MonoMonday Challenge 403 - 19th Century Inventions

A picturesque setting for a picnic lunch in Ermanno's vineyard today.  

I'll sneak in two inventions today.

There are biblical references to grafting of plants that dates back quite a ways and also in China before 2000 BC, and references in the Mishna to grafting of vineyards as common practice in around 500 BCE...  but it was the French Wine Pandemic starting in 1864 due to the phylloxera insect from the Americas which infested the roots of the vines and caused fungus to grow and to which I address in today's post. The end solution was to graft the root stock of the resistant American vines onto the French plants.  The wine still tasted pretty good and the vineyards prevailed.  Hence new methods and machines were invented to the task.

The second is the invention of the diesel engine by Rudolf Diesel in the 1890s.

The two inventions seem to marry quite well in this picture! :)


Thanks to laurie54 for hosting this month's challenge.


ps, Italian wines taste pretty good too!