1875.] "^J-T [Delmar. 



said to have originated in the fourteenth century during a famine. This 

 right enabled the privileged owners of large flocks of sheep to drive them 

 over village pastures and commons thei-e to feed at pleasure, and to com- 

 pel the owners of cultivated lands, which lay in the line of their migra- 

 tions, to leave wide paths for the pasturage of the flocks. Nor could any 

 new enclosures be made in the line of their march, or land that had once 

 been in pasture be cultivated again until it had been offered to the Mesta, 

 or corporation of flock-proprietors, at a certain rate ! It is easy to per- 

 ceive that with the continuance of such monstrous privileges as these it 

 would only be a question of time when all the cultivated lands would be 

 turned into pastui'es, and all the pastures fall into the possession of the 

 Mesta. It was a great reproach to Spain that this feudal privilege existed 

 so long as it did, but its recent abolition is equally an undoubted sign of 

 progress. 



Number and Size of Farms. 



The number of farms in Spain in the year 1800 was but 677,520 in the 

 hands of 273,760 proprietors and 403,760 tenant farmers. (Martin.) 

 The number of landed properties, rural and urban, in 1857, was 2,433,301 

 (L. T., 46), and the number in 1870 was 3,612,000. {Ibid, 19.) The pro- 

 portion of rural properties in late years is not stated by these authori- 

 ties, nor ai'e the tenures by which they are held set forth. The number 

 of tenant farmers had increased from 403,760 in 1800 to 595,635 in 1857, 

 and probably upwards of 600,000 in 1870 ; but meanwhile and particu- 

 larly since 1855 the number of properties had increased, both by the 

 subdivision of land and the industrial absorption of mortmain and Gov- 

 ernment lands and village commons. The bulk of the peasant farms will 

 average between ten and fifteen acres. There are many vineyards of not 

 over one-eighth of an acre, and on the other hand, many large properties, 

 cultivated and uncultivated. The opinion appears to prevail among late 

 observers that from one-fourth to one-third of the cultivated land is held 

 by peasant proprietors (L. T., 50 and ?), and that the rest is cultivated by 

 agricultural laborers, of whom there were 2,354,110 in 1857, in the employ 

 of large owners, or farmed out to tenants for a money rent, or a la meta. 



System op Culture — Seeding. and Fertilizers. 



Compared with other countries west of Russia and the Orient, the sys- 

 tem of culture in Spain is still very backward. There are a few garden 

 spots in Spain — the huertas of Granada, Murcia, and Valencia — but such 

 exceptional instances of careful culture are to be found in the worst cul- 

 tivated countries, even miserable Egypt possessing a Faioum. The gen- 

 eral aspect of Spanish agriculture, until very lately, was much the same 

 as it was a century ago when Arthur Young visited Spain. The great 

 and numerous barrens he described are being brought under cultivation, 

 and in that respect Spain is much improved ; but the mode of cultivation 

 is only now undergoing change. The forests were, centuries ago, burned 

 for the few fertilizing materials to be obtained from their ashes, while 

 A. p. S. — VOL. XIV. 2 o 



