[CHAPTER IX]
FARMING AND SPORT
Roman civilisation ended in those latifundia which, amongst other causes, are usually considered to have brought about the ruin of Italy. The immense estates of the Argentine Campo were not built up, however, by the expropriation of small farmers, as was the case in decadent Rome. They are simply the result of wholesale seizure of land at the expense of the savages who were incapable of utilising it. Without discussing the origin of all landed property, or to what extent our legal principles and our practice agree, I simply note the fact that the conquistadores and their descendants set down as res nullius whatever it suited them to appropriate.
The principle once established (this is the commencement of every civilisation), there remained only to fix the approximate extent of land likely to satisfy the appetite of the European newcomer. Do you remember a fine story, by Tolstoy, of a man who was given, by I know not what tribe of the steppe, as much land as he could walk round in a day? Once started, the sole idea of the poor wretch was continually to enlarge the circumference. It was only at the price of a tremendous effort that he completed the circle, falling dead at the moment of accomplishing his journey. The first settlers, who followed the Genoese, took probably less trouble, though their greed was as great. But as the land depends for its value on labour, the result for Tolstoy's hero and for the conquistadores was not so very different. Thus, when the first ploughshare turned the first sod, the estate, whatever its proportions, had to bear some relation to human capacity. The large domains of to-day—measuring from two to a hundred square miles—have proceeded from still larger ones, and gradually, as the much-needed labour comes forward to undertake the task, we shall see the further cutting up of preposterous holdings.
This is inevitable in the near future, and this alone will render possible scientific farming, which is highly necessary for the development of agriculture. A farmer who knows nothing of manure of any sort, who is making his first experiments in irrigation, and who burns his flax straw for want of knowing how to utilise it, will, for a long time to come, continue to swamp the markets of Europe with his grain and his meat, but only on condition that he is satisfied with small profits and gives quantity in place of quality. These are the conditions of life on the Campo, such as I have tried to sketch them.
It remains for me to introduce the chief agent in this huge movement of cattle-rearing and agriculture, who, in his own person and that of his overseers, administers the Pampas; he is the owner of the estancia, the estanciero.
The word estancia—since it represents something non-existent with us—is not easy to translate. Let us put it down as the most sumptuous form of primitive ownership. I might call it the seat of an agricultural feudalism if the peon were a man to accept serfdom—something resembling a democratic principality, if the two words can be coupled together.
When we meet him on the boulevard, the estanciero, who talks of his immeasurable estate and his innumerable herds, seems to us a fabulous creature. It is quite another matter to see him on horseback amidst his peons in the Pampas, which, in default of the customary features of private property, appears in its nakedness to be nobody's land—that is to say, everybody's land.
The contrast between the estanciero's personal refinement and the English comfort of his family abode, and the primitive rusticity of the surrounding country, suggests the inconsistencies of barbarism undergoing the civilising process.