Agriculture.—A largt, portion of the land was formerly en tailed in the families of the landlords (morgados), but entails have been abolished by the legislature, and the land is now absolutely free. An incredible amount of labour has been expended upon the soil, partly in the erection of walls intended to prevent its being washed away by the rains, and to build up the plots of ground in the form of terraces. Watercourses have been constructed for purposes of irrigation, without which at regular intervals the island would not produce a hundredth part of its present yield. These watercourses originate high up in the ravines, are built of masonry or driven through the rock, and wind about for miles until they reach the cultivated land. Some of them are brought by tunnels from the north side of the island through the central crest of hill. Each occupier takes his turn at the running stream for so many hours, day or night, at a time notified to him.
The system of cultivation is primitive. Few of the occupiers own the land they cultivate; but they almost invariably own the walls, cottages and trees, the land alone belonging to the landlord. The tenant practically enjoys fixity of tenure, for the landlord is seldom in a position to pay the price at which the tenant's share is valued. The metayer system regulates almost universally the relations between landlord and tenant, the tenant paying a certain portion of the produce, usually one half or one third. There are few meadows and pastures, the cattle being stall-fed when not feeding on the mountains. Draught labour is performed by oxen.
The two staple products are wine and sugar. The vine was introduced from Cyprus or Crete soon after the discovery of the island by the Portuguese (1420), but it was not actively cultivated until the early part of the 16th century. The wine usually termed Madeira is made from a mixture of black and white grapes, which are also made separately into wines called Tinta and Ver delho, after the names of the grapes. Other high-class wines, known as Bual, Sercial and Malmsey, are made from varieties of grapes bearing the same names. (See WINE.) The sugar cane is said to have been brought from Sicily about 1452. A considerable quantity of spirit, consumed on the island, is made by the distil lation of the juice or of the molasses left after extractiag the sugar.
The common potato, sweet potato and gourds of various kinds are extensively grown, as well as the Colocasia esculenta, the kalo of the Pacific islanders, the root of which yields an insipid food. Most of the common table vegetables of Europe are plentiful. Besides apples, pears and peaches, all of poor quality, oranges, lemons, guavas, mangoes, loquats, custard-apples, figs, bananas and pine-apples are produced. The last two are articles of export.
Population and Administration.—The inhabitants are of Portuguese descent, with probably some intermixture of Moorish and negro blood. Both men and women in the outlying country districts wear the carapuca, a small cap made of blue cloth in shape something like a funnel, with the pipe standing upwards. The men have trousers of linen, drawn tight, and terminating at the knees; a coarse shirt covered by a short jacket, completes their attire.
The population increased zo% in the years 1900-20. Many of the able-bodied males emigrate to Brazil or the United States. The density of population (57o per sq.m. in 192o) is great for an agricultural district containing no large town.
Funchal (pop. 193o, 31,352), headquarters of Madeiran corn merce and shipping, is described in a separate article. The other chief towns are Camara de Lobos (11,116), Machico (9,884), Santa Cruz (8,856), Ponta do Sol (7,153), Calheta (5,767), Sao Vicente (5,444), Sant' Anna (3,424), and Porto Santo (2,490), from the census of 193o. Each of these is the capital of a commune (con celho), to which it gives its name. Madeira is connected by regu lar lines of steamships with Great Britain, Germany, Portugal, Cape Colony, Brazil and the United States.
The archipelago is officially styled the district of Funchal; it returns members to the Portuguese Cortes, and is regarded as an integral part of the kingdom. The district is subdivided into the eight communes already enumerated. Funchal is a Roman Cath olic bishopric in the archiepiscopal province of Lisbon.
History.—It has been conjectured, but on insufficient evidence, that the Phoenicians discovered Madeira at a very early period. Pliny mentions certain Purple or Mauretanian Islands, the posi tion of which with reference to the Fortunate Islands or Canaries might seem to indicate the Madeiras. There is a romantic story to the effect that two lovers, Robert Machim, a Machin, or Macham, and Anna d'Arfet, fleeing from England to France (c. 137o) were driven out of their course by a violent storm and cast on the coast of Madeira at the place subsequently named Machico, in memory of one of them. Joao Goncalvez Zarco first sighted Porto Santo in 1418, having been driven thither by a storm while he was exploring the coast of West Africa. Madeira itself was discovered in 142o. It is probable that the whole archipelago had been ex plored at an earlier date by Genoese adventurers; for an Italian map dated 1351 (the Laurentian portolano) shows the Madeiras quite clearly, and there is some reason to believe that they were known to the Genoese before 1339. When Zarco visited Madeira in 1420 the islands were uninhabited, but Prince Henry the Navi gator at once began their colonization, aided by the knights of the Order of Christ. Sanctioned by the pope and by two charters which the king of Portugal granted in 143o and the work proceeded apace ; much land was deforested and brought into cultivation, and the Madeiran sugar trade soon became important. Slavery was abolished in Madeira in 1775, by order of Pombal. In 18o1 British troops, commanded by General Beresf ord. occu pied the island for a few months, and it was again under the British flag from 1807 to 1814. It shared in the civil disturbances at the accession of Dom Miguel (see PORTUGAL: History), but after 1833 its history is one of peaceful commercial development.
See P. Langerhaus, Handbuch fiir Madeira (1884) ; A. J. D. Biddle, The Land of Wine (i9oi) ; M. Vahl, Madeira's Vegetation (1904) ; A. S. Brown, Madeira, The Canary Islands and the Azores, 13th ed. (1926), a comprehensive guidebook of the three archipelagoes.