According to Laborde, who wrote some twenty-five years later; "The cultivation of silk was formerly very flourishing in Andalusia; the kingdoms of Granada, Seville, and Jaen produced immense quantities of it, but after the conquest of those countries it was burdened with heavy taxes: silk was made subject to ecclesiastical tithes payable in kind; the royal tenth it paid under the Moors was retained, estimated at three _reales vellon_ each pound of silk. To these were added a duty of _tartil_ of seventeen _maravedis_ per pound and duties of _alcabalas_ and _cientos_, fixed at eleven _reales_ thirty-two _maravedís_. There accrued from it a tax of fifteen _reales_ fifteen _maravedís_ for the king, and six _reales_, or thereabouts, for the ecclesiastical tithe, making together twenty-one _reales_ fifteen _maravedís_, or about four shillings and sixpence the pound, which at that time sold only for thirty _reales_, or six shillings and three pence English. The speculators were consequently discouraged, most of them relinquished a labour from which they derived so little profit, and this branch of industry entirely failed in the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, and afterwards in those of Granada and Jaen. For some time it has been looking up in the two latter kingdoms, but it is very far from what it was under the Moors. The mulberries of Granada and Jaen are black; they are suffered to grow without any care or management, are never lopped or dressed, and look as if they were planted by chance."