“AGRICULTURE HAS SPREAD FAR AND WIDE”
Agriculture has spread far and wide in Argentina in the last two decades. Its forces are moving ever westward and southward, driving the “squatter” ever farther and farther afield. It has already crossed the boundaries of what was once known as Patagonia, no man’s land. Wire fences now enclose the lands which once were the scenes of settlers’ battles and boundary disputes. Grains and alfalfa have replaced the coarse natural grass, which was indigenous to these plains. Groves of willow, eucalyptus and poplar have been planted in the older sections of the Camp and make a diversion in the landscape. The picturesque windmill, made in the United States, is a familiar landmark on the horizon almost everywhere, for it is necessary to pump all the water during the greater part of the year.
The Camp has never been divided into homesteads. The most of it is owned by the estancieros, whose holdings