The villages of Koper's hinterland from the middle of the 19th to the fifties 20th century

     Until the second half of the 19th century Europe's vines endangered mainly by the pest such as different species of snails, insects and spiders, against which the winegrowers could only fight whit his bare hands and whit fire. As early as in the 18th century farmers were obligated by law to exterminate the parasites of fruit trees and of vine. The laws were, however often not respected, partly superstition contributed to the fact. Farmers believed that pupae, caterpillars and similar little animals were the only sign of the fertility of the soil and were therefore not be exterminated... In some places rags soaked in oil were wrapped round the stem of the vine, women and children gathered the pest and burned it. Snails were annihilated by nutcrackers if they didn't especially in French winegrowing regions, make their end served on table. The vine also had to be protected against spiders, which chewed in the blossoms and by weaving their nets forced the plants into unnatural forms of growth. In the middle of the 19th century sulphur was applied against the mildew of the vine, in the eighties vines were sprayed against Peronospora with a solution of copper vitriol, at the same time the wine louse already was causing enormous damage in European vineyards. Istria too took its share in revolutionary changes bought by planting sorts to this plague.