In the Province of Santa Fé, the appreciation of land values has of late years been neither so great nor so rapid as in Buenos Ayres and Córdoba; the reason being that it was this Province which initiated the colonising movement in 1856, by the foundation of the Esperanza Colony, so that its land values had already undergone sudden augmentations in previous years. In the five years from 1899 to 1903, the sales have amounted to £5,831,160 acres, and in 1904 to 2,026,420 acres. In the department of General Lopez 23,487 acres were sold for prices varying between 2s. 4d. and £2, 18s. 3d.
We may also note a tract of 8204 acres, 8 miles from La Serna railway station, which in 1908 was sold for £1, 12s. per acre.
The Provinces of San Luis and Santiago de l’Estero were the last to take part in this movement of appreciation of land values. The former, in especial, has from this point of view been a revelation to every one. As soon as it was discovered that the soil of this Province was admirably adapted to the formation of splendid meadows of lucerne, its value rapidly rose from 1s. 51⁄2d. to 6s. 5.7d., 12s. 11d., and 19s. 5d.
We must, in particular, mention a meadow known as the “Agualapada,” 98,000 acres in area, which on the 27th of July 1908 was sold at the rate per acre of 5s. 4d. 53,219 acres of land, some 13 miles from the railway stations of Nueva Galia and La Fortuna were bought at an average price of 10s. 3d. per acre. In the department of Pedernera 16,043 acres, divided into five lots, found purchasers at prices varying from 16s. 2d. and £1, 1s. 2d. to £1, 15s. 9d.
But, as we have already said, it is in the Pampa—in that vast country of 56,170 square miles in area—larger than England—which was incorporated in 1880, after the expedition led by General Roca—that the most surprising examples of appreciation are to be found. There all is undergoing a continual transformation; each year the plough opens wider furrows for the seed; the sowing of lucerne is rapidly increasing; stock-raising establishments are to be found in
the very confines of the country; and a large network of railways, in operation, in construction, or under consideration, promise to surround it on every hand, to circulate its products and to facilitate exchange. All these wonderful transformations are being effected under our eyes, day by day; so that it is not surprising that the value of the soil follows this tide of energy.
In the Pampa Central, of late years, we have seen land suitable for lucerne, with water 10 to 30 feet below the soil, not far from populated centres, and with means of rapid communication, fetch prices which quadrupled those it had touched eighteen months earlier, selling for as much as £3, 11s. 3d. per acre. In more than one case land which was bought for £880 the square league was afterwards sold for £8800.
Among the sales of 1908 was one of a meadow of 18,525 acres, six miles from Utracan Station, which, sold by order of the law, fetched a price of 17s. 10d. per acre. In another part of the same Territory 7698 acres were sold in a single lot, on the 1st of October 1908, at the rate of £1, 4s. 7d. per acre. In the Alfalfa Colony, during an auction sale, several chacras, or small farms, attained prices varying from £1, 19s. 3d. to £2, 2s. 9d. per acre.
By the Catrilo railway station on the Western Railway, situated in the same Territory of El Pampa, is a field whose owner, M. Mathias R. Sturiza, was offered £61,600 for it; two years earlier he had bought it for £5280.
Competent authorities assure us that in the neighbourhood of Santa Rosa de Toay, the capital of the Territory of the Pampa, the value of the fields has been shown by recent sales to have increased by 300 per cent. In the department of Victoria, in the same Territory, fields which a while ago were offered at 2s. 1.5d. per acre, are to-day selling for £1, 1s. 4d.—ten times that sum.