6 FINE WOOL SHEEP IUSBANDRY. 
Varieties and Sub-varieties in Spain. 
The first division recognized in Spain was into 
Transhumantes or travelling flocks, and Estantes or 
stationary flocks. The first were regarded as the 
most valuable. They were mostly owned by the 
King, and some of the principal nobles and clergy, 
who, at an early period, fastened on the kingdom a 
code of regulations which sacrificed every other agri- 
cultural interest for the convenience of the proprie- 
tors of these sheep.* 
The system of Spanish sheep husbandry isa curious 
and not uninstructive leaf from the records of the 
* These will be found described in detail by Lasteyrie, Livingston, 
and other writers. The sheep were driven from the southern prov- 
inces in April or May, according to the weather, to the mountains in 
the north of Spain, a distance bout four hundred miles, and driven 
back again in the autumn, generally leaving the mountains towards 
the close of September and through the month of October. The 
Tribunal (Consejo de la Mesta) which both made and administered 
the laws which regulated their transit, was composed of the rich and 
powerful flock-masters. The following remarks are from Lasteyrie’s 
most valuable Treatise on Merino Sheep: 
“A Spanish writer, Jorvellanes, in a memoir addressed to the 
King of Spain, says ‘the corps of Junadines (proprietors of flocks) 
enjoy an enormous power, and have, by the force of sophisms and 
intrigues, not only engrossed all the pastures of the kingdom, but 
have made the cultivators abandon their most fertile lands; thus they 
have banished the stationary flocks, ruined agriculture, and depopu- 
lated the country.’ It is easily conceived that five millions of sheep 
traversing the kingdom in almost its whole extent, for whom the 
cultivators are compelled to leave a road through their vineyards 
and best cultivated lands, of not less than ninety yards wide, and 
for whom, besides, large commons must be left; I say, if is easily 
conceived that such a flock must greatly contribute to the depopula- 
tion of the country, and that the revenue that the King draws 
by the duty on wool, is snatched from the bread of his people.” 
