Uelmar.] ^■'-'^ [Jan. 15, 



their annual efiforts to increase were kept down by a similar treatment of 

 tbeir undergrowth and copses. Hence, barrens, afflicted with alternate 

 droughts and floods. The system of agricultural irrigation was mainly 

 a legacy from the exiled Moors, since whose time it had been but little 

 enlarged. The means used for raising the water are the familiar saJcye 

 and sliadouf of the Orient, the sakye being known under the name of 

 noria. (L. T., 57.) The water obtained by these laborious means is 

 known as agua de arte ; that by diverting the course of streams as agua 

 viva, or running water. (C, R., 1868, p. 373.) 



As going still further to show the indebtedness of even Modern Spain 

 to Moorish industry, it has been stated that the best olive trees in Spain 

 to-day are those left by the Moors ; while even the stone fences and other 

 enclosures left by them are still performing the service for which they 

 were constructed a thousand years ago. 



Rotation was, until recently, very little followed in Spain, and even the 

 fallow system, though in general use, was in many parts ignored and the 

 ruinous one of exploitation, by a constant succession of the same sort of 

 crops, employed in its place. (C. R., 1871, p. 1037.) Even two and some- 

 times tlu'ee different crops were obtained from the same piece of ground 

 in one year ; though as Young and other writers have shown, with no 

 aggregate increase of product, but on the contrary, diminution. Corn, 

 root, or pulse crops were frequently sown in olive groves and vineyards to 

 the mutual detriment of both tree or vine and crop. In the Provinces of 

 Malaga, Granada, Almeria and Jaen, mention is made of a three-field 

 system of, 1. Wheat, barley or beans ; 2. Fallow ; 3. Pasture on the un- 

 irrigated lands ; and also of the continuance, so late as November, 1869, 

 of village commons (dehesas de proprios) for cattle, — both of them wretched 

 and antiquated features of agriculture. But since 1855 all these features 

 have been undergoing change, and the dehesas de proprios were probably 

 in a moribund state in 1869. 



The quantity of seed used is uncertain. It is stated by M'Culloch that the 

 fanega (about 1| bushels) is the measure of seed-corn commonly sown upon 

 a fanegada (about 1^ acres) of land, and hence, ihe similarity of terms. 

 This is probably a true explanation with regard to the terms, which must, 

 however, have arisen from the results of favorable sowings ; for the prac- 

 tical fact is still that not less than two bushels are generally sown to the 

 acre of wheat, the staple corn of Spain. 



In the use of fertilizers the same recent improvement is to be observed 

 as in other respects. Previous to 1855, beyond the fertilizers mentioned 

 by Arthur Young nearly three-fourths of a century before, there does not 

 appear to have been any improvement. These consisted of wood-ashes 

 obtained from the burning, not of forests, for they had been burned long 

 before, but of copses and undergrowth. Near some of the large cities 

 poudrette seems to have been prepared, but the use of this fertilizer was 

 not common. 



Since the ameliorations, which date about the year 1855, Peruvian 



