revising the constitution of the state of Missouri. In 1870 he was appointed a member of the Board of Curators of the Missouri State University, and became a charter member of the Missouri Horticultural Society and the State Board of Agriculture. He established the Husmann Nurseries at Sedalia, Missouri, in 1872, and was one of the first, if not the first to ship cuttings of American resistant vines to France for reëstablishing her vineyards.' In 1878 he was appointed Professor of Pomology and Forestry of the State University of Missouri, and in the same year originated and organized (with Parker Earle) the Mississippi Horticultural Society.

Husmann resigned his professorship at Missouri University in 1881 to accept the management of the Talcoa Vineyards (Simonton Estate) in Napa County, California. His practical experience as a planter and his theoretical equipment as a professor now formed the foundation for his future practical, experimental, and scientific work on the Pacific Coast. In California the European vine had grown successfully, but now the phylloxera was making inroads, and as in Europe resistant American roots were imported from the Mississippi region. Husmann, representing American as opposed to European grape-culture for America, was the man of the hour who could advance viticulture in California. The danger was overcome and grape-growing in California received a more secure founda

1 In this connection mention must be made of the important work of the German-Missourian Jacob Rommel, "who gave his attention to the breeding of varieties, using a new stock- the riverbank grape (Vitis vulpina, or V. riparia) — as the parent of crosses." (Bailey, p. 69.) The cord-like roots of this stock resist the attacks of the insect phylloxera, and hence it has been used most widely to be sent to Europe as a resistant parent stock upon which European varieties are grafted. "This variety is now a cornerstone of the viticulture of the Old World." (Bailey, p. 92.)

tion. Husmann was appointed State Statistical Agent for California in 1885, selected the wines for the Paris Exposition (which were awarded some twenty medals), was a member of the Viticultural Congress at Washington, and a frequent contributor to horticultural journals. His book, "Grape Culture and Wine-Making," reached its fourth edition in 1896. He died in 1902 on his ranch in Chiles Valley, Napa County, survived by his widow and six

children.

Of the latter, George C. Husmann has carried on the work of his father as an investigator and promoter of viticulture both in theory and practice. Trained in Missouri under his father's supervision, he accepted in 1882 a position as superintendent of the extensive Kohler and Frohling vineyards and wineries at Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California; in the following year, however, joining his father in the management of the Talcoa vineyards, where extensive nurseries for resistant stock varieties were established, and vineyards replanted with the new vines. In 1887 George C. Husmann accepted the post of general foreman of Governor Leland Stanford's famous Vina vineyards and wineries at Vina, California. He remained there until 1890, when he took charge of the vineyards and wineries of Kohler and Frohling at Windsor and Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California. After completing the vintage there of 1892, he managed and owned with his father the Oak Glen vineyards and wineries from 1892 to 1900, when he accepted the government appointment of Pomologist in Charge of Viticultural Investigations in the Bureau of Plant Industry at Washington, D. C. In this experimental and field work Mr. Husmann's influence on the development of viticulture in the United States is farreaching beyond that of any other one man, and he worth

ily carries on in the South and elsewhere the great work done by the elder Husmann in the Mississippi and Missouri valleys and on the Pacific slope.

One of the most prominent nursery firms of the country, who have contributed largely to the culture of the grape, is that of the Germans, Bush & Son, at Bushberg, south of St. Louis. Their catalogue is a semi-scientific publication, used as a text-book in American agricultural schools, and furnishes a complete history of the American grape, its origin and genealogy.'

An interesting occurrence in the history of American horticulture was an influence upon the grape-culture of Europe by the same firm of Bush & Son. It happened that the phylloxera, an insect of American origin which preys upon the roots of grape-vines, having found its way into European vineyards by exportation, threatened to destroy the grape industry of Europe. Bush & Son discovered that a certain American variety (the riverbank vine, V. riparia or V. vulpina) was immune from the attack of the insect. After proving that the American vine could be used as a stock on which to graft the European forms, they made arrangements to meet the demand from abroad and grew millions of the phylloxera-resistant stocks for shipment to Europe. Thus they became instrumental in placing the European grape industry on an entirely new basis.2

As already stated, one of the most successful wine-produc

1 Cf. Bush & Son, and Meissner, Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of American Grape-Vines; a Grape-Grower's Manual. (3d edition, St. Louis, 1883, 4th edition, 1895.)

