Viticulture abstracts from the soil a smaller proportion of alkalies and other mineral constituents than either corn or root-crops: hence the exhaustion of the soil is slower and the vine can be cultivated on land incapable of yielding any other crop. An acre of vines on sandy soil will cost but one-half the money to cultivate, and yield three times the weight of fruit that an acre of the afueras will produce.[64] It is a curious fact that these sandy soils never yield, even phenomenally, a cask of fine wine. These better wines require years of keeping to attain the perfect development of maturity, while the others, being of a lighter description, are as good at first as they ever will be, although in appearance and flavour the grapes of the sandy soil may even seem the best. These facts serve to explain the difference in cost which must exist between the produce of the two classes of vineyard.
So much for the wines of Jerez; but sherry, though in British eyes it looms the largest amongst the wines of Spain, and is, in fact, of the greatest intrinsic value, yet represents a mere drop in the ocean as compared with the whole produce of the land. Spain overflows with wine. Hardly a village but has its vineyards and its vintage-time, when the very earth becomes encarnadined, and when the chief care of the peasantry is rather to find casks, goat-skins, or other receptacles wherein to store their redundant crop, than wine to fill them withal. In traversing many a hundred dusty leagues of the wildest parts of Spain, we seldom failed to replenish our wine-skins with good, rough, red vino del pais, grown on some neighbouring slope; racy of the soil, refreshing, and delicious after hard work under a torrid sun, and at an average price of two pesetas the arroba, or about one-third the price of "small beer"!
One soon grows to like and appreciate these rough red wines of Northern and Central Spain, whose generous fulness and refreshing asperity are so requisite in this hot land. After a course of several months of the Riojas and Valdepeñas of Spain, how thin tastes that first bottle of the Bordelais—price two francs—at the breakfast-buffet of Hendaye!
CHAPTER XXX.
SOME FURTHER NOTES ON THE GREAT BUSTARD.
HIS NATURAL HISTORY AND HABITS.
Is the Great Bustard polygamous or not? We have watched these birds in early spring-time, following every movement, and at quarters close enough, with the binocular, to distinguish the very feathers: we have inquired of the best and keenest bustard-shooters on the Spanish plains—men who ought to know—and yet are unable to give a positive opinion. The best ornithological authorities are also silent on the point, or treat it in doubtful terms.
The Andalucian Bustards may be divided into two classes:—(1) Those which inhabit the undulating corn-lands extending from Jerez and Utrera eastwards—by Marchena and Osuña—to Bobadilla and the borders of Malaga province, which race is stationary throughout the year; and (2) the Bustards of the marisma, or flat delta of Guadalquivir and other great rivers, which seasonally shift their ground.