348 
On the Agriculture of Spain. 
population being exclusively concerned in agriculture, of which 
description the greater part of the small towns and villages in the 
interior are. 
In Estremadura the rich barros or clays of the lower Guadiana 
are, I believe, for I have not examined them, silt or warp. 
These lands are of such surpassing fertility that, with a little 
manure, they bear successive crops of the finest wheat, yielding 
twenty-five to thirty and even fifty fold return for thirty or forty 
years in succession, nor with care does it appear necessary ever 
to change the crops — although it is done in a small degree. In 
a vast many districts, especially where the want of population and 
of the means of transport (though this last want is now daily di- 
minishing by the making of roads) cause a comparatively small 
demand for wheat, the wretched plan is followed of taking one crop 
and letting the land lie fallow for the next two years. In others, 
where the demand and supply are greater, they substitute beans or 
garbanzos ; and in some with barley, and beans or vetches, the 
land is kept in constant cultivation. In all parts of Spain, the 
waste and desert appearance is partly caused by the vast extent of 
the common lands belongmg to the towns and villages, the system 
of management of which is ruinous in the extreme, and the finest 
districts, capable of enriching the proprietors and the country at 
large, are abandoned to, and only serve as pasture for goats, 
sheep, or a few asses. 
The garbanzo (Cicer arietinum), a coarse pulse, nutritive, but 
heavy and difficult of digestion, forms an ample part of the product 
of this region. It is deep-rooted, and in some parts they reckon 
it an exhausting crop, but in others not at all so. I was assured, 
that in some places it brings salt])etre to the surface, and in so 
great quantity as to be prejudicial. Can this be ? If so, it cannot 
be the natural excretions of the plant, but must surely be ex- 
tracted from the subsoil, and given out again, as it were, mecha- 
nically, merely passing through the plant. 
In almost every part of this region that I have noticed, the crops 
of rye are very scanty, nor can I assign a reason, unless it be the 
practice of sowing in spring which is generally followed. They 
do not consider that it exhausts the soil. It is used almost en- 
tirely for the food of bullocks in this division. They admitted 
when I urged the point, that the comparative small value of the 
straw and of the grain would enable other grain to be advan- 
tageously substituted for this, which I was very much surprised to 
find so much cultivated in this noble region. 
Most parts of this cerealian region produce oil and wine in the 
greatest perfection, but both are badly managed, and the lat,ter is 
not only little attended to, but the worst mode of preparation 
followed. Very little is consumed by the people themselves, few of 
