FAMINE STONES SEEN.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17430, 15 April 1922, Page 14

FAMINE STONES SEEN.

The famous famine stones of the Moselle appeared the recent dry period for the first time in many years. The Jloselle, usually associated with a special sort of wetness, is also by the irony of fate periodically distinguished for particular As a compensation, perhaps, the great drought years 1842. 1857, and .1911 were also superior vintage years. This year, for the first time in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, great rocks in the middle of the stream were visible; one not far from Trier had not been seen for 121 years. Near Coblenz the drying waters revealed a stone inscribed, ' "When you see me weep, 1842;" One set of marks not far from Senheim dates back to 1609, and witnesses among others the heavy drought of 1640, which added fo the horrors this district suffered during the Thirty Years war. An interesting custom has arisen' in the wine district of Trarbach, where a wine reserve from the especially dry years is kept-in the great rocks ordinarily covered by water. When the water iij low enougn to open the caches then the wine of the last dry time is drunk. The first bottles were laid by in 1842 and opened in 1857;, again in 1911 wine was put aside ahd broached on July 16th, 1921, with si great celebration, attended by old and young. The iron doer Over the bottles was opened, and everybody had at least a swallow or two of the old wine. The vintage of 1910, laid by. in 1911, was found to have been especially fine.