners turned their attention to the vines they knew or had grown in the Old Country.
After 1871 grape growing in the State began to go backward, and this continued till 1879, when there came a qum° in the industry. There was a short crop that year; the prices for grapes and wine went up, and soon there was renewed interest in viticulture. In re sponse to a demand, a State Board of Viti culture was created in 1880. The board was composed of able and practical growers from the leading districts of the State, and their work resulted in a revival of the industry.
According to the census of 1890, there were then in California 155,272 acres of bearing vines. The California grape crop in the census year of 1909 was 989,843 tons, of the value of $10,027,961. This is 77 per cent of the entire United States production, though only 49 per cent of the value, since most of the grapes are grown for wipe, and bring a much less price than table grapes. A large quantity also goes into raisins. The California produc tion mork_than doubled in the decade from 1899 to 1909. See RAISIN INDUSTRY, AMERICAN.
The shipping of California table grapes to the Eastern markets now amounts to about 1,200 carloads. The California shippers of table grapes labor under the difficulty of long dis tance from their markets. They have fine, beautiful varieties of grapes, but many of them will not stand the journey to the Eastern markets.
The leading varieties of California table grapes are Flame Tokay, Emperor, Cornichon, Black Malvoisie, Rose of Peru, Muscats, Thompson's Seedless, the Chasselas varieties.
Practical Side of Grape The practical parts of vine growing cannot be learned from books, but is the result of hard work and years of experience. However, some of the more important features of vine culti vation may be mentioned. Of course, climate, location and soil play an important part in the yield and in the quality of the fruit. From early times the vine was generally set out on the hills with southern or eastern exposure. It is another curious fact that the leading grape districts of Europe and of the United States are located near a body of water. It is so in
the great Medoc district of France, situated be tween the rivers Garonne and Gironde, and in Germany along the river Rhine. In the East ern States we have the leading districts along the Hudson River, on the banks of Lake Keuka in central New York and along the shores of Lake Erie in northern Ohio. Such large bodies of water keep the vines from late spring or early fall frosts, and from heavy dews and fogs.
The propagation of the vine may be accomplished by seeds, cuttings, layers and grafts. The wild grape grows from, and multiplies by, the seed only. It reproduces it self, and its seedlings differ seldom from the parent vine. But, if we take the seed of the cultivated vine, the seedlings show a wide varia tion, and that is seldom wanted, unless as an experiment to obtain new varieties. The usual method of vine propagation is by cuttings, which are made in the winter from the trim ming of the vines. The cuttings are planted early in the spring, after the ground is thoroughly well prepared. It is usual to let the plants grow one or two years. The methods of transplanting these vines are various, due to the nature of the vines and to the methods followed in the various districts. Thus, in California rooted vines of one year are pre ferred; in the Eastern States growers prefer two-year-old transplanted vines.
The grafting of the vine, as with other woody plants, is quite easy, although it may be done in a number of ways. The time to graft is early in the spring before the sap starts. Fully a dozen methods have been named and described. The two kinds in most common use are the ordinary cleft or shoulder graft, and the English or whip-graft. An or dinary graft is simply done by cutting the vine off three or four inches below the surface of the ground, then split with a grafting chisel, and held open with a wedge until the scion is fitted exactly into place. The cleft may be tied with a string, or covered with clay or grafting wax, and then the earth is heaped about the graft, leaving one bud of the scion above the surface. Grafting is of great im portance to every vine grower in Europe and in California. For it is by grafting European vines on American stock that they can be pro tected from that dread scourge, phylloxera.