[105] ‘Nature,’ vol. x.
The French Government, fully alive to the peril threatening the staple product of their country, shortly after the appearance of the Phylloxera in the vineyards of France, offered through their Minister of Commerce and Agriculture a reward of 300,000 francs for the discovery of a means of arresting and stopping its ravages; and in 1871 the Academy of Sciences, at Paris appointed a commission, presided over by the celebrated chemist M. Dumas, to investigate the biology, habits, &c., of the parasite, together with the nature of the injuries it inflicted upon the vine, the area of its depredations, &c. From amongst the members of this commission three gentlemen were chosen to visit the infected districts, so as to be afforded an opportunity of studying the Phylloxera at its destructive work, and its environments of soil, situation, temperature, &c.
The delegates selected by the Commission were MM. Balbiani, Cornu, and Duclaux, respectively amongst the most distinguished living representatives of zoology, botany, and chemistry in France, and the results of their
labours was the issue, some few years back, of a most exhaustive and valuable report to the Academy of Sciences on the subject of the Phylloxera.
The vines of other countries besides those of France have also suffered from the attacks of the Phylloxera. Thus it has made its appearance in the vineyards of Algiers, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Australia, and North America, on all of which it has been productive of more or less serious injury to the vintage.
Amongst the numberless remedies that have been suggested and tried, with varying but by no means uniform or satisfactory results, for the destruction of the Phylloxera, may be mentioned sulphur, the sulphites, tobacco, caustic soda, and potash, bisulphide of carbon, coal-tar, soft soap, lime, the immersion of the vine in sulpho-carbonate of potassium, and the application around the roots of sand.
A certain amount of success, it has been said, has attended the employment of the sulpho-carbonate of potassium and sand.
An American botanist, Mr Riley, recommends the importation into French vineyards of the American vines, which he suggests should be employed as stocks on which to graft the French ones.
The American plant being of a hardy nature, he believes its incorporation with the more susceptible French ones, would give rise to a vine sufficiently vigorous to resist, or at any rate not to be injured by the ravages of the parasite.
PHYSIC BALLS. See Veterinary medicines.