MESTA. The Mesta is avery peculiar kind of right of pasturage in Spain. Spain has vast tracts of unclaimed pasture-land on which the wealthy owners of flocks claim prescriptive right to pasture their sheep at the proper seasons.
The number of migratory sheep at the be ginning of the present century amounted to about five millions. In the month of April the flocks leave the plains of Andalucia and Estremadura for the cooler pastures of Leon, the two Castilles, and Aragon, whence they begin to return southwards in October ; for the lands depastured during the winter months a low price is paid, regulated by usage, and on which no advance is allowed. The sheep are divided into flocks of 10,000, each managed by a conductor, who has under him 50 shepherds and as many dogs. They pass unmolested, and feed over the pastures and commons that lie on their road ; they are not allowed to tra verse cultivated lands, but the proprietors of such lands are obliged to leave a clear space, 85 yards wide on each side of the road, for the passage of the flocks. At night they are penned in with ncttings made of tho esparto rush. The different routes and the length of each day's journey in these migrations are fixed by immemorial usage. Lambing takes place during the winter sojourn in the south. The sheep-shearing commences in May on the northward journey, and is effected in vast buildings by the roadside, called Esquileos, capable of containing 50,000, and some of them 60,000 sheep ; the principal of these buildings are in the environs of Segovia.
, The wool of the sheep belonging 6 the Mesta is celebrated for its fineness, length of fibre, and silky softness : this excellence is said to be owing to the habits of the sheep, whereby they are led to live in almost always the same temperature. The meat of these sheep is however of inferior quality.
The mesta is very unpopular in Spain, fot the following among other reasons—the nuns. ber of persons (40,000 or 50,000) whom ii takes from the cultivation of the soil ; th( immense extent of valuable land kept out of cultivation ; the continual trespass ou the cul tivated lands near the route taken by the flocks in their migration ; the scarcity of food for the stationary sheep in the line of march ; the loss in an agricultural point of view (in respect to manure) of the sheep never being penned on arable land ; and the despotic behaviour of the shepherds, who are protected in their 'im proper privileges and conduct by the tribunal of the mesta. All attempts to abolish the mesta have, however, failed.