THE PAMPAS, ARGENTINA.
Vol. II. To face p. 204.
Perhaps the things of the animal world, in its commercial sense, might be taken as most remarkable here. From few mares and stallions brought in by the men of Spain, vast equine droves, half wild, appeared with marvellous rapidity, and the later breeds multiplied similarly. It was a horseless land before the white man came. To-day a horseman pursuing his way over the vast plain is a very prominent object against the skyline. There was no ox or cow, but to-day the teeming herds in their millions—though not unnumbered—have built, through commerce, through the products of their hides and bodies, the palaces and boulevards of Buenos Ayres and its sister cities, the homes of the millionaires of this new American nation; a land where the progenitors of both man and beast first humbly crossed from old Europe, and now pour forth their riches thereto.
How far this wealth shall still increase we do not know. It may be that the limit of the pastoral industry in the Argentine Pampas has been reached or approached. The herds do not now greatly increase, since their census in 1908, of nearly thirty million head of cattle. Nature and man both take a heavy toll, the one in adverse climatic conditions, the other in waste and carelessness, as if the prodigality of the fruits of the earth were inexhaustible. On the great ranges, the cattle exist almost automatically, bearing the scorching sun or piercing wind; and in the droughts, as we pass thereover, the vision will be shocked by a lamentable spectacle of dying or rotting cattle on every hand. They are too numerous; they cannot be fed or watered, or buried when they succumb. Dust, flies and mummified bodies around offend the traveller here, and it is doubtful if man has a right to bring to being animals in such profusion that Nature cannot support them.
Possibly, in the future, better quality and lesser quantity will be the methods forced upon the cattle owners here. There is, too, a tendency towards smaller cattle ranges and perhaps more "intensive" methods, and what may be called "cattle feudalism" may beneficially suffer some modification. Irrigation, again, brings about a more varied production.
Cold storage and the making of meat extracts are, of course, one of the primary features of the cattle industry.
The enormous wheat-plains are the next source of wealth here, and other lands have cause to be grateful for both the wheat and the meat of Argentina. But the yield is comparatively low, being but twelve to thirteen bushels to the acre, for methods of cultivation are often crude.
The Argentine farmer is greatly dependent upon his wheat and maize, and if his cereal crop fails he has few resources to tide him over the bad time. The resources of Argentina in cereals are very great, and it has been calculated that there are 175 million acres of land available for their cultivation. Argentina provides a great part of the world's supply of maize, perhaps half, but in times of drought this falls very seriously.
