_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.