Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/185

 VITICUT.TURE.— 8T0CK.BREEDIN0. 189 appear ultoji^ethor incredible to raont wine-gjowors. Thus while the yield varies ill other places from uImuI three hundred and ten to mine hundred gallons per hectare,* it reaches two thousand in the coast district of the Cape, and rises to the prodigious average of no less than three thousand eight hundred gallons in the inland districts of Worcester and udtt*hoorn.t Yet, despite this marvellous yield, only a very small part of the western district suitable for wine-growing has hitherto been devoted to viticulture. Although this industry is yearly increasing, the actual extent of land planted with the vine was still under 2o,000 acres in the year 1886. At the same time very little intelligence is displayed in saving the harvest and preparing the vintage, so that most of the wines, badly p^e^^8ed and " fortified" with brandies, have an unpleasant flavour in the opinion of connoisseurs. The reputation of the Cape wines, which stood very high during the first half of the present century, has since greatly fallen off, and efforts are now being made by some growers to bring them again into favour. The South African vineyards have also had to suffer from oidium, and in the year 1886 phylloxera made its appearance in some vineyards in the vicinity of the capital. Stock-breeding. — Ostrich-farming. The number of inhabitants of the colony occupied with stock-breeding and the associated industries is estimated at obout one-third of the whole population. The breed of horses, sprung from ancestors imported from the Argentine States, and afterwards improved by crossings with English and Arab blowl, possesses the rare combination of strength, mettle, and endurance. Breeders have already their " genealogical trees *' of famous racers, and the colony at present possesses about four hundred thousand more or less valuable horees. The horned cattle are at least thrice as numerous. They descend partly from the long-horned animals owned by the Dutch at the arrival of the first immigrants ; but this stock has long since bet^n modified by crossings with varieties introduced from England and Holland. Ilondreds of thousands of oxen are employed exclusively for the transport of goods and passengers in the colonial districts and conterminous regions which are not ytt traversed by lines of railway. Hence farmers devote tbems(>lves specially to the breeding of cattle as i)ack animals and mounts, an industry unknown in any other part of the world, liut on tlie other hand, milch cows are far from numerous, and such branches of dairy farming as the collection and distribution of milk, and butter-making, are carried on only in the neighbour- hof)d of the large towns. Whole herds have frequently been swept away by epidemics. At present the chief resource of the colony is its numerous flecks of sheep. On their first arrival in the country the Dutch here found the fat-tailed breed avenge year, 1883, 400 gallonH; in the ban your, 1886, 310 gallona. t P. T). Uahu. Juhn Nuble*8 Cupe of Ouod Jiupe.
 * Yield in Franoe in the exceptionally »rood year 1875. 670 gallons per hectan of 2^ maret; inthe