journal of Agriculture. [lo Oct., 1908. 



level land. Occasional expanses of bare rock arc to he seen. Deposits 

 of gypsum occur frequently and render much of the land unfit for cultiva- 

 tion. On these poor lands flocks of sheep and goats are grazed. The 

 rainfall is scanty ?aid irregular ; taken as a whole it is a spar.sel) -populated 

 region which possesses a special character of its own. 



The principal forms of agriculture, in the order of their importance, are : 

 vines, wheat, barley, olives and oats. Viticulture occupies a very large 

 qrea; according to the official statistics for 1906 the province of Ciudad 

 Real alone had 332,000 acres under vines. It is, in fact, the province 

 which has the largest are?, of vineyards in Spain, though Tarragona pro- 

 duces more wine as the average yield in La Mancha is poor. In_ 1906 it 

 was under 100 gallons per acre, although that vintage was considered a 

 fair one. 



The two most important viticultural centres are Valdepefias and Man- 

 zanares. The last-mentioned place may be taken as being typical of the 

 whole of La Mancha. I had when in Malaga been given _ a letter of 

 introduction to their Manzanares manager by the firm of Jimenez and 

 Lamothe, which owns one of the largest wineries in La Mancha. This 

 induced me to visit Manzanares in preference to Valdepehas, though the 

 latter is perhaps the better known of the two jjlaces. 



Viticulture in this part of Spain is somewhat different to what one finds 

 in Andalucia, as the vine farmers, or cosecheros, usually sell their grapes 

 to the large wineries instead of making their own wine. The wines of La 

 Mancha are of somewhat nondescript type or rather many different types ; 

 vins ordinaires or common beverage wines predominate. This is the class 

 of wine, always consumed from bulk, with which one becomes so familiar 

 in all Latin countries. It is usually sold at a cheap price. Some 

 wines of better class, known as Vino de Mesa, or table wines, are also made. 

 These are bottled and matured before being sold, but they do not constitute 

 a large proportion of the total production. Large quantities of blending 

 wines of very different types are turned out in the large wineries of La 

 Mancha. Among these one finds the full bodied drv white used in Jerez 

 for blending in with the cheap sherries. Also, what may be termed 



basis wines, for the making up of different types of sweet wines. Such 

 are Arrofe or boiled grape juice ; much the same as what we erroneously 

 term Geropega in Australia ; Mistela or grape juice the fermentation of 

 which has been prevented by fortification immediately after it has been 

 extracted from the grapes ; Vino Ahogado, a fortified sweet wine ; and 

 Vino Azufre, a sweet w'ne in which complete fermentation has been pre- 

 vented by heavv sulphuring. Much fortifying spirit is also produced ; 

 most of that used in Jezez, Malaga, and Montilla being distilled in this 

 part of Spain. 



It would be difficult to find a type which is not included in the wines 

 turned out by any of the.se large wineries. That of Messrs. Jimenez and 

 Lamothe was the only one the limited time at mv disposal permitted me 

 to visit. It is exceedinglv well equipped, and capable of dealing with 145 

 tons of fresh grapes in a day. I was treated with great courtesy by the 

 manager, with whom I spent a most interesting morning in visiting this 

 extensive establishment, the largest of the kind I had so far seen in Spain. 



\ Spanish Winery. 

 In the photograph reproduced is shown the receiving room where the 

 grapes are emptied out on to a carrier which convevs them to the 

 elevator, from which thev fall into two crushers, one on either 



