have so little free acid that they are easily preserved. The planting of vines has run far ahead of the wine-making facilities.

Four fifths of the wine of California is consumed in this country, and this does not pay enough to encourage the desired expansion of wine factories just yet; but everything is promising us a large export demand, which, in fact, has already set in. However superior our wines, their unaccustomed taste demands time to induce a change and for a new flavor to obtain preference. Considering this very great difficulty in the way of progress, the California wines are gaining favor with unexampled speed, which ought to satisfy us.

The white wine or hock of Los Angeles and Sonoma has very much the largest sale East. Germans and other Europeans are also showing a preference for it. The yearly sale is five hundred thousand gallons now, and it is increasing full thirty per cent. annually. It is a decided success, and the broad base now established is reliable for permanence. The price is highly remunerative.

Port wine, from the foot-hills back of Los Angeles, and from the Mission grape, has also found great favor, and the sales in New York for 1867 amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand gallons, at paying rates. This wine suits the American taste, takes well in Canada, and orders for it come to New York from Denmark and North Germany. Russia has not been tried, but they who best know the taste of that country, are quite confident of its success there. London dealers pronounce favorably, and an eminent house offers a good paying price if San Francisco parties will send not less than two thousand pipes a year and give exclusive control. It is pronounced fully equal to good Oporto, and at five years old equal to eight there.

It may be noted that there is a very great difference in our port wines. In many localities the grape is not as saccharine as it should be for a sweet wine, and in some places the spirit in the wine greatly exceeds the ordinary standard. All this will soon require distinct

brands.

The wine third in demand is Angelica, the sales in New York now reaching eighty thousand gallons yearly, and increasing very fast. It should be understood that this is not confectioned, a small quantity of brandy from the same grape merely being added.

The fourth in order of sale is sherry, and it bids fair to grow in favor. The fifth is sparkling champagne, and from the excellence this wine has attained in the experiments already largely made, we have no doubt a brilliant success awaits it. Dealers are making ready for a greatly extended market. The sixth and seventh in order are

muscat and claret. They are good wines, but not yet sufficiently tested in the Eastern markets. Many varieties of exceedingly rare kinds give also assurance of their finding favor whenever made known.

The wines of California most resemble those of Spain, Hungary, Greece, and Cape Constantia, rather than those of France, Italy, and Germany. But we shall not probably make our best wines till we cease to strive for foreign imitations, and strike out boldly for the manufacture of new kinds of wines, which will better bring out the excellencies with which Nature has no doubt enriched the grape in this peculiar climate.

California wines, at the French Exposition, attracted the admiration of the jurors. Their judgment was that they are so unlike wines of known European brands as to render comparison difficult; but they were struck with their fine fruity flavor, their rich body, and the ripeness attained in so short a time. They expressed an idea that, judging by the merits of our production, and our inexperience, with elements so fine as our grapes possess, that we must soon succeed in rivalling the wines of Spain, Hungary and Germany. We have the judgment of the people of Chicago on the dry wines from El Dorado county still more decided, for they are taking all that are sent to them.

TO RIPEN AND PRESERVE WINE.

In the days of Pliny the Romans used to subject their wines to a warm bath. A French expert reports to his government that, by immersing wine in bottles in a water bath of 130° for a short time, the minute vegetable fungus that generates acid is destroyed, the wine mellows immediately, as if it had age, and its condition is preserved indefinitely.

Our brandy has already won decided favor, and, judged by the standard of taste in New York, it is superior to Rochelle, and may in time supplant all French brandies. The orders and prices for 1868 indicate an export demand for one hundred thousand gallons. New brandy is taken by dealers here at $1.50 to $2 a gallon-excise tax paid.

We have said enough to show that the viniculturist of California has good prospects before him-but he is not, as yet, making much money. He has planted too fast. His vineyard is growing more valuable by the steady development of his plants, and, from the way our wines and brandies are taking the market, it will not be long before capital will feel encouraged to put up central wine manufactories and vaults that will use up the vast crop of grapes now being produced. Already there

are some wine vaults in San Francisco containing each over a million gallons of wine ripening.

It would probably be better for new comers to buy vineyards already growing, and go into farming as an adjunct at present. It is not the case here as in France and Germany, where twelve to twenty acres of vineyard are considered a rich heritage, though it may be so a few years hence. A small amount of money will buy such a vineyard here at this time. We have presented facts sufficient to show that wine can be made cheaper in California than elsewhere, and probably of better quality; and it is fair to presume that within the next three years there will be a great advance in vineyard property.

WINE MERCHANTS OF SAN FRANCISCO.

One of the most prominent dealers is the pioneer house of Kohler & Frohling. They have also a house in New York, (Perkins, Stern & Co.,) and also agencies in Boston and Chicago for the sale of their wines. This house embarked in the business in 1854, and by persevering against great difficulties has now established a reputation and a business that is likely to become very profitable. They are successfully extending the preference for California wines far and wide. The article procured of them may be depended on for purity, as they do not adulterate at all. They have one million five hundred thousand gallons of pure California wine in their vaults in San Francisco. Mr. Kohler, of this firm, has been styled the Longworth of the Pacific.

