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:—
| "Without cultivation of any kind | 42·8 | per cent.[{*}] |
| Cultivated | 28·6 | " |
| Pasture (terreno de pasto) | 14·6 | " |
| Woods, orchards, and gardens | 14·0 | " |
| 100·0 |
[{*}] 45·8 is the figure stated, but as that would exceed the 100 we have reduced it accordingly.