2 "Already millions of American grape-vines are growing in France, hundreds of thousands in Spain, Italy, Hungary, etc." Catalogue of Bush & Son, and Meissner, quoted by L. H. Bailey, The Evolution of Our Native Fruits,

ing centres east of California is the town of Hermann, Gasconade County, Missouri. The industry is entirely in the hands of Germans and was so from the beginning. The state of Missouri in 1904 shipped one twelfth of the wine placed on the market by all states. Of the surplus number of gallons produced by the state in that year, viz., 3,068,780, Gasconade County furnished 2,971,576 gallons, and almost all of this amount was produced at and immediately around the principal city, Hermann.'

The foreign-born viticulturists of California' were more fortunate in having their fondest hope realized, that of seeing the European varieties of the grape prosper on American soil. Thus one of the earliest pioneers, Julius Dresel, son of the Rhineland (he was born at Geisenheim on the Rhine, in 1816), after an eventful career, drank Rhine wine, the product of his own Rhenish vines, on his "Rhinefarm" in Sonoma County, California. Dresel was of the superior class of "Latin farmers," had been a student of law at the University of Heidelberg, but had become involved in the political disturbances of 1848, and had emigrated, settling first in Texas. He engaged in farming at Sisterdale, near the Guadalupe River, north of San Antonio, and was the first in that section of Texas to raise wheat, rye, and cotton without slave labor. Under great difficulties he imported Saxon rams and therewith improved the Mexican sheep. He was the first to plant a

1 Cf. W. G. Bek, The German Settlement Society of Philadelphia and its Colony, Hermann, Missouri, p. 151, etc. See also Volume 1, p. 444.

The biographical notes in this and the succeeding paragraphs are based on correspondence with members of the respective families. These data were furnished, on the writer's suggestion, by the untiring efforts of Professor E. W. Hilgard, of the University of California, and Mr. Charles Bundschu of San Francisco, who have thus contributed valuable items to the history of viticulture in the United States. See also the acknowledgment in Volume I, p. 509, footnote.

vineyard with the Johannisberg Riesling, which at first did well, but in the third year was destroyed by the large Texas red ant, which invaded the vineyard in countless numbers and stripped the vines of every vestige of green leaf. In the year 1850 his brother Emil, an architect, on a visit at Sisterdale, built him a house. In the following spring, Emil with four friends made his way on horseback through the wilderness to California, and in partnership with Jacob Gundlach in 1858 laid out the Rhinefarm Vineyards, Sonoma County. Julius Dresel remained on his farm in Texas until 1862, when, his Lincoln sympathies being well known, he removed to San Antonio for greater security. Emil Dresel died in 1869 and bequeathed to his brother his interest in the Rhinefarm in Sonoma County, California. Julius Dresel thereupon sold his possessions in Texas and with his family removed to the Rhinefarm. There he found a considerable stock of wines on hand without sales, and his first efforts were therefore directed toward creating a market, which he accomplished by personal visits to the large Eastern cities. Then he devoted his energies to improving the quality of the wine of the Rhinefarm by importing fine varieties of grape-vines from Germany and France. In the year 1875 the old partnership between him and Jacob Gundlach was discontinued, Mr. Gundlach establishing the wine business of J. Gundlach & Co. (subsequently the Gundlach-Bundschu Wine Company) in San Francisco, and Mr. Dresel continuing his vineyards on the Rhinefarm. When the phylloxera made its appearance in California vineyards, Julius Dresel was the first to import resistant roots from the Mississippi; and to test them thoroughly he planted them with the louse. The entire vineyard had to be replanted with the American stock, upon which were grafted the finer varie