Variation in the Price and Supply of Wheat. 243 
This plant or weed has long been in use in this country for making comnaon 
ropes, malting, and baskets. Indeed, every farm-house manufactures all that 
it requires ; and the poorer people prepare it into slender cords, which they 
furnish to the ropemakers to be converted into cables. Besides this, the town 
of Crevillentc, five leagues distant, has acquired celebrity for its matting and 
imitiition carpets, which are sent to all parts of Spain. There exist at present, 
in that village, 40 manufactories, which consume upwards of 10,000 tons of 
esparto, and employ about 4000 hands, including men, women, and children. 
The number of pieces of matting, from 40 to 50 yards in length, wliich they 
prepare, amounts annually to 175,000 ; and the rate of wages ranges about 10 
rials a day for the weavers, 5 for those engaged in sewing, and from 2 to Se- 
rials for women and children.* 
The grain crops in the greater part of the province of Alicante will this year 
be almost a total failure, in consequence of the want of rain ; and much misery 
is already observable in the poorer classes, many of whom are emigrating to 
the interior and Algeria. 
NOKTHEKN and NORTH-WESTERN COAST, BILBAO, 1861.— Crops 
of wheat were unusually large in the north of Spain ; prices, nevertheless, 
continued high, owing to the demand in the south. It is a curious fact, 
founded on long observation on the part of those engaged in the corn trade, 
that the crops are never good both in the north and the south of Spain 
in the same year. The southern harvest, which was bad in 1861, enabled 
the northern farmers to keep up the price. 
Some flour was exported to Great Britain and Cuba. 
Transit from the interior is difficult. The wealth and simple habits of the 
Castilian farmers are obstacles to increased agricultural production. Their 
wheat is of good quality (61 lbs. to 62 lbs. a bushel), and bears storing well. 
Importation of foreign grain is prohibited, and consequently the growers rule the 
price, which is as high as in England, and sometimes reaches famine quotations. 
1868. — Crops last year moderate. Drought this year unprecedented. The 
failure of the harvest in the great corn districts of Castile and Arragon is a 
most serious matter. Under the present miserable system of cultivation in 
Spain, barely sufBcient corn is grown for the wants of the population. After 
supplying the Spanish colonies, and the effect of a deficient harvest, a rise 
in prices is quite uncontrollable under the existing tariff. 
Temporarily removing the duty on foreign corn is ineffectual, partly through 
delay, and because prohibition has already fettered trade and discouraged 
mercantile enterprise. Bread has already risen to 11c?. the 41b. loaf, and there 
is great anxiety for the future. The position of Bilbao and the advantages 
enjoyed by the Basque provinces combine to direct a large proportion of the 
foreign commerce of Spain to this port. 
Report by Me. Consul Young for 1863. — The crops in the northern 
district of Spain were good both in quantity and quality ; prices continued 
high without any material change. Considerable exports of first-quality flour 
were made to the Havana ; neither grain nor flour was exported to foreign ports. 
A large influx of strangers has followed improved means of communication; 
this, combined with the demand for luxuries and a style of living formerly 
unknown to the simple inhabitants, has of course brought with it a great 
advance in the prices of everything. Provisions have advanced 50, and house- 
rent 100 per cent., within a very few years, and Bilbao has quite lost the 
character it formerly obtained of being a cheap place of residence. 
1865. — In grain and flour shipments considerable activity prevailed, large 
shipments of flour having been made to Cuba and Great Britain, and of wheat 
to England. If to increased communication the farmers in the corn-growing 
districts would join certain improvements in their mode of cultivation, and, with 
* A rial is 2jd. 
