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MIXED DRINKS.

' 83

almost every year. The product in our own country at

present is a mere bagatelle, say 40,000,000 or 50,000,-

000 gallons per year,but it is rapidly increasing. France

vacillates as to quantity, ov?ing to injuries to the vine

caused by Phylloxera. The average annual production

is over 500,000,000 gallons. But the most marvellous

results of wine culture in France occurred in 1875,

when the yield reached the enormous aggregate of

83,633,000 hectolitres, or about 2,200,000,000 gallons,

worth in round numbers eighteen hundred million dol

lars ($1,800,000,000.) There were not bottles and coop

erage enough to accommodate it, and much of it was

siphoned into vats and cisterns for storage, but not a

pipe wasted; and yet prices were not materially affected

■in the markets of the world.

This only shows the possibilities of France, if she

could get rid of Phylloxera. And as to our own little

beginning in this great industrj' here in America,it may

be said that with so vast a territory, so many acres of low-

priced land, much of it sunny, undulating, and particu

larly suited to grape growing, we may look forward to

wonderful enterprise along this line in the not far dis

tant future. It will come the sooner as we learn more

about the management of the fruit after it has been

taken from the vineyard—those little secrets which