382 COFFEE. 



the practice may be said to be universal. Tobacco is a govern- 

 ment monopoly, and (including cigars and cigarettes) is manufac- 

 tured at immense government factories, the one at Seville alone 

 employing about four thousand persons, principally women ; ping 

 tobaccos are, however, purchased by the government from our 

 Eichmond manufacturers. 



EAISIN CULTUEE AND PEEPABATION FOB MAEKET. 



" Valencia " raisins are grown within a small territory near 

 Cape San Antonio, on the eastern coast of Spain, and of which 

 Denia is the shipping point. They take their name, however, 

 from Valencia, a somewhat larger place, about thirty or forty 

 miles to the North. The grapes are the same variety of muscatel 

 as that from which the " Malaga " raisins are produced, and when 

 ripe, are white or semi-transparent ; they grow in large bunches, 

 similar to the " Almeria " grapes, which are exported green to 

 America, but possess less water tlian the Almeria, and more sac- 

 charine matter ; and they also have more of the muscatel flavor. 

 The Valencia district, being so much farther north, they cannot 

 rely upon the necessary length and intensity of sunshine to cure 

 the grapes in Malaga style, and therefore a different mode is 

 adopted. 



When first picked they are put into a wire basket and dipped 

 in a solution of boiling lye (in Spanish, lejia), for the purpose of 

 slightly cracking or shrivelling the skin, which allows the moisture 

 in the grape to dry out faster, but this also permits the saccharine 

 matter to exude slightly, which accounts for the fact that Valen- 

 cia are somewhat more sticky than the Malaga raisins. They 

 are then spread upon mats made of reeds, called ccmistos, and 

 these are placed on a piece of level ground known as the seoadero, 

 or drying-place, where they are spread out during the daytime, 

 and at night put together in piles of ten mats and covered to shield 

 them from rain or dew. In this way the raisins are dried in from 

 five to seven days, when they are put in baskets, conveyed to Denia 

 and sold to the shipping merchants there. These baskets are 

 made of grass, and the tare will average about four and a half per 

 cent, of the total weight of the package, but a curious custom of 



