The New Student's Reference Work/Montpellier

Montpellier (môn′pắ′lyắ′), a French city, 76 miles northwest of Marseilles and six from the Mediterranean. Its great industry, the production of wine, at periods suffers by the phylloxera, a minute insect that attacks the vines and almost destroys the vineyards; the cure effected by grafting the vines upon American stocks was first tried here. There is a flourishing school of agriculture devoted to the study of wine and silk-culture. Montpellier is more celebrated, however, as an ancient city belonging to Aragon or to Navarre, before it finally became a French city in 1392. Its university (1289), with schools of law, medicine and arts, rivaled that of Paris. Population 75,950.