Book I. 



AGRICULTURE IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 



119 



They are erected in various places ; but the principal are in the environs of Sdgovia, and 

 the most celebrated is that of Iturviaca. The shearing is preceded by a pompous prepa - 

 ration, conducted in due foi-m, 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 fl eces to amount to the same 

 weight. 



742. The journey which tlie 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 nearly 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. 



743. The mesta has its particular taws, and a tribunal before which are cited all per- 

 sons who have 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 

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

 instituted a committee to enquire into them about the middle of tiie 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. 



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

 Castile and most of the provinces {flg- 97.) 

 is supposed to be as old as the time of the 

 Romans. It it 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 is 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 fasten^- 

 ed to the horns. The 

 plough of Valencia, on 

 the eastern coast, we 

 have already given (fl^- 

 12.) as coming the 

 nearest to that described 

 by Virgil. There are 

 many wheels and other 

 contrivances used for 

 raising water ; the most 

 general, as well as the 

 most primitive, is the 

 noria (fig. 98.), or 

 bucket wheel, intro- 

 duced by the Moors, 

 from which our chain 

 j pump is evidently de- 

 ' rived. A vertical wheel 

 over a well has a series of earthen jars, fastened together by cords of esparto, 

 which descend into the water and fill themselves; by the motion of the wheel they 



I 4 



