Interspersed amidst the monotony of corn-land and vineyard is seen the peculiar foliage of the olive. Its regular rows of sober green cover many of the higher lands and hillsides, and its produce, next to corn and wine, occupies the third place of importance. Outside the ancient huertas, where since Moorish days the orange, lemon, and citron have been carefully tended and watered, the olive is the only cultivated tree; and well does it repay the minimum of care which it requires. The olive enters largely into the economy of every-day existence, forming an important element both in the food and light of the Spanish people. Olive-oil is the universal illuminant—in a little saucer with rudely-fixed cotton wick (the mariposa), it lights the herdsman's choza, the cottage, and cortijo: this oil is also a leading article of consumption with all classes. To the poor it is an absolute necessary, taking the place occupied by meat among northern nations, giving flavour and zest to the hard bread and to the tough dry stock-fish imported from Newfoundland or Norwegian fjord—besides being an essential ingredient in the universal gazpacho. The fruit itself, in various forms, gives a national flavour to nearly every dish. Every one eats olives, from the wayfarer on the dusty highroad, whose hunch of dry bread is sweetened by a handful of the piquant fruit, to the Madrilenian epicure who at Lhardy's restaurant demands the "Reinas" from Seville. These olives are of large size,—almost like walnuts—and are only rivalled in flavour by the "manzanillas," a smaller variety more resembling the French olive, but, to our thinking, of superior taste.

These two kinds are carefully gathered in late autumn, and are in universal demand throughout the Peninsula. Beyond its boundaries they are little known or appreciated, though some few have already found consumers in the north of Europe.

"WAITING FOR DEATH."
"WAITING FOR DEATH."

Although the olive-trees are of the hardiest nature—otherwise they could not survive, without irrigation, the intense heats of summer—yet the crop is a precarious one. After the fruit has been gathered in December, or rather beaten off the trees, for that is the method adopted, the olives destined for the oil-mill are subjected to severe pressure by rudely-constructed wooden screws, often supplemented by stone-weights—again the simplest appliances of modern machinery are often neglected—and the oil extracted is drawn off and separated into different qualities. None, however, is of that grade—or rather its manufacture and elaboration are too rough and careless, to enable the Spanish produce to compete with the refined neutral oils of Italy and France. With a little more care in its manufacture, and more energy in its introduction to foreign markets, the rich oils of Spain might doubtless be made a source of much additional national wealth.

Its substantial qualities, and in particular its power of long sustaining light, are appreciated in Russia, where it is superseding the oils of other countries for its reliable illumination of the icons, or sacred lamps. The religious tenets of the Muscovites require that these small lamps, suspended before their images, should burn brightly, without trimming, through the longest winter nights of eighteen or twenty hours. The little glass tumblers of the icons are filled to the brim with Spanish oil: a perforated metal bar placed across, holds the lightly-twisted cotton wick, and once lighted the little lamp burns brightly, without smoke or attention, through the longest nights of the northern winter.

At present the preparation and export of Spanish oil is almost monopolized by the port of Malaga.

Horse-Breeding and Live Stock.

Andalucia is the breeding-ground of the best horses of the Peninsula: many of the landowners are possessed of well-known "brands," as they are called, and the farmers are almost universally interested in horses to some extent. Great strides have been made of recent years in the improvement of the breeds through the importation of thorough-bred English sires, &c. This is, indeed, the one branch of rural industry in which a decided advance has been made. Since the introduction of racing into the country by Englishmen, about 1867—Jerez de la Frontera being the cradle of this, as of most other sports—the superiority of the present breed has been thoroughly established. Horses of a larger and better stamp than formerly are now seen bearing the branded device of the various provincial herds, it being still the custom to brand each foal with the particular sign of the stud to which it belongs.

For temper and enduring powers the old Spanish hack could never be improved upon; but in shape and make the race had sadly degenerated since the Spanish Gennet was the favourite and fashionable steed of the wealthy both in France and England. The heavy Flemish stallions introduced by Carlos Quinto—of which Velasquez' pictures give us the type—account for this falling-off from the earlier form of that high-bred Arab race which long ago supplied the wants of a nation of horsemen—the Caballeros, whose interests in life were coloured and directed by a devotion to knight-errantry unparalleled in other lands, and which still leaves its impress on the thought and habit of the Hidalgos of to-day.

Now, however, the Andalucian horse bids fair to regain his ancient prestige; some of the more ambitious haras boast their strings of pedigree-stock, and the stud-book of Spain is an established institution, its register having been zealously kept till this year, by the sportsman-grandee, the late Duke of Fernan NuÑez.