The Buenavista Vinicultural Society, and I. Landsberger, make a specialty of champagne wine, and the quality and purity of their wines are now established. M. Robert of New York represents the former, and is also agent of Sansevain Bros. of San Francisco. Jackson & Wetherbee, of the El Dorado Mountain Vineyard, have a house in Chicago where most of their wines are sold. The Anaheim Company of Los Angeles, make excellent wines and have vaults in San Francisco. All these houses sell only pure wines, and they are every way reliable.

There must be in California at this time, including the last vintage, at least five million gallons of wine-a fact sufficiently indicating the magnitude which commerce in this article is likely to attain in the early future.

SILK CULTURE.

The mulberry tree thrives wonderfully in our soil. The State of California has offered a premium of two hundred and fifty dollars for every five thousand trees, to be paid for when they are two years old, besides a premium on cocoons of three hundred dollars for every one hundred thousand--the object being to aid silk-making in becoming a fixed industry. Enough has been done on a large scale, in different localities, to prove that our mulberry leaves, our silk worms, our climate, and the silk we make, excel other silk countries in all these particulars. According to the opinions of parties most conversant with the subject, the mulberry trees now set out, and growing in this State, number about four millions-the production of eggs keeping pace with this extensive planting. But the foreign demand for our eggs is becoming so large that it threatens to retard the immediate extension of silk making in this State. In France the worms suffer so from disease that large orders from that country for our more healthy eggs are constantly being filled-a condition of things that promises to last for some time. So long as this call is kept up the manufacture of silk must necessarily be curtailed, as the selling of the eggs will be found more profitable than making the fabric. Italy and Mexico are also sending here for eggs-and while these are more healthful, producing more vigorous worms, the cocoons of California are also larger than those of other countries. The white cocoon worm of Japan, and the yellow of China, are found suitable to our climate.

California has peculiar advantages for silk growing, some of which are here presented, since they are so thoroughly proven as to be reliable in every particular. The white and black mulberry, and every other kind thrives here. But Mr. L. Prevost, of San José, selects the multicaulis, (much-leaved), the white, and particularly the Moretti, (large and thick leaves), for the superior silk it makes. In this climate the mulberry tree displays the same instinct as all other trees, its first strong movement being to send down its tap-root to the seat of permanent moisture. It is thought that in seasons of ordinary winter. rains irrigation will not be necessary-without it, the worms will be better, and the strength of the silk greater. The mulberry attains a growth here in three years equal to five years in France, and the yield of leaves is much greater. It throws out a vast exhuberance of branches, and has such power of recuperation that Mr. Prevost has adopted a new plan for gathering the leaves, which saves three fourths of the labor required in France, and is a very great improvement to the con

venience of the worm, and in preventing waste of leaves. He does not pluck the leaves, but cuts off whole branches. This gives the worm spacious and cleanly feeding-way, keeps the leaves fresh, and saves them from being soiled. The tree is not at all injured, when judgment is used in limiting the cutting. This is the practice in Japan.

It will scarcely be credited abroad, but it is a fact, that cuttings planted in winter do yield leaves enough in the following summer for no mean amount of food suitable for the younger worms. The shoots from one year's growth are usually ten to twelve feet long-fifteen feet often. In three years from the time of planting the cutting, the mulberry tree in this climate is fit for regular cropping.

COCOONS.

Two crops of cocoons are raised in the year, viz., in May and July, the whole process requiring six weeks. Artificial heat is not needed. There are no interruptions in this climate from thunder storms, or wet and cold spells, which kill so many worms in Europe, shorten the production, and injure the silk. For upon the unbroken continuity of the process depend the amount and the quality of the silk the worms make. Nothing does more damage to quality than cold checks. They are like cold nights upon cotton, making the fibre short and brittle.

The use of kilns for destroying the insect in the cocoon is dispensed with here, the summer sun sufficing. The cocoons are placed in troughs with a glass covering, and exposed for two or three days, which is effectual.

Of all industries, the rearing of worms and reeling silk from the cocoon is the most simple, the least laborious, and least monotonous. It requires in the climate of California the smallest outlay for shelter and for starting. The worm has no diseases, there are no wet spells to injure the leaf, and no cold snaps to check and mar the work. Land here is cheap, and growth is so exhuberant that there is no incentive to push the tree into unhealthy bearing, the result of which has been so fatal to the worm and the silk in France.

The extraordinary advantages of our climate have attracted the attention of silk men in Europe, and we are advised that the immigration of such persons in considerable numbers is probable. Everything points to a very early expansion of silk making here, and it is quite clear that California is destined to be one of the foremost manufacturers of silk fabrics for the consumption of the world.