Taking the average of the last eight years from the foregoing table, presuming the export of 1830 to be fourteen thousand butts, the average export will be seventeen thousand four hundred butts. The price varies much, from 15_l._ up to 65_l._; but as the lower priced sherries form the bulk of the export, the average must be stated low; taking the result of the opinions of the most competent judges, the price of the export overhead, may be stated at 26_l._ per butt. The value of the sherries exported is therefore 452,000_l._ sterling--the duty upon the export is 504,600_l._; so that if freight and the profit of the merchant in London be added, the consumption of sherries exceeds one million sterling yearly. It will also be observed from the table, that the export for the years 1827, 1828, 1829, and 1830, has exceeded that of 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825, by seventeen thousand five hundred and fifty butts, though the export of the last two years, has fallen under that of the two years immediately preceding them. The grape that produces the wine of Xeres, is a green grape; it is allowed to become perfectly ripe, being plucked just before it begins to shrivel: this, in average years, is on the 9th of September,--a day marked in Catholic countries, by being the day before the feast of the immaculate Conception; but in less forward years, the plucking is deferred until the 15th of September, beyond which day it is never protracted. After the plucking, those growers who are the most attentive to their wines, place the grapes in baskets, exposed to the sun for forty-eight hours,--turning and sorting them all the while, according as they appear to require this attention.