{"product_id":"malvezin-lettre-a-la-chambre-de-1874","title":"Lettre à la Chambre de commerce de Bordeaux sur le phylloxera de la vigne","description":"\u003cp\u003e1874 First Edition\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 8vo. Pp. [1] f.e., 56, [1] r.e.\u003cbr\u003e\nBordeaux\u003cbr\u003e\nCharles Lefebvre\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOriginal printed wrapper, sewn as issued and largely uncut, with generous untrimmed margins. Light foxing and toning to the title page and to rear matter. Internally clean and well printed. Very good conditions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePublished while the phylloxera crisis was still searching for a solution, this open letter to the Chambre de Commerce de Bordeaux captures one of the defining debates in nineteenth-century viticulture. Rather than advocating a single remedy, Théophile Malvezin surveys the competing scientific and practical responses then under discussion, from American vines and chemical treatments to biological control and legislative action, at a moment when neither the epidemic nor its cure had yet been fully mastered. Addressed to Bordeaux's principal commercial institution, instead of the scientific and botanical community, the pamphlet argues that the destruction of the vineyards was no longer simply an agricultural problem but a matter of regional commerce requiring coordinated public intervention. Malvezin would later become the author of the monumental Histoire du commerce de Bordeaux, making this an early intervention by one of the city's foremost historians of its commercial life. Neal Martin places the work within the Gironde's campaign against what contemporaries called \"this horrible plague,\" noting that the alternatives it discusses were ultimately superseded by grafting onto American rootstocks, together with carbon bisulphide and potassium sulpho-carbonate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe pamphlet opens with the Chamber's cri d'alarme, followed by three formal petitions to the Minister: the publication of an official summary of the phylloxera question, the increase of the proposed reward to one million francs, and legal protection for insectivorous birds as natural enemies of the pest. The Première partie, presented as a practical handbook, traces the origin and spread of the epidemic (rom its first observations around 1863 in England and the Var to its appearance in the Bordeaux vineyards about 1866) before describing the characteristic symptoms of the disease and the insect's complex life cycle in its gall-forming (gallicole) and root-feeding (radicicole) stages, both wingless and winged. A substantial chapter reviews the full range of contemporary remedies, from cultivation practices, fertilizers, drainage, and American vines to traps, birds, vineyard flooding, and chemical treatments. The author's constant refrain is the need for immediate intervention: isolate the infected vines, expose the roots to a depth of 30-40 cm, and irrigate with pentasulfure de chaux. The Deuxième partie moves from the vineyard to public policy, arguing for a national phytosanitary framework that anticipated the French law of 15 July 1878, and illustrating how the struggle against phylloxera had become as much a matter of legislation and commerce as of viticulture itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat won us over is not so much the enemy as the audience. Malvezin isn't writing for botanists or agronomists, but for Bordeaux's Chamber of Commerce, treating phylloxera as a threat not just to the vine, but to the fortunes of an entire region. American vines, chemical remedies, new laws, even insect-eating birds all earn their place in the debate. A wonderful reminder that wine has never been merely an agricultural affair: it has always been serious business.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Fenice Antiquaria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49385892544747,"sku":"148-1874--3500.00-242.00-2026","price":5359.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/00148_IMG_8990.jpg?v=1788990844","url":"https:\/\/fenicebooks.com\/en-ap\/products\/malvezin-lettre-a-la-chambre-de-1874","provider":"La Fenice Antiquaria","version":"1.0","type":"link"}