VINE YAH DS. 



plantation, but not a full crop till its fifth year, and it 

 would reach its greatest perfection in its tenth year. He 

 said a plant ought to be the limb of a tree of the thick- 

 ness of a man's arm. Being asked how long it would 

 take before a slip, such as we plant in New South Wales, 

 would bear a crop, he appeared to consider the proposal 

 as ridiculous, and said he thought twenty years. He did 

 not consider the oil of young olives inferior to that of the 

 old : the only difference in their value arises from the 

 quantity. The olive is not now cultivated in this district 

 to the same extent as formerly, the superior attention 

 bestowed upon it in the neighbourhood of Seville having 

 made the slovenly cultivation pursued here unprofitable. 

 The trees are planted with considerable regularity, at the 

 distance of 36 or 40 feet. An average crop, Don Jacobo 

 says, " is from If to 1^ arrobas,'''' that is, from 5 to 6 

 English gallons, each tree. 



In passing through this vineyard I observed a very 

 considerable variety of grapes, differing not only in ap- 

 pearance but taste; but many of those which were evi- 

 dently distinct were said by the vinador to be the same. 

 He would not admit that there were more than four or 

 five kinds. I should have judged the number to be not 

 fewer than twenty ; and Mr. Cormack, a member of Mr. 

 Wilson's house, afterwards informed me that there was 

 at least that number of varieties in all the vineyards 

 round Xeres, and he thought this was one cause of the 

 excellence of the wine. On our way back to town I 

 examined one of the norias which supplies Xeres with 

 water. The well was about 40 feet in depth, and 7 in 

 diameter. The machinery by which the water is raised 

 is of the rudest construction. An horizontal wheel with 

 large teeth turns a vertical one of about five feet in 



