Were I asked to name the one industry on which the prosperity of Australia must sooner or later rest, I should unhesitatingly answer, “On the cultivation of the vine.”  And this must be so; for while there is every reason to know that it will be called for from abroad, it is absolutely certain that it will be required in our own territories.  The chief purpose of this chapter, indeed, is to insist upon the value of our own wines as the most healthful and the most wholesome drink for Australian use.  It is a strange anomaly this, that at the present period of our existence a declaration of this kind should be necessary.  Yet it is only in keeping with the rest of our food habits, with their perpetual challenge to our semi-tropical environment; and hence we are confronted with the astounding fact that although we are practically Southern Europe, yet we follow a mode of living suitable only for a rigorous climate and a land of ice and snow.

Moreover, as I shall attempt to show, the Australian climate and soil are beyond all question naturally intended for the cultivation of the grape, so that there is no occasion to overcome the forces of nature; on the contrary, they are unceasingly giving us the greatest encouragement.  Then, again, think what widespread prosperity the use of our own wine would bring about.  Apart from its beneficial influence on the national health, it would cover the land with smiling vineyards, and give to enormous numbers a healthy livelihood; it would absorb thousands from the fever and fret of city wear and tear into the more natural life of the country; and lastly, it would relieve the abnormal congestion of our crowded centres, and do more to bring about widely distributed employment than any other industry.

The history of the introduction of the grape to Australian soil deserves more than bare reference to that event It will be remembered that Captain Cook discovered this territory in 1770; in November 1791, barely more than twenty years afterwards, the first vine was planted at Parramatta, near Sydney.  Nothing can demonstrate the suitability of the climate and the soil for its cultivation more than this one fact, namely, that at the very beginning of Australian settlement it was plain enough that the land was meant for the grape; and there is an interesting historical association, well worthy of note, attached to this circumstance.  By order of the Emperor Napoleon, the Great Napoleon, a voyage of discovery to the Southern Hemisphere was performed by a fully equipped expedition during the years 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804.  One of the naturalists, M.F.  Peron, has given us an excellent account of his New South Wales experience, and after referring to the Parramatta vineyards as likely to be followed by the most excellent results, he goes on to say:—­“By one of those chances which are inconceivable, Great Britain is the only one of the great maritime powers which does not cultivate the vine either in her own territories or her colonies,