Psychiatric service-trained dogs are growing in demand and many clients find their dogs to be extremely helpful.
Wheat and other cereals are cultivated, with fruits of many kinds, olives, and vines which yield a wine of fair quality; while saffron is largely produced, and some attention is given to the keeping of bees and silkworms. Stock-farming, for which the wide plains afford excellent opportunities, employs many of the peasantry; the bulls of Albacete are in demand for bull-fighting, and the horses for mounting the Spanish cavalry.
When these fires occur while the trees are full of sap, a curious mucilaginous matter is exuded from the half-burnt stems; when dry it is of pale reddish colour, like some of the coarser kinds of gum-arabic, and is soluble in water, the solution resembling gumwater, in place of which it is sometimes used; considerable quantities are collected and sold as " Orenburg gum "; in Siberia and Russia it is occasionally employed as a semi-medicinal food, being esteemed an antiscorbutic. For burning in close stoves and furnaces, larch makes tolerably good fuel, its value being estimated by Hartig as only one-fifth less than that of beech; the charcoal is compact, and is in demand for iron-smelting and other metallurgic uses in some parts of Europe.
The thinnings of the larch woods in the Highlands are in demand for railway sleepers, scaffold poles, and mining timber, and are applied to a variety of agricultural purposes.
From this time until the eve of the Civil War he held no public office, but his opinions on political questions continued to be sought, and he was much in demand as a speaker on public occasions.
