Delraar.] oJiO [jan. 15, 



emigration, whicTi has been gradually increasing during the past fifteen 

 years, occurs to South America, chiefly to Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. 

 The local government has not been able to restrain this drain of popula- 

 tion. (Ibid, 40.) From Andalusia emigration is rare, chiefly from Almeria 

 and only in years of great drought. (Ibid, 45.) From Alicante, in years 

 of drought the emigration to Africa is considerable. Many return v^^hen 

 the weather (and, I suppose, their fortunes) improve. In good years they 

 do not emigrate. (Ibid, 51.) The Valencians rarely emigrate. From the 

 tovi^ns on the coast they frequently go over to Algiers and Oran for the 

 harvest, and afterwards return home. {Ibid, 53.) The army and navy 

 in the West Indies, and especially Cuba, constitute a regular drain upon 

 the population by robbing it of its most energetic elements. 



The American Consul at Corunna, under date of September 30th, 1870, 

 says that 140,000 emigrants have left that district (in Galicia), for South 

 America and Cuba within a few years, and that 4,000 to 5, 000 more bound 

 to the same ports sail yearly from Corunna. "The agents at this port are 

 always willing to offer them passage, to be paid in small installments. 

 Repeated applications have been addressed to this Consulate regarding 

 the emigration to the United States. The applicants are generally all 

 handsome and remarkably healthy young men, used from their infancy to 

 farming and field labor, as well as to mechanical pursuits and are withal 

 of an excellent moral conduct and pleasant disposition, but as they are 

 too poor to pay for their passage, I could offer no inducements to them." 

 The same Consul writes in 1873, that he had induced a Liverpool shipping 

 house to send some steamers to Corunna for the United States, and that 

 they had arrived and taken out to New Orleans a large batch of respecta- 

 ble young field laborers. 



Prices and Rknts of Land. 



It is almost impossible to make anything out of the fragmentary and 

 loose evidence on this point contained in Arthur Young and Land Ten- 

 ures, the best authorities for the latter half of the last and present centu- 

 ries, respectively. Roughly speaking, arable land seems to be worth at 

 the present time fi'om $70 to $125 an acre, and in the Jiuertas of Valencia 

 as high as $500 to $1,000 an acre, the latter price being quite common. 

 Rents range from 3 to 3^ per cent, on the value of the property (L. T., 

 41), and are stated to be on all the lands in Spain, including, I suppose, 

 the barrens, from $3 to $4 an acre (L. T., 18), and on the irrigated Jiuer- 

 tas of Valencia, $20 to $35 (Ibid,) the common rate being about $30 an 

 acre. (L. T., p. 54.) 



These prices and rents do not appear to differ materially from those 

 quoted by Arthur Young, nearly a century before. (See Young, ii, p. 

 326 and elsewhere.) 



I take it that, at the rents quoted above, the tenants pay the taxes; yet 

 as the following passage occurs in Land Tenures, p. 56, relating to 

 Valencia, this point does not seem certain : 



