ABSTRACT
In the Spanish forest economy acorns loom surprisingly large. The image of southwestern Spain as a barren, eroded skeleton largely bereft of its vegetation cover is much distorted. The traditional date for taking the hogs into the oak woods varies from village to village in southwestern Spain, but most commonly it falls somewhere in middle or late October. A critical element in the management of an oak forest in the montanera zone is the spring pruning. The Greek and Roman chroniclers had much to say about the utility of the forests for the winter fattening of swine, but under the Muslims, with their restrictions against pork, the oak woodlands seem to have been of greatly reduced importance. Although extensive tracts of oaks exist in other parts of Spain, it is only in the west and south, from Salamanca southward along the Portuguese frontier to the shores of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, that the acorns are sufficiently sweet.
