Legendary French wines were almost wiped out when the vines that
produced their grapes withered in the nineteenth century. The
problem was one that has become familiar; our capacity to ship
species from one continent to another has meant that we can have
much more variety in our plants and animals, but it also
endangers the homebodies that have to meet the newcomers. In
_The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine Was Saved for the World_
(Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill), Christy Campbell writes that
in the 1840s, trade in grape vines proceeded with "no barriers,
no inspectorate, no concept of biological quarantine." The
result was that tiny aphids with an extraordinary life cycle
made their entry from America into France, and found the sap of
the French grape vines exactly to their liking. Campbell has
told the story of this disaster much like a mystery, and indeed,
the vintners who saw their vines rapidly wither had no idea what
was happening. A voracious caterpillar had threatened their
plants two decades befor