20G State Board of Aoricultujjf, &o. 



a year, in the spring to the pastures of Cervera, Navarre and 

 the Pyrenees in the nortli, and in tlie antnmn to the con- 

 fines of Estremadnra, Andalnsia and Now Castile in tlie 

 south, tended to select only the strongest and best, and 

 much of the noted hardiness of tlie Spanish Merino and its 

 descendants is, no donbt, owing to this treatment. 



So highly were sheep esteemed, and so powerful became 

 their owners that they were able to force upon the people a 

 most oppressive code, by a tribunal called the Council of the 

 Royal Troop. 



This code established a right for sheep to graze on all 

 open and common land that lay in their way ; it claimed, 

 also, a path ninety yards wide through all enclosures and 

 cultivated fields, and it prohibited all persons, even foot 

 passengers, from travelling on the roads while the sheep 

 were in motion. As the migrations were made at a season 

 of the year when the crops were liable to injury, the dam- 

 age must have been inestimable, and the prestige of the 

 flockniastcr unlimited. 



In 1576 there were annually exported from Spain to 

 France about forty thousand sacks of wool, at forty-five dol- 

 lars per sack, and to Italy a finer sort at one hundred and 

 twelve dollars and fifty cents per sack. But the Spaniards, 

 in their bigotry, expelled many tliousands of the Moors, 

 industrious people, artisans ; indeed, six hundi'cd thousand 

 in three years, and Seville's sixteen thousand looms dwindled 

 to sixty. The glory of the Saracen had departed, and with 

 it the woolen industry of Spain, and her sheep soon followed, 

 Spain saw too late her fatal error, and France, Germanj 



