346 
On the Ayvicnlturc of Spain. 
others, has a great deal of admirable soil, and also belongs to this 
division, its northern part running into the third region. Estre- 
madura, which would form a respectable kingdom of itself were 
it cultivated, is upon the whole the finest province in Spain ; nearly 
the whole of the soil is fertile, and only the noble mountains, 
which ought to be covered with timber and grazing grounds, are 
not capable of producing the cerealia in the greatest perfection. 
The richest parts are the valley of the Tagus, the territory of 
Caceres, that of Merida, and of the Lower Guadiana. 
In Aragon, the country on both sides of the Ebro, which 
nearly divides it ; that of the Xalon, the province of Molina, and 
many basins and alluvial districts on the streams which rise in the 
dreary mountains, and form too large a portion of this kingdom. 
In Catalonia, the plain of Urgel, not the Seu, which is in the. 
Pyrenees, but a flat not far from Barcelona, lately irrigated by 
a canal of considerable extent, the country on the Llobregat and 
other rivers, where, as in Aragon, small tracts of extreme fertility 
are cultivated and often irrigated, whilst, like the adjoining pro- 
vince, great part of this is formed of dry and arid mountains. 
In Upper Andalusia we have the beautiful Vega of Granada, 
the Lomo de Ubeda, a large tract of surpassing fertility near the 
sources of the Guadalquiver, the plain of Jaen, which formed a 
kingdom in the time of the Moors; Western Andalusia, resting 
on the Serrania de Ronda, also belongs to this division, and parts 
of the course of the " great river" (so called by the Moors), espe- 
cially the territory of Cordova and Ecija : in this vast extent 
of territory there is every description of soil ; but the predominant 
parts are clays (barro) of different qualities, loam, sandy loam, 
calcareous loam, red and other marls, and small quantities (near 
Salamanca and other parts) of sand. The soils of the Castiles 
are in great part sandy loam and clays, some of them (near 
Madrid) rather unfertile. The Alcarria and Guadalaxara chiefly 
consist of red marls and sandy loam ; that of Aragon contains all 
sorts, but there is a great deal of sandy loam and red marl ; 
Estremadura has marls, sandy loam (predominates), and barro 
or clay. In Leon the prevailing soil is sandy loam. In Catalonia 
red and blue marl is the most abundant soil, but others are found 
amidst its varied and mountainous tracts. 
The third region is that of the north, and comprises Galicia, 
Asturias, the Basque provinces, and the greater part of Navarre. 
The vicinity to the Atlantic, the formation of the mountains, and 
other circumstances, produce abundance of moisture ; and as the 
first division is characterized by the want of it, so is this by its 
superabundance. This region has also its characteristic, natural 
as well as artificial, productions, and the maize or Indian corn in 
great measure replaces the wheat of the great middle division. 
