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Agriculture, where the Department has a large area of ground laid out in 

 experimental plots : and at the college about 200 students from all parts of 

 Spain are taught scientific arid practical agriculture. Professor Navarro, 

 who is the general scientific adviser, and has charge of the various experi- 

 ment farms and stations, informed me that at the present time there was 

 no law in force in Spain to deal with insect or fungus pests, but there was a 

 draft before the House, which the Department expected to get passed into 

 law this year, when they would be able to deal with pests coming into the 

 country and those that were there already. He showed me his tine collection 

 of insect and fungus pests, and said that the chief industries, as far as 

 orchards were concerned, were the growing of citrus fruits and olives. Of the 

 former an immense quantity are shipped to London. The worst diseases of 

 the orange are the three scale insects Lecanium he*peridum, Aonidia auranti 

 (our red scale), and Mytalaspis flavescens ; and sometimes a little Aspidiotus 

 lemonii comes on the fruit. The two worst fungus diseases are Capnodium 

 -cilri and Gomosis del Navavj, the latter a form of "collar rot." 



The Department are afraid to do any fumigation of the trees for scale, 

 ' for fear the orchardists might poison themselves," but many growers spray 

 or wash their trees, chiefly with oil mixtures. The bulk of the citrus trees are 

 grown not from seedlings, but cuttings placed in the ground till they are rooted, 

 and may or may not be afterwards budded or grafted. The orange growers 

 cover a large area in the south of Spain, but the individual holdings are 

 small, so that every tree can be looked after. Apples are only grown in 

 the north of Spain, chiefly along the coast, and there is no export of apples ; 

 a great quantity, and all the damaged or wormy ones, are made into cider. 

 Professor Navarro says that codling moth is the common pest of the apple 

 there, and a very large percentage of the crop is always infested. He had 

 never seen or heard of any parasite being any check on codling moth in 

 Spain. One of the pests that was much in evidence was a small chrysomalid 

 beetle (Cassida viftata), which is so abundant in the sugar-beet fields feeding 

 upon the plants ; it has caused a great loss to the growers. 



He strongly advised me to visit Valencia, the centre of the citrus industry, 

 so on the following day I called on the Minister for Agriculture, who gave 

 me letters to the Director of the Experiment Station (Escuela Practice de 

 Agricultura), at Burjasot, Valencia. 



On the 20th March I left Madrid for Valencia via Barcelona, and on the 

 following day was travelling southward. At Tarragena there is a large 

 alluvial plain running in from the coast, which is well watered by irrigation 

 from the hills behind. Here there is a great extent of mixed orchard ; but, 

 as one gets further south, the poor ground running back to the barren 

 hills is clothed with olive trees that seem to be able to grow without any 

 actual soil so long as they can get their roots into the broken limestone. 

 Lower down come vineyards, but the richer land between the sea and the 

 mountains forms, in many places, long unbroken stretches of citrus orchards, 

 until one comes quite close to Valencia, where, in the immediate vicinity, 

 there are a great number of fields of vegetables. The rich black soil is 

 ridged round with raised irrigation channels, from which the water is run 

 over the fields. In the vineyards and orchards nearer Barcelona the 

 country is covered with shallow wells, where the water is drawn up with 

 earthenware jars attached to a band and wheel. 



At the Experiment Station, some distance from the town, I found the 

 Director, Dr. Marti, who took me all over the fields and orchards. The 

 citrus crop was being gathered, and along the line and around the railway 



