X 



PREFACE. 



writer is happy to say that there is little knowledge 

 to be communicated, beyond that of its extreme 

 simplicity and its great importance. The product 

 to which he alludes is raisins. The writer will not 

 anticipate the contents of his journal, farther than 

 to observe, that at Malaga, the chief seat of this 

 branch of industry, the variety of vine which pro- 

 duces the finest Muscatel raisins will only grow 

 in a very limited district. Beyond this district 

 they are obliged to cultivate grapes of a very 

 inferior kind, which it is necessary to preserve by 

 dipping in a lye, and which are thence called 

 Lexia raisins. The Muscatel raisins are dried 

 in the sun, without undergoing any other process ; 

 and though they, in fact, cost less trouble than 

 the inferior sorts, the average value of the produce 

 of an English acre is about 257. An idea of the 

 profit of this crop, to the Spanish farmer, may be 

 formed from the fact, that the ordinary value of 

 an acre of Lexia raisins does not exceed 5L 



Great, however, as the profits of this culti- 

 vation must be to the Spanish farmer, they would 

 be more than doubled to the Settler of New 

 South Wales. ' For, while the duty on the ad- 

 mission of Spanish raisins, of the first quality, 

 into England, is 2/. l^s. 6'o?., and on the inferior 