In contrast to these favoured breeds, and at the other extremity of the scale, we have the almost wild horses of the marismas, which shift for themselves throughout the year on the open wastes, and fly, like the deer, from the unaccustomed sight of man. The heats of summer, the cold and wet of winter, are faced in turn by this hardy race, which, in return for their freedom, provide their owners with a yearly contingent of sturdy offspring. These youngsters are only separated from the wild herds, "rounded up," and captured with great difficulty—after long and fast chases on the open plains. Perfect little demons of vice and fury they are, too, when caught, shaggy and unkempt little beasts, coated with dried mud, biting at each other, quarrelling and screaming with savage rage—a corral full of them newly-caught is indeed a singular sight. On many of the old mares of the marisma the hand of man has never placed a halter.

Of the fine description of Spanish merino sheep, so celebrated till the beginning of the eighteenth century, and so rigorously guarded and protected by Spanish Governments, there remains to-day hardly a trace. France, Sweden, and Saxony found means about that period to obtain specimens of the Spanish breed, and with them departed the glory of the privileged race. There remain now in Spain but degenerate representatives. Years of apathy have left to her little but the coarsest breed of sheep both as to flesh and fleece. The race from which nearly all the best European varieties have originated is now, perhaps, the lowest on the list.

Mutton is comparatively scarce in the southern mercados, where for one sheep may be seen a dozen kids exposed for sale. The latter—strange parti-coloured little beasts—together with the ubiquitous pig and tough, stringy beef, provide most of the meat consumed in Spain, whose scant quantity and poor quality is eked out by vast supplies of small birds—Larks, Buntings, Quails, and the like—which are caught by means of a dark-lantern at night, as we have elsewhere described; whole festoons of small birds, with Partridge, wildfowl, and Little Bustards, adorn the market-stalls in the Spanish cities, flanked by Roe and Red Deer from the forests, and sometimes by a grizzly boar from the sierra.

The Spanish markets also afford a wondrous display of southern fruits and vegetables—whole mountains of golden melons and sandias, tons of tomatoes and pimientos (red pepper), prickly pears, purple-ripe figs, loquats, apricots, grapes, and other fruit according to season; with lettuces, wild asparagus and a host of other vegetables. From every house in the town comes a servant to purchase the day's requirements of fish, flesh, fowl, or fruit—for everything is bought and consumed from day to day. There is no "cold mutton" in a Spanish menu! By eight o'clock, but little remains unsold, so an early start is needed to see the best of the show.

To return to the muttons: it should be added that Spain is now practically the only European country which still exports wool to the London market—upwards of a million and a half pounds' weight of Spanish wool annually reaching the Thames.

Supplement.

Since writing the above, we have come across an interesting article on this subject in one of the best Spanish papers (the Epoca), from which we translate the following extracts, giving the native version of the present agricultural status:—"We must confess that the condition of Spanish agriculture is sufficiently deplorable, not only by reason of the apathy of its agriculturists, but also through the difficulties which the land presents to its perfect cultivation, to the use of manures, and the employment of modern machinery. It must be borne in mind that the land of the abrupt mountains of the Asturias, Galicia, and CataluÑa condemns the country-people to the roughest and most laborious preparation. This is shared, though to a less extent, by the labradores of the arid regions of GuipÚzcoa, Biscay and Navarre; of the ricefields of Valencia, and on the sunburnt vegas of Andalucia and Estremadura. Besides these physical difficulties there are other disadvantages of hardly less importance. A vast extent of terrain now lies waste and uncultivated through lack of capital and sparseness of population; through the heavy tribute exacted by the state on agricultural produce, and the absence of means of communication to economize the transport of the harvest.

"Notwithstanding these immense difficulties, the Spanish agriculturist produces on fifty-six million hectares of cultivable land an excess over the consumption of sixty-one million hectolitres[50] in cereals alone.

"The superficies rustica of Spain may be classed in the following form:—

{*} 45·8 is the figure stated, but as that would exceed the 100 we have reduced it accordingly.

"The average value of this superficies, according to annual production; and the capital which it represents, is as follows:—

"If we take into account that the 42·8 per cent.{*} of uncultivated land has also its 'prairie value,' it may be safely calculated that the landed property of Spain represents a sum of £560,000,000 (five hundred and sixty millions sterling).

"The number of inhabitants of Spain who devote themselves to agriculture is, according to the census returns, 4,821,875."

The same article gives a summary of the 22,291 mills and flour-factories of Spain, by which it appears the motive power used is as follows:—

From a current number of a daily paper we cut the following advertisement, as showing the value set on water in thirsty Spain:—"To be let, the grazing-grounds (dehesa) of Junco Real, in the district (termino) of Chichlana. Contains 1,075 fanegas of brushwood and 237 of cultivation (labor), with SIX WELLS."