Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1888 — Losses Due to the Phylloxera. [ARTICLE]

Losses Due to the Phylloxera.

A writer in the Economisie Francois estimates tlie total loss to France from the ravages of the phylloxera sinee 1875, when the scourge of the French vineyards first made its appearance, at the enormous snm of 10,000,000,00(1 francs, or about £400,000,000. This estimate is based upon French official statistics giving the aggregate area of vineyards destroyed in the country as about 2,500,000 acres, and on the assumption that, in addition to the acreage of vines thus utterly destroyed, the extent of vineyards more or less infested with the phylloxera amounts to about 500,000 acres, making thus together 3,000,000 acres. The value of these latter, which, according to the writer, should be calculated from" the gross and not from the net revenue formerly derived therefrom, is estimated at £280,000,000. On adding to this amount the loss occasioned through the outfall in labor in the destroyed vineyards, as well as by the vast importations of foreign wines and grapes for wine-mak-ing necessitated by the diminished production during the last thirteen years, which is taken at £120,000,000, the above-mentioned sum is arrived at. — London News.