118 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



ration, conducted in due form, and the interval is considered a time of feasting and recre- 

 ation. One hundred and twenty-five men are usually employed for shearing a thousand 

 ewes, and two hundred for a thousand wethers. Each sheep affords four kinds of wool, 

 more or less fine according to the parts of the animal whence it is taken. The ewes pro- 

 duce the finest fleeces, and the wethers the heaviest : three wether fleeces ordinarily weigh 

 on the average twenty-five pounds ; but it will take five ewe fleeces to amount to the same 

 weight. 



721. The journey which the flocks make in their peregrination is regulated by particu- 

 lar laws, and immemorial customs. The sheep pass unmolested over the pastures be- 

 longing to the villages and the commons which lie in their road, and have a right to feed 

 on them. They are not, however, allowed to pass over cultivated lands ; but the pro- 

 prietors of such lands are obliged to leave for them a path ninety varas, or about forty 

 toises (eighty-four yards), in breadth. When they traverse the commonable pastures, they 

 seldom travel more than two leagues, or five and a half miles a day ; but when they walk 

 in close order over the cultivated fields, often more than six varas, or near seventeen miles. 

 The whole of their journey is usually an extent of one hundred and twenty, thirty or forty 

 leagues, which they perform in thirty or thirty-five days. The price paid for depasturing 

 the lands, where they winter, is equally regulated by usage, and is very low ; but it is 

 not in the power of the landed proprietors to make the smallest advance. 



722. The mesta has its jmrticular laivs, and a tribunal before which are cited all per- 

 sons who liave any suit or difference with the proprietors. The public opinion in Spain 

 has long been against the mesta, on account of the number of people it employs, the ex- 

 tent of land it keeps uncultivated, the injury done to the pasture and cultivated lands of 

 individuals, and the tyranny of the directors and shepherds. These have been grievances 

 for time immemorial. Government yielding to the pressing solicitations of the people, 

 instituted a committee to enquire into them about the middle of the eighteenth century ; 

 but it did no good, and it was not till the revolution of 1810, that the powers and pri- 

 vileges of the mesta were greatly reduced. 



723. The implements of Spanish agriculture are very simple. The common plough of 

 Castile, and most of the provinces, (Jig. 1 00. ) -iqq 

 is supposed to be as old as the time of the 

 Romans. It is thus described by Townsend : 

 " The beam is about three feet long, curved, 

 and tapered at one end, to receive an addi- 

 tional beam of about five feet, fastened to it 

 by three iron collars ; the other end of the 

 three-foot beam touches the ground, and has 

 a mortise to receive the share, the handle, 

 and a wedge." From this description it is evident that the beam itself supplies the place 

 of the sheath ; the share has no fin, and instead of a mould-board, there are two wooden 

 pins fastened near the heel of the share. As in this plough, the share, from the point to its 

 insertion in the beam, is two feet six inches long, it i strengthened by a retch. That 

 used near Malaga, is described by Jacob, as " a cross, with the end of the perpendicular 

 part shod with iron. It penetrates about six inches into the soil, and is drawn by two 

 oxen with ropes fastened to the hqrns. The plough of Valentia, on the eastern coast, we 

 have already given (flg. 12,), as coming the nearest to that described by Virgil. There 

 are many wheels and other contrivances used for raising water ; the most genera], as well 

 as the most primitive, is the noria (flg. 101.}, or bucket- wheel, introduced by the Moors, 

 and from which our __ jq, 

 chain pump is evident- 

 ly derived. A vertical 

 wheel over a well has a 

 series of earthen jeers, 

 fastened together by 

 cords of esparto, which 

 descend into the water, 

 and fill themselves by 

 the motion of the 

 wheel, they rise to the 

 surface, and then by 

 the same motion empty 

 themselves into a 

 trough, from which 

 the water is conveyed 

 by trenches into the 

 different parts of the 

 garden or field. The 



