Of a total area of some forty-four and a half million acres under cultivation, less than two millions are irrigated (regadio), leaving forty-two and a half million acres of "dry lands" (secano).
The following table forms an interesting commentary—to those who can endure statistics—on the state of agriculture in Spain. It shows the exact proportion of irrigated and non-irrigated land under each crop, &c. The figures represent "fanegas" which are, roughly, equivalent to acres.
| Crop or Condition. | Irrigated. | Dry Lands. | |
| (Regadio.) | (Secano.) | ||
| Garden produce, vegetables, &c. | 245,798 | — | |
| Fruit-trees | 58,095 | 384,642 | |
| Corn and seeds | 1,139,964 | 18,983,410 | |
| Vines | 66,859 | 2,121,070 | |
| Olive-woods | 76,538 | 1,181,386 | |
| Meadow | 291,240 | 842,319 | |
| Salt-pans | 29,174 | — | |
| Pasturage | — | 3,963,538 | |
| Groves and marshy dells (alamedas y sotos) | — | 130,570 | |
| Brushwood (monte, alto y bajo) | — | 7,279,346 | |
| Winter grazings (eriales con pastos) | — | 5,193,331 | |
| Threshing-grounds, &c. (eras y canteras) | — | 48,277 | |
| Non-productive | — | 2,452,239 | |
| Total | 1,907,168 | 42,580,148 |
Oriental customs survive in the hiring of labour, both for field and vineyard. Men are not employed permanently—only "taken on" as occasion requires. A hiring-place is the feature of Spanish rural towns—the Plaza, or public square, usually serving the purpose. Here, at all hours, but notably at early morn and sunset, stand groups of swarthy labourers, waiting for hire, and contentedly smoking their cigarettes till some capataz, or foreman, comes to terms with them.
Corn and wine are cultivated by distinct classes of labourers—those for the vineyard, superior workmen, gaining thrice the pay of the others. In the vineyards the men receive the equivalent of three francs a day, with oil and vinegar—important items in a hot country—while the corn-farmer only pays one franc, with bread and oil.
The only permanent hands at a vineyard are the capataz and his assistant, the duties of the latter being to bring bread from the town on his pannier-mule, and water from the best or nearest well in those cool earthen pitchers called cántaros. Water is almost as important as food. Among the poor it is the national drink—the quality produced by each well is known and often discussed. Andalucians are critical judges of water, classing it as mala, bad, unwholesome; gorda, turbid or flavoured; regulár, pretty good, and agua rica, the best of bright sparkling water. In praising his native hamlet, the first point with a Spanish peasant will be "the water there is good." Water, however, be it gorda or rica, they must have; and wherever on glowing plain or calcined hill-side one sees a gang of labourers gently scratching the earth with tiny hoe, there also are sure to be lying those porous, amphora-shaped cántaros full of water, ice-cold, albeit a tropical sun has for hours impinged vertically on their porous sides. Oh, how delicious a draught can be enjoyed from those rude, old-world vessels surely none but thirst-stricken labourer under Spanish summer sun—be he peasant or bustard-shooter—can ever fully realize!
At the cortijo, or corn-farm, are four or five permanent employés—the steward, the bread-maker, and the tenders of the working oxen. All the rest of the labourers—men or women—are hired temporarily as required. Herdsmen and shepherds we do not include, as these do not live at the farm, but in some reed-built choza, or other rough shelter hard by their flocks. Hence it will be seen that the class of labour employed on arable land is of the lowest—there is none of the inducement to steady industry begotten of permanent place. At the vineyards, in addition to the higher rate of wage, the food supplied is also much superior. This industry, in short, absorbs the pick of the labour-market. No women are employed in the vineyards, nor allowed to touch a vine, though on the farms many are engaged for such work as hoeing and weeding.
To become the capataz of a vineyard is the highest ambition of the labourer. To go into the market-place and hire, instead of standing there to be hired, are obviously very different things. It implies, besides, permanent wages at increased rate, without manual work to do, for the capataz only orders.
He hires the labourers required, often with an eye to his own advantage. The master never sees the men engaged: there is no check on the honesty of the agent, but considerable variation in the quality of the hired. The old, the halt and lame, if friends of the capataz, receive the same pay as the young and strong. Although all may go forth into the vineyard at the seventh hour, there is yet ground for doubting the substantial justice of the nineteenth-century capataz as there was in olden days of Bible history.
