8 THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 



aqueducts, dams were thrown across the rivers, reservoirs were 

 formed, and the whole of Southern Spain became most highly culti- 

 vated, rich and prosperous. In fact, if the historians are to be believed, 

 and the yet remaining views of former grandeur can be trusted, no 

 country either in ancient or modern times has ever in prosperity rivaled 

 the ancient Moorish kingdoms of Granada and Andalusia. In the 

 thirteenth century the Christian knights and kings of Central and 

 Northern Spain succeeded in conquering the Moors, who again were 

 unmercifully expelled, massacred or enslaved, their cities burned and 

 razed, and the fertile and cultivated districts utterly ruined. Vast 

 tracts were depopulated and abandoned, and, nature taking its 

 course, wild grass, shrubbery and trees soon covered the former highly 

 cultivated plains. In the course of time these uncultivated lands 

 attracted the attention of the highland shepherds, who drove their herds 

 to them during the winters, again returning to the mountains at the 

 advent of the dry season. 



By degrees the self-taken rights of the sheepmen became more 

 widely recognized, and, while the less valuable lands were taken pos- 

 session of by the poorer peasantry, these pasture lands were set apart for 

 the exclusive use of the sheep-owners. The pasture lands thus being 

 free, it was no wonder that the sheep industry flourished, and that the 

 flocks increased. The wool industry soon became one of the most 

 important in Spain. The flocks were principally owned by nobles and 

 monks, and the poor peasants, who constituted the only agricultural 

 population, had very little if any chance to oppose the ever greater 

 encroachments of the wandering flocks or their insolent owners. The 

 Merinos, or moving sheep, were wintered in the warm valleys of 

 Andalusia, Murcia and Kstremadura, only to be again removed to the 

 cooler mountains of I,eon and Castille at the advent of spring. What 

 curse this would entail on the agricultural population is easy to be 

 seen. The sheep were moving in bands of 10,000 each, and 700 to 

 800 such flocks were moved annually twice through a country devoid 

 of fences or inclosures of any kind. Numerous disputes and constant 

 bloody fights arose between farmers and the shepherd, to settle which 

 the " Council of the Mesta" was instituted. In tyranny, this 

 dreaded institution was only equaled by the famous Inquisition, with 

 which in birth and death it was almost contemporaneous. In the year 

 1556 a code of laws was promulgated, and a compromise was entered 

 upon. But the tyranny of the shepherds, upheld through their 

 " Mesta," was in no way diminished. The latter continually extended 

 its power, encroached upon new territory, appropriating gradually the 

 finest pastures of Spain, and finally obtained a monopoly of the wool 

 trade. Its tyranny became at last intolerable. The shepherds of the 

 Mesta were more dreaded than robbers and highwaymen in every place 

 througn which they passed. Agriculture became almost impossible. 

 At last the " Mesta'" was abolished by the Cortez in Cadiz in 1812, 

 and a few years afterwards the pastures or Dehesas were sold. One of 

 the finest Dehesas near Velez, Malaga, was planted to Muscatel grapes, 

 and through the combined fertility of the soil, and the abun- 

 dance of moisture, the vineyard proved a great success. So fine 



