Notes and Gleanings. 355 



element. With a supply of water, it seemed to me that every thing could be 

 grown in Spain that is to be found in temperate regions, and very many of the 

 products of the tropics. Under the Moors, the Vega, as the plain that surrounds 

 Grenada was called, bounded and encircled by high hills, having on its eastern 

 side the chain of the Sierra Nevada, covered with perpetual snow to temper its 

 great heat, and furnish a never-failing supply of water to the Daru and Genii 

 that flow through it, and provide the means of irrigation, highly cultivated and 

 covered with luxuriant vegetation, is represented to have been a terrestrial para- 

 dise ; and its actual appearance in the hands of its present possessors, who are 

 not wholly neglectful of the practices of its Moorish owners, show that the en- 

 comiums bestowed on its charms and beauty were fully justified, and were not 

 merely the language of Eastern hyperbole. Spain may be said to be in an emi- 

 nent degree an agricultural country, and to possess great agricultural capabilities ; 

 but it requires those capabilities to be developed much more perfectly than at 

 present to take its proper place as a food-producing one. The instruments 

 used in farming are of the rudest and most inferior description. The plough in 

 common use is merely a hooked limb of a tree, shod with iron, that can but 

 scratch the surface ; and attempts to introduce improved tools have thus far 

 failed. Nations, like individuals, are apt to become so wedded to old habits as 

 to strenuously resist any change, even when proved to be for the better. In farm- 

 ing, I suppose that some system of rotation is pursued ; although what it may 

 be, I cannot say. From the fact that portions of the land bare of crops, recently 

 ploughed, or undergoing that operation, were constantly met with, it seemed to 

 me that possibly a year of naked, fallow was a part of the rotation. The crops 

 mostly cultivated are those generally grown in temperate climates, — corn, or 

 cereals of different kinds, and the common culinary vegetables. Vegetables 

 or roots, I think, are grown only for the table, and not as food for cattle ; at 

 least, I have never noticed them cultivated to any great extent, unless it might be 

 what I supposed a small, low-growing pea, fields of which I frequently observed. 

 The quality of the wheat raised appears to be very good, if bread made from it is 

 a proof Bad bread is an exception in Spain, and not the rule : the bread is uni- 

 versally good. The old mode of treading out the corn is usually practised. I 

 doubt whether there is a threshing or indeed any agricultural machine in use in 

 Spain ; at all events, 1 never saw any. Reaping is all done by the hand, with 

 the sickle. Little or no grass is cut for hay ; and animals are fed on chopped 

 straw. In the south of Spain some sugar-cane is raised, and at Malaga there 

 is a manufactory for the making of sugar : there, too, the date-palm is somewhat 

 cultivated (especially near Alicante, where there is a large grove of them), and also 

 the prickly pear, both for the sake of their fruit. The hillsides unsuitedto other 

 culture are sometimes covered with this last-named plant, growing six or eight 

 feet high, and spreading out into a large bush. But, next to corn, the cultivation 

 of grapes must be much the most important. Grapes are grown in almost all 

 parts of Spain, and in almost all soils and situations, — on the hillsides and on 

 the level plains, generally in soil that seemed a reddish-colored loam ; but, on 

 one occasion, 1 noticed them growing in what appeared to be pure sand. The 

 vines appeared to be vigorous and healthy. The mode of training pursued is 



