236 



WILD SPAIN. 



exports wool to the London market — upwards of a million 

 and a half pounds' weight of Spanish wool annually 

 reaching the Thames. 



Supplement. 



Since writing the above, we have come across an 

 interesting article on this subject in one of the best 

 Spanish papers (the Epoca), from which we translate the 

 following extracts, giving the native version of the present 

 agricultural status : — " We must confess that the condition 

 of Spanish agriculture is sufficiently deplorable, not only 

 by reason of the apathy of its agriculturists, but also 

 through the difficulties which the land presents to its per- 

 fect cultivation, to the use of manures, and the employ- 

 ment of modern machinery. It must be borne in mind 

 that the land of the abrupt mountains of the Asturias, 

 Galicia, and Cataluna condemns the country-people to the 

 roughest and most laborious preparation. This is shared, 

 though to a less extent, by the labradores of the arid 

 regions of Guipuzcoa, Biscay and Navarre ; of the rice- 

 fields of Valencia, and on the sunburnt regas of 

 Andalucia and Estremadura. Besides these physical 

 difficulties there are other disadvantages of hardly less 

 importance. A vast extent of terrain now lies waste and 

 uncultivated through lack of capital and sparseness of 

 population; through the heavy tribute exacted by the 

 state on agricultural produce, and the absence of means of 

 communication to economize the transport of the harvest. 



" Notwithstanding these immense difficulties, the Spanish 

 agriculturist produces on fifty-six million hectares of 

 cultivable land an excess over the consumption of sixty- 

 one million hectolitres* in cereals alone. 



" The superficies rustica of Spain may be classed in the 

 following form : — 



* A hectare is, roughly, about an acre and a half. A hectolitre is 

 equivalent to two and three-quarter bushels. 



