Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/32

 think of that culture, which gives to such vast extent of the waste lands of a country, value not attained by the richest soils of other countries where the climate is unfavourable for it, with the exception of a very few in favourable situations?

It is not surprising that so lucrative a branch of rural economy, and one which, besides the internal and foreign commerce it gives rise to (decidedly the most extensive of any in France), is understood to yield to the government of the country, a revenue at least as much exceeding that derived from any other branch of agricultural industry, as the profits of vineyards to the proprietors exceed those of other soils, should be considered as one of the very first sources of the wealth of France, and that its improvement should be considered of the first importance. Accordingly, in the latter half of the last century, upwards of thirty French writers have published works on the improvement of the cultivation of the vine, and the making of wine.

The compiler is not aware to what extent, in other wine countries, this subject has employed the pens of scientific men; nor has he had any opportunity of ascertaining its relative importance in their rural code; but if it be true, as has been said, that fifteen-sixteenths of the vineyards of Portugal are cultivated with British capital, and that the same is the case, to certain extent, with those of Sicily