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to Madrid, more than twenty miles. From Madrid to 

 the boundary of Portugal the country is of about the same 

 description. And not until you enter the weird and ghost- 

 ly cork forests of Portugal, interspersed with olive groves 

 and here and there a vineyard, does this state of things 

 come to an end,. 



And now I have reached the farming of Portugal, a de- 

 scription of which you have requested and which I will give 

 with some fear, as I have said, of repetition. Agriculture 

 means a great deal in Portugal. More than fifty per cent, 

 of the soil is fit for cultivation; the great mass of the peo- 

 ple are engaged in tilling the soil, the government encour- 

 ages the industry as far as possible, the King owns large 

 estates and is deeply interested in the products and en- 

 couragement of his farms. The present king, Dom Carlos 

 I., looks carefully after his property of this description, has 

 large cork-forests, and told me with considerable pride 

 that he sold 830 : 000 worth of pigs last season, fed largely 

 on the acorns produced by his cork trees. The manufac- 

 tures of Portugal are very small. It is the land which oc- 

 cupies the attention of a hard working, diligent, patient, 

 economical people, whose day of toil extends from sunrise 

 to sunset the year round. 



Portugal does not raise grain enough for her own con- 

 sumption, but she produces 830,000,000 worth of wine, and 

 but few of her productive acres lie idle. Even the sand 

 hills, in which vines are planted five feet deep in order to 

 find the moisture, are carefully cultivated. The cereal pro- 

 ductions of the kingdom amount annually to $43,087,010, 

 of which Indian corn amounts to $20,477,310, wheat, 

 $13,365,000, rye 86,941,410, and barley $1,406,160. The 

 crops vary largely in amount, ranging from 2 bushels of 

 wheat to 10 bushels to the acre, and rye in about the same 

 proportion. According to the careful official estimates 

 contained in the Report of the Director General of Agri- 

 culture, land fertilized with 85. 25 worth of manure or other 

 fertilizer will produce 27 bushels of wheat on 2 1-2 acres, 



