350 
On the Agriculture of Spain. 
are further advanced than those of the richer regions of the south 
and centre. 
Besides the important difference in climate as before mentioned, 
there are others of not less consequence — some resulting from it, 
and others unconnected with it. The quantity of herbage and the 
facility of making hay is one great difference; the hills are as 
green as those of these islands, and the country is divided into 
small allotments, the people residing much upon their properties ; 
whereas in the central and greater part of Spain they live almost 
wholly in villages and towns, whence they sally out to work in 
the neighbouring fields. Whilst in some of the finer parts of 
Spain the country is desolate from the immense extent of the 
properties, and the supine neglect and ignorance of the proprie- 
tors, who live in idleness — not in luxury, but in poverty, in the 
capital, some parts of the division we are speaking of are suf- 
fering to a great extent by the too minute subdivision of land, re- 
sembling — excepting that they are proprietors — the state of parts 
of Ireland. Whilst the abrogation of tithes and the substitution 
of a direct tax for the payment of the clergy have in the great 
cerealian region been a very great benefit to the holders and 
occupiers of land, in the moist or verdant country it is the re- 
verse : and the difficulty of realising money for the payment of 
the priests is so much greater than that of the mode of payment 
in kind, which worked lightly, that they complain heavily of the 
change. 
In every part of the country regions the instruments of agricul- 
ture are of the rudest description. They rarely plough deep 
enough, and in most provinces do little more than scratch or 
harrow the surface. The soil and climate compensate for this 
in ordinary years ; but droughts are fatal, from the roots being too 
near the surface. The best implements are those used in manual 
labour ; and they well know the use of them. In the Basque 
Provinces, where the population is nearly the most dense to the 
acre in Europe, they use a peculiar grape or fork, with prongs 
and short handle, all of iron. Each person has two of these ; and 
they strike them into the ground — standing in line four or five 
together, then raising the slice together, it falls just like that from 
a strong plough. This, as they perform it, is very laborious 
work. In general the mattock is much used, and in no part of 
the world do men work harder than in nearly every part of Spain 
when their energy is called forth. 
The situation of the agricultural classes requires to be noticed. 
There are four great divisions of landed property — that of the 
church, regular and secular, of which more than one-half has been 
sold, and the remainder is on the point of following. I believe the 
whole of this amounts in value to not less than 30,000,000 ster- 
