Approximate area of the soil devoted to cattle and sheep; general estimate of the numbers of cattle and sheep—Results of the census of 1908—The capital represented by Argentine stock-raising.
Having spoken of agriculture and its future, we must mention another industry, which is the second source of national wealth—the pastoral industry.
As a result of the rapid rise in the value of land, and the multiplication and selection of animals, the old form of Argentine stock-raising is undergoing, at the present time, a profound modification throughout the country. The traditional ranch or estancia, on which the animals browsed at will on vast prairies enclosed by wire fences, exposed to all the variations of the weather and all the vicissitudes of the temperature, feeding only on the grass of their pastures. This old type of estancia is gradually disappearing; is undergoing a transformation into carefully-managed farms, on which artificial prairies are constructed; farms with lucerne fields of 12,000, 25,000 or 50,000 acres, surfaces difficult for a European to conceive.[53]
[53] A field of 12,000 acres would be, for instance, 4 miles wide and over 41⁄2 miles long; one of 25,000 acres, 6 miles wide and 61⁄2 miles long; one of 50,000 acres, 7 miles wide and 11 miles long.—[Trans.]
The science of pedigree herds and the culture of carefully-enclosed pastures have created, says a distinguished writer, the true pastoral industry, in which stables and barns and sheds take the place of the ancient “corral.”[54] The wealthy owner drives from the railway station to his estancia
in a carriage; the old rustic ranch-house is transformed into a true country-house, sometimes a veritable château, with a park and gardens. There are estancias within a hundred leagues of Buenos Ayres which we remember as desert country in the power of the Indians, where now traps and carriages of English type are seen crossing the plains, where folk dine in evening dress in luxurious homes. The European stock-breeders have driven back the Gaucho to the great estates on the borders of the desert.
[54] Cf. Costumbres y Creencias populares de las Provincias Argentines: A lecture by M. P. Groussac at the World’s Congress at Chicago, June the 4th, 1893; published in La Nacion of the 23rd of October 1893.
Nothing would be more difficult—and for our part we renounce the task—than to say which are the first stock-raising establishments of the Republic; whether by reason of their extent, the numbers and the breed of their animals, or the magnificent dwellings of their owners. Establishments of this type are to be counted by hundreds, by thousands.
Nevertheless—though exposed to the danger of falling into inevitable errors or omissions, for lack of precise information—we must not forget to mention the Estancia San Juan, founded by Señor Leonard Pereyra, at a distance of 25 miles from Buenos Ayres, and a mile and a half from the La Plata, and consisting of over 40 square miles of meadows in full luxuriance. Then there is the Estancia San Jacinto, belonging to Señor Hugel T. de Alvear, an establishment reputed as one of the foremost in the country, which embraces an area of 244 square miles, or about one-third the area of the county of Surrey. Of this enormous area some 64 square miles are under lucerne, and support 100,000 Durham cattle, 100,000 Lincoln sheep, and 10,000 horses.
The Estancia la Gloria of Santamarina & Sons, situated at Laprida, in the Province of Buenos Ayres, comprises 145 square miles, and supports 20,000 cattle and 60,000 sheep.