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