35^ Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



Pourriture ; though the last more properly and generally signifies the rot. I can- 

 not find that the Spanish shepherds employ any measures worthy of note for the 

 cure of these maladies, unless it be of importance to announce, that, when other 

 means fail, they have recourse to magic. 



Every thing which respects the maintenance of the flocks in Spain, as well Me- 

 rinos as the other class of sheep, which are coarse and long-woolled, and called 

 Churros and Burdos, amounting all together to about thirteen millions, is directed 

 by a code of laws called the Mesta, the chronology of which is unknown, but 

 which first received the sanction of government about the year 1450.* 



By this code are regulated the great body of flock-masters, consisting of the 

 most powerful grandees, the wealthiest private individuals, and the best endowed 

 monasteries. The effect of such an association, under such a government, may 

 easily be imagined. It has caused the establishment ol numerous agrarian laws, the 

 view of which has been to secure to the corporation of the Mesta, on their own 

 terms, the whole produce of those lands, which are conveniendy situated for the 

 support of their flocks. Of these laws I have been able to learn only a few ; but 

 those few have been sufficient to authorize the conclusion, that they are equally 

 contradictory, oppressive, and impolitic. Who, in this country, would believe that 

 a proprietor of sheep pastures in those devoted provinces of Spain, is not allowed 

 -to inclose or cultivate them; and that, at the end of a lease, he cannot re-enter 

 upon his own land, but is obliged under any circumstances of improvement, to re- 

 let it without advance, and frequently wiih a diminution of rent? But it would be 

 fruitless to expect in Spain a voluntary dereliction of a system, which, while it en- 

 riches an indolent aristocracy, supplies the government with an annual revenue of 

 from twenty-eight to thirty millions of reals, or nearly ;^36o,ooo. sterling. 



Under all these circumstances, it may be just matter of astonishment, that the 

 Spaniards should so far have relaxed from that which appeared to be tiie policy of 

 the rich and the great, as to have permitted, at various times, the expoi tation of their 

 Merino sheep to different countries in Europe. Perhaps, however, this niight have 

 arisen from the ihfluence of that prejudice, whick has so long prevailed elsewhere, 

 that the capacity of producing fine wool, even on their own breed, was exclusively 

 confined to their own climate, soil, and mode of management. Of late yv-ar.^ their 

 eyes seem to have been opened in this respect ; and Bourgoing complains that 



• Lasteyrie Traite, &c. page 131. 



