While the cities are filled with beautiful parks and clinging roses are nearly everywhere, yet I never saw a country town with any thing beautiful in sight. The streets of these towns are either mud holes or dust piles, no work whatever being done upon them. The houses and stores are one-story buildings and often look like hovels. The one exception is the railroad station and often that is quite well kept.
There are no four-wheeled wagons like ours in this country. All the hauling is done on large lumbersome carts often pulled by oxen. But they sure load them heavy; how they get so much stuff on them is a mystery. Much of the farming is slovenly done. While England produces thirty bushels of wheat per acre the rich fields of Argentine only produce eleven bushels per acre. This is but little more than half as much per acre as is raised in Saskatchewan and Argentine soil is fully as rich as Canadian grain fields.
I crossed the great Argentine plain in October. Wheat was just beginning to head. Corn planting was in progress. Alfalfa fields were green while both trees and flowers were in bloom. But in riding six hundred miles without a hill, or tree except those planted by the hands of man, the journey soon became monotonous. Thousands of acres were almost covered with cattle and sheep.
On Sunday men and women were in the fields almost the same as any other day. At the towns almost the entire population came down to see the International train go through. This train only runs twice a week. The young women were dressed in their best but they were never with the young men. They would parade up and down the platform while the young men would go in the other direction and the lads and lassies hardly seemed to notice each other.
The train ran almost on the dot. A hotbox delayed it thirty minutes on one occasion but it was carefully watched. At every stop for hours the train would hardly come to a standstill before a couple of men were at that box. The engines have no bells on them and the whistle is blown just before the train starts rather than before it stops as in our country. The train was largely made up of sleepers and a diner. The cars were quite comfortable. The berths are crosswise rather than lengthwise as in our sleepers. Everything on this train, however, from fare to eats was very expensive.
On many of the larger farms the better breeds of stock are being raised, agricultural schools are springing up and scientific farming is being talked about. The government is taking a hand along many lines. Some of the great estancias are being divided and subdivided. The Welch people have a large settlement where better methods are being introduced. The Jews have a large colony and even the Italians are looking forward to a better day. Men from this country are entering in small numbers but with ideas that will revolutionize things, and especially the school house. An Englishman truly said: "Wherever the Germans go you find the arsenal; wherever the French go you find the railroad; wherever the British go you find the custom house, but wherever the Americans go you find the school house."