184 
REPORT ON THE CATTLE OF SPAIN. 
this, by this system, the cows are not prolific, and they breed 
irregularly, d'he increase therefore is small (in comparison 
with that obtained bv other systems), and it is calculated that 
only one-third part of the cows in a herd calve during the 
year. Tims the total number of heads of cattle produced 
under this open-air system is far from what could be expected. 
These cows are not employed in any other way, and never 
work, nor are they milked for yield of milk or butter, &c. ; 
but it is also to be acknowledged that, unless in the height 
of summer and very depth of winter, these herds seem to 
suffer little from occasional disease or ordinary sickness. The 
system gives them a sort of hardihood and power of resisting 
privations—I may almost call it abstemiousness or Spanish 
sobriedad, which frequently stands them in good stead. It is 
a necessary consequence of the want or the sparseness of 
population in Spain, a fact too little considered by all 
Spaniards. 
To a certain extent this open-air system is followed in the 
Castiles, La Mancha, Aragon, Navarre, &c., whilst in the 
Asturias, Gallicia, and part of Catalonia, where land and 
landed pro[)erty is much divided and subdivided, and where 
the climate is sometimes very cold, this system would not do 
at all, and is not practised. Were it modified and improved 
in the south of Spain it might retain some of its crude and 
natural advantages; but, alas, we Andalusians are devoted to 
our primitive and accustomed routine, and thus we are 
punished, and cannot boast of half the fine herds of cattle 
and of pastoral wealth, which we might do if we were 
wdser. 
Ever since our regime and form of Government was 
changed in 1833, when the large sales of the national and 
clerical properties placed a great many of the then pasture- 
grounds and uncultivated lands (which till then had been 
unalienable estates) into the hands of private individuals, and 
when impulse was given to private interests, and from the 
price of corn and grain, these lands began to be cultivated, 
the herds of cattle have not increased as they ought to have 
done, and as 1 hope they will do, as we improve our 
knowledge and our treatment of the different breeds of 
horned cattle. 
We now come to the second system of rearing and treating 
cattle throughout Spain, viz., part of the year housed, and 
part in open pastures. 
During winter, and indeed from the first days of autumn, 
the cattle intended for exportation or for work, are always 
housed at night in sheds or semi-open stalls. In Gallicia 
