116 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



were and are cultivated in great part by their proprietors; and even the monasteriea 

 held large tracts in hand before their dissolution. What is farmed, is let out in small 

 portions of arable land, Avith large tracts of pasture or waste, and a fixed rent is gene- 

 rally paid, chiefly in kind. The lands are open every where, except immediately round 

 towns and villages. Many persons in Granada are so remote from the farmeries, that 

 during harvest the farmers and their labourers live in tents on the spot, both when they are 

 sowing the corn, and when cutting and threshing it. The hedges about Cadiz are formed 

 of the soccotrine aloe and prickly pear ; the latter producing at the same time an agree- 

 able fruit, and supporting the cochineal insect. Farm-houses and cottages are generally 

 built of stone or brick, and often of rammed earth, and are covered with tiles or thatch. 



720. A bad feature in the polici/ of the old government, considered highly injurious to 

 agriculture and the improvement of landed property, deserves to be mentioned. This 

 is, the right wliich the corporation of the mesta or merino proprietors possess, to drive 

 their sheep over all the estates which lie in their route, from their summer pasture in the 

 north, to their Vinter pasture in the south, of the kingdom. This practice, wliich we 

 shall afterwards describe at length, must of course prevent or retard enclosing and 

 aration. 'ITie emfiteutic contract is another bad feature. It prevails in Catalonia, and 

 is found in various other parts of the kingdom. By the- emfiteutic contract the great 

 proprietor, inheriting more land than he can cultivate to profit, has power to grant any 

 given quantity for a term of years ; either absolute or conditional ; either for lives or in 

 perpetuity ; always reserving a quit rent, like our copyhold, with a relief on every suc- 

 cession, a fine on the alienation of the land, and other seignorial rights dependent on the 

 custom of the district ; such as tithes, mills, public-houses, the obligation to plough his 

 land, to furnish him with teams, and to pay hearth-money, with other contributions, by 

 way of commutation for ancient stipulated services. One species of grant for unculti- 

 vated land, to be planted with vines, admitted formerly of much dispute. The tenant,^ 

 holding his land as long as the first planted vines should continue to bear fruit, in 

 order to prolong this term, was accustomed to train layers from the original stocks, 

 and, by metaphysical distinctions between identity and diversity, to plead that the first 

 planted vines were not exhausted, claiming thus the inheritance in perpetuity. After 

 various litigations and inconsistent decisions of the judges, it was finally determined, that 

 this species of grant should convey a right to the possession for fifty years, unless the 

 plantation itself should previously fail. 



721. 2%e agricultural products of Spain include all those of the rest of Europe, and 

 most of those of the West Indies ; besides all the grains, for the production of which 

 some provinces are more celebrated than others, and most of them are known to produce 

 the best wheat in Europe. Boswell of Balmuto, a Scottish landholder, when at Xeres 

 de la Fronteira, in the winter of 1809, was shown, on the estate of Mr. Gordon, a very 

 beautiful crop of turnips, with drills drawn in the most masterly style. The drills were by 

 a ploughman of East Lothian, and therefore their accuracy was not to be wondered at ; but 

 the turnips showed what the soil and climate were capable of producing under judicious 

 management. Other products are flax, hemp, esparto, palmetto (ChamaeVopshumilis), 

 madder, saffron, aloe, cork tree ( Qu^rcus iSuber) ; the kermes grana, a species of coccus, 

 whose body in the grub state yields a beautiful scarlet colour, and which forms its nidus 

 on the shrub Qu^rcus coccifera ; soda from the Salic6mia and other plants of the salt 

 marshes ; honey from the forests ; dates (Phoe^x dactylifera), coffee, almonds, filberts, 

 figs, olives, grapes, peaches, prickly pears, carob 

 beans (the locust trees of scripture, Ceratonia 

 siliqua), oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and 

 other fruits. 



722. The esparto rush [Stlpa tenacissima L.) 

 grows wild on the plains, and is made into a 

 variety of articles for common use. It is em- 

 ployed for making ropes and cables, and is 

 particularly calculated for the latter purpose, 

 as it swims on the water, and the cables formed 

 of it are, consequently, not so liable to rub 

 against the rocks as those which are made of 

 hemp. It is also woven into floorcloths and 

 carpets, and made into baskets or panniers, for 

 carrying produce to market, or manure to the \ 

 fields. In Pliny's time this plant was used by 

 the poor for beds, by the shepherds for gar-, 

 ments, and by the fishermen for nets ; but it is 

 now superseded for these and various other ends 

 by the hemp and flax. 



723. The pita, or aloe (^'loe soccotorina, Jig. 94.), is an important plant in the hus- 



