THE VINEYARDS OF FRANCE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 225, 27 February 1875, Page 3

THE VINEYARDS OF FRANCE.

From the shores of the Atlantic to the borders of Germany the vineyards of France, writes an exchange, cover five millions of acres, and yield on an average fifty million hectolitres of wine every year. During the past sixteen years the price of the hectolitre —a little more than twenty-two gallons—of wine, not including the choicer kinds, which fetch fancy prices, has averaged fifty-one to fifty-two francs, or about £2 Is of our money. The average price of the wine grown in France during the last sixteen years has therefore exceeded £100,000,000 sterling per annum, even at the price which only the common kinds fetch—that is to say, without reckoning the choice vintages, the annual revenue of France from wine exceeds half the indemnity paid to Germany. In addition to the wine, we need not remind the reader that the juice of the grape yields a considerable quantity of brandy and vinegar. And including the care and cultivation of the vineyards, the manufacture, storage, and sale of the wine, it is estimated that this single industry gives employment to no fewer than seven millions of people, or to very nearly one in every five of the entire population of France. Need we add anything more to show the immense importance of this great industry to the nation, and the alarm which must necessarily be excited by a disease the loss caused by which was estimated for the present year by members of the Political Economy Society in Paris the other day at between £8,000,000 and 12,000,000 sterling. Remembering that this is the eleventh year of the continuance of the disease, the statement of one of those members will appear only slightly exaggerated—that, unless checked, it will shortly have cost France as much as the Prussian invasion. Various plans have been adopted to arrest the progress of the disease, which was imported from America. The plan which seems to find the most favor is that of re-planting the whole of the vineyards with American vine trees, which, curious as it may seem, are not attacked by the disease.