Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
Lastly, the dried crop is packed in bags, covered with mats, and is then ready for exportation. The traffic began about 1835 with an export of only 1,275 lbs.; and between 1850 and 1860 the lb. was worth at least ten francs. During the rage of the oidium the cultivation was profitable and raised the Canaries high in the scale of material prosperity.
Etudes et lectures, ii, p. 269. It is a fact of some interest in agricultural economy, that the oidium, which is so destructive to the grape, has produced no pecuniary loss to the proprietors of the vineyards in France.
But in doing this, we have so lowered the general constitutional vigour of the plants or animals that our vines fall an easy prey to oidium and phylloxera, our potatoes to the potato disease and the Colorado beetle; our sheep are stupid, our rabbits idiotic, our domestic breeds generally threatened with dangers to life and limb unknown to their wiry ancestors in the wild state.
Added to this, the one source of wealth, agriculture, was almost ruined by the oidium disease which destroyed the vines, and by harvests so bad that the like had not been seen since the celebrated scarcity which followed the wars of Napoleon.
The grapes here are, alas! attacked in many places by the blight oidium, and this year the season has been so wet and cold, that as they must be gathered after the first white frost, they have no chance of ripening. As a natural result, the year's wine will be sour, and sold at a considerable loss to the growers.
'Seal's Lair' was the model district of wine-production, like its neighbour on the north-western upland, Campanario, famous for its huge Spanish chestnut: both were, however, wasted by the oidium of 1852. In 1863 it partially recovered, under the free use of sulphur; but now it has been ravaged by the more dangerous phylloxera, which is spreading far faster than Mr. Henry Vizetelly supposes.
The Peace of 1815 was a severe blow to the trade. Between 1830 and 1840, however, the vintage of the seven chief islands averaged upwards of 46,000; of these Tenerife supplied between 4,000 and 5,000, equivalent to the total produce since the days of the oidium. In 1852 Admiral Robinson reduced the number of pipes to 20,000, worth 200,000l.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking