All this, however, however true, is a digression from the question under immediate discussion, namely, to what extent the railway has been a cause or an effect of the spread of agriculture in the River Plate. The real answer to this question appears to be that both the railway in these countries and the agriculture have inter-aided and are inter-dependent on one another in the inevitable development of a prosperity fore-ordained by a prodigality of natural endowment.
Comparing the figures representing the cultivable area of these Republics with those relating to the parts already under cultivation, one can see why extensive farming is only just now giving way to intensive systems in those districts the situation of which, in relatively close proximity to the great port of Buenos Aires, combined with the natural fertility of their soil, has rendered them the most valuable of all the lands in the Argentine and Uruguayan Republics. The capital valuation of these lands is now so high, especially in the Province of Buenos Aires, that all means must be adopted which will enhance their annual productivity. In other parts it is often cheaper to put more land under cultivation than to lay out capital in improved working of that already in hand. As facilities for transport and the population grow, so will the need for intensive farming, in gradually increasing complexity, be more and more felt and complied with throughout both Republics.
Contemporaneous with such advance will be the gradual development of those products, other than wheat, linseed, maize and alfalfa (to which the whole available agricultural energies of these countries have till now been almost exclusively confined), for which the natural conditions of one part or another of the two Republics are eminently favourable—such as Cotton, Tobacco, Timber, Rice, Sugar and, perhaps, Coffee.
To quote a pamphlet recently issued by the Argentine Government:—
There are vast tracts of land available for the cultivation of sugar cane. … With the investment of large amounts of money and an increase in the area cultivated this industry will no doubt in a few years be able to supply fully the demand and have a surplus of 50 per cent over for exportation.
This statement, notwithstanding the rather quaint English of the official translator, has already nearly been proved true, and might have become so in actual practice several years ago. To quote again from the same pamphlet and with a similar endorsement of its statements:—
In the extensive regions existing in Salta, Jujuy, the Chaco, Formosa, Misiones, Corrientes and Tucumán (the last-named with 300,000 hectares admirably adapted for sowing sugar cane) the area cultivated will gradually increase.
It should and certainly will do so at some future time. When, depends chiefly, as do many, if not most, other agricultural developments on the River Plate, on increase of population.
In the meantime the Argentine National Ministry of Agriculture has done much good work towards stimulating interest in the undoubtedly great possibilities of cotton, tobacco and rice cultivation. The cultivation of cotton is no new idea on the River Plate. It could hardly be so when there are large districts so evidently and admirably adapted for this crop. The reasons why several former well-meant attempts at cotton growing in Argentina were unsuccessful were the difficulties of obtaining and keeping adequate labour, and a too great reliance on the bounty of nature unaided by much human science. Selection and just appreciation of the time for gathering were matters which did not receive sufficient attention, and a great obstacle certainly was the difficulty of obtaining labour in sparsely populated districts, in which the necessities of life are procurable by all with a minimum of effort. The natives fancied they were being exploited if they did not get commercially impossible rates of wages for what appeared to them extremely arduous and unwontedly continuous and careful work. Work of the satisfactory execution of which, moreover, their primitive mentality was not really capable.
Even now River Plate cotton growing will need to be largely aided by imported or colonist labour. Given that and due scientific management and care, applied in the first place to the selection of the seed most suitable to the soil and climate, there is no sort of reason why River Plate cotton should not occupy a highly remunerative place in the world’s markets, where cotton is always in increasingly large demand.