Foxes and a species of wild-cat make havoc with the young lambs, and so these must be exterminated, too. What with hunting down vermin and looking after the sheep to keep them on the range and to dip them for the scab, the French manager had to employ a man for every 2500 sheep in his flock. On the whole, his flocks, numbering a little over 100,000 sheep, cost the company 200,000 francs per year, while the sale of the last clip yielded 500,000 francs, and the price was not high. In his judgment, it would be a very poor business man who, after starting with a good outfit and 1000 ewes on the Patagonia range, did not attain an income of $20,000 gold a year at the end of ten years.
This being the most conservative estimate of the profits of sheep-growing in Patagonia, the picture, as a whole, is certainly enchanting. It will probably remind some readers of the days, something like twenty years ago, when the profits of the cattle business in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and other grass-and-water countries were setting people wild. These readers saw great mansions built and furnished in a style to make merchants smile and artists weep—built out of the profits in cattle. They saw men go into the cattle business one day with no capital but a broad-brimmed hat and the next, so to speak, saw them draw certified checks for tens of thousands of dollars. Patagonia sheep are now just where Texas cattle were when the owners began to reach out from the green bottom lands of the Arkansas and the Platte, the San Augustine plains of New Mexico, and the Rio Grande Valley of Colorado. It is not in the nature of any business to pay 140 per cent. or more profit per annum for any length of time. I do not doubt the figures of either the manager of the French company or Gov. Mayer, but the conditions are now of a kind that cannot last.
In connection with the profits of the sheep industry must be mentioned the effect of rag money on the prosperity of the sheep owners. In both Argentina and Chili the national money was at so great a discount when I was there that a gold dollar would buy from $3.75 to $4 paper, according to the fluctuations of the market. Because of this depressed condition of the currency, both countries had about the cheapest labor to be found anywhere. That is to say, when the currency was inflated and its ability to purchase gold fell there was little, if any, increase in the number of dollars paid to ranch hands per month. Now the sheep owner sells and continues to sell his wool in Europe for gold. He exchanges as much of this gold as he must for paper with which to pay his men; but because the paper dollar has become worth only 27 or 28 cents in gold, he can now pay off his men with less than one-third as much gold as was formerly required. So far as food is concerned, the workmen are unaffected, for they get nothing but meat and a ground root called farina, with Paraguay tea to drink, but for their clothes they must pay four times as much as formerly, because about all the cloth of the region comes from Europe.
The homes and the home life of the sheep owners and sheep herders are well worth describing in connection with what has been said of the great profits the careful and industrious owners may make. I visited one of the best ranches in the territory of Santa Cruz. It was located three miles below Santa Cruz city, and was the property of two brothers of English blood, born in the Falkland Islands. The Falklands being full of sheep and no more land to be had there, these brothers took their inheritance and went over to Patagonia. They selected their range when choice could be made anywhere, and so got two valleys running into that of the Santa Cruz. No matter how dry the season, therefore, they were sure of grass for their flocks, and no matter how severe the blizzards of winter, the sheep would find plenty of shelter under the hills and steep banks and in the lee of the clumps of brush that grow on low ground. The brush, too, was in sufficient quantity and of a size to serve as fuel and for building corrals. It was as good a location as one could ask for.
On the tongue of moderately high ground, where the two valleys united to enter that of the Santa Cruz, they built their house. It was a mansion for that country. The walls were of vertical boards battened with thin strips, and the roof was of corrugated iron. This structure was divided by wooden partitions into four comfortable rooms, of which two contained two beds each, one was a general living room and kitchen combined, and the fourth was a store-room. All but the last had good wooden floors. There was a good wrought-iron cook-stove in the main room, and a table and chairs that had come from a furniture factory. The beds, too, were of factory make, and there were sheets as well as blankets on them. There were a few photographs on the walls—portraits of relatives and friends—and everywhere a profusion of grocery and tobacco-store lithographs. All these things could be seen when the doors were closed, because there were windows with glass in them, and the glass was kept clean. There was a broom in the corner, and the floor showed that it was used regularly. In short, here was a house that was neat and comfortable.
I ate dinner with the brothers. We had mutton roasted over an out-door fire—the best kind of roast—with fresh-baked bread, Yankee hard tack, and coffee with granulated sugar and Yankee condensed milk in it. Knowing something of ranch life as it is ordinarily found in Patagonia, I said to one of the brothers:
"I do not believe there is a sheep man in Patagonia that lives more comfortably than you."
"I fancy not," he said. "We have about everything that we want, and do not mean to starve for the sake of saving sixpence extra."
Thereat an employee who had been a sailor, and had turned shepherd with good success, rolled his eyes expressively toward a bright-colored lithograph on the wall above the table. The lithograph was a picture of a pretty girl leaning over a farm-yard gate in a way to show her well-rounded form to advantage, while her skirts were so short that she was at least in no danger of tripping on them when she walked. Jack's gaze lingered on the fair form for a minute, and then he said: