SPAIN.
Revista de Montes, a semi-official journal, established in 1877, is the best source.
El Manuel de Legislacion y Administracion Forestal, by Hilario Ruiz, and Novisima Legislacion Forestal, by Del Campo, 1901, elaborate the complicated legislation up to 1894.
Dicionaro Hispano-Americano, 1893, contains an article (montes) on the administrative practice of the forest laws.
A Year in Spain, by a young American (Slidell) 1829, gives an excellent account of physical conditions of the country and character of the people at that time.
Das Moderne Geistesleben in Spanien, 1883, and Kulturgeschichtliche und Wirtschaftspolitische Betrachtungen, 1901, by Gustav Dierks, details character of institutions and people.
“Poor Spain” is the expression which comes to the lips of everybody who contemplates the economic conditions of this once so powerful nation, almost the ruler of the world. Once, under the beneficent dominion of the Saracens, a paradise where, as a Roman author puts it, “Nil otiosum, nihil sterile in Hispania,” it has become almost a desert through neglect, indolence, ignorance, false pride, lack of communal spirit, despotism of church, and misrule by a corrupt bureaucracy.
With the exception of a narrow belt along the seashore, the whole of the Iberian peninsula is a vast high mesa, plateau or tableland, 1,500 to 3,000 feet above sea level, traversed by lofty mountain chains, or sierras, five or six in number, running parallel to each other, mainly in a westerly and southwesterly direction. These divide the plateau into as many plains, treeless, and for the most part, arid, exposed to cold blasts in winter, and burning up in summer. They are frequently subjected to severe droughts, which sometimes have lasted for months, bringing desolation to country and people. The rivers, as they usually do in such countries similar to our arid plains, form cañons and arroyos, and, being uncertain in their water stages, none of them are navigable although hundreds of miles long, but useful for irrigation, on which agriculture relies. The great mineral wealth had made Spain the California of the Carthaginians and Romans, and it is still its most valuable resource.
Spain awakened to civilization through the visits of Phoenicians and Carthaginians followed by the Romans. During the first centuries of the Christian era there occurred one of the several periods of extreme prosperity, when a supposed population of 40 million exploited the country. After the dark days of the Gothic domination, a second period of prosperity was attained for the portion which came under the sway of the industrious and intelligent Moors or Saracens (711 to 1,000 A.D.) who made the desert bloom, and whose irrigation works are still the mainstay of agriculture at present. Centuries of warfare and carnage to re-establish Christian kingdoms still left the country rich, when, in 1479, the several kingdoms were united into one under Ferdinand and Isabella, and the Moors were finally driven out altogether (1492). This kingdom persisted in the same form to the present time with only a short period as a republic (1873). Spain was among the first countries to have a constitution.
After the Conquest of the Moors, and with the discovery of America, again a period of prosperity set in for the then 20 million people, but, through oppression by State and Church (Inquisition), which also led to the expulsion of the Jews and large emigration to America, the prosperity of the country was destroyed, the population reduced to 10 million in 1800, and the conditions of character and government created which are the cause of its present desolation. Since the beginning of the century, the population has increased to near 18 million, but financial bankruptcy keeps the government inefficient and unable to accomplish reforms even if the people would let it have its way.
1. Forest Conditions.
It has been a matter of speculation whether Spain was, or was not, once heavily wooded (see [page 11]). In Roman times, only the Province of La Manca is reported as being unforested, and, in the 13th and 14th centuries, extensive forest zones are still recorded. The character of the country at present, and the climate, both resembling so much our own arid plains, make it questionable to what extent the forest descended from the mountain ranges, which were undoubtedly well wooded.
At present the forest is mainly confined to the higher mountains. The best is to be found in the Pyrenees and their continuation, the Cantabrian mountains.