Besides potatoes, all other European vegetables and fruit-trees grow well; tobacco seems to thrive, and vines promise to furnish a staple of export in the shape of Rio Negro wine. In one of the islands, occupied by Don Benito Crespo, and leased by him on shares to some Spaniards from the neighbourhood of Cadiz, a great number of vines have been planted and large quantities of grapes pressed out yearly. The wine, which is called ‘Chacoli,’ has the muscatel flavour and bouquet of Moselle, and is a thin pure wine, excellent to drink in the warm weather, as it is by itself not at all strong or heady. I should imagine that it would not bear exportation, but Don Benito has hopes that his Andalusians will shortly be able to produce a superior quality. Besides wine, I tasted at the table of this hospitable gentleman some brandy, the produce of the same grape: it was of course colourless, of good taste, but any number of degrees over proof.
A sportsman can always find amusement either in shooting ducks, partridges, geese, and other wild fowl, or mounting his horse and chasing ostriches or deer in the abras or openings running far up like inlets of grass between the scrub-covered promontories of the barranca. Fish may be caught in the river, chiefly, I believe, the delicious pejerey[13] or large smelt, and those perch-like fish described as existing in the rivers of Patagonia.
For guanaco, the pampas near San Blas must be visited, but the valley and the lagoons formed by backwaters of the river furnish abundance of black-necked swans, upland geese, red-headed ducks, widgeon, teal, flamingoes, and roseate spoonbills.
It will be evident that to any active and enterprising young men, prepared to rough it a little, and possessed of a small sum of ready money, who wish to invest in land and cultivate, there is much to be said for and against the Rio Negro as a home. The land may be had at a reasonable price, and little clearing is required. Implements may be brought from Buenos Ayres, either in a sailing ship or by the steamer which is supposed to run monthly, though rather uncertain in its movements. The climate is pleasant and healthy, and one good season of harvest would almost repay the outlay on a moderate establishment.
As to the drawbacks to be placed on the contra side, the river is subject at times to floods, at other times droughts prevail, and, unless artificial irrigation be resorted to, crops will fail, besides which occasionally a million of locusts will save the farmer the trouble of reaping his harvest; the cattle, of which most people keep enough to supply milk and meat for home consumption, may be run off by Indians; and last, but not least, the settler may lose his life by the hand of some felon. But no colony offers a certainty of making a rapid fortune.
The great mistake most English settlers make is going out to a place with the idea that they are going to make a ‘pile’ in a year or two and then return to Europe.
In my opinion the settler should go with the intention of making the place he has chosen his home: then if successful he can return, but he should not look forward to it. The Basque population are looked upon in the Argentine provinces as the best immigrants, as they generally stay in the country. The Italians, on the contrary, grub away for some years, starving and pinching, until they have amassed a small sum of money sufficient to enable them to live at ease in Italy, while English and all others are looked upon as people to be fleeced if possible. Sheepfarming in the Rio Negro is, I think, to be avoided, as in other places in the Argentine provinces. Señor Aguirre told me that he had lost a large sum of money in this investment, and many of my countrymen from the Rio de la Plata can sympathise with him.
Two sturdy Scotchmen are at present trying the experiment near Carmen, and as sheep were at a low price when they commenced, they may succeed.
It is a question in my mind whether larch or araucaria pines would not thrive along the flats bordering the river; perhaps the climate is too dry for the latter, but the experiment is almost worth trying for anyone possessed of means and inclination to take up his abode for a term of years in the Rio Negro. For my own part, were I a settler, I should be induced to confine my efforts to the cultivation of the vine, and perhaps tobacco, keeping of course the necessary stock of animals for home consumption.
It must be clearly understood that I am not recommending or interested in the Rio Negro as a place to which intending emigrants should direct their thoughts; it undoubtedly possesses great natural advantages, which are, as yet, insufficiently developed by most of the colonists. Their estancias, with the exception of those of my Scotch and English friends, are generally small, miserable-looking tenements, with offal scattered round the ill-kept corral; and their agriculture is as indifferent as the neglected appearance of the houses would suggest. But for all that, there is not a really poor man—except in consequence of his own laziness or drunken habits—in Carmen and its vicinity, and labour is in great demand at high wages, while living is cheap, which experience, since my return, has taught me to be a painful contrast to the state of our own population at home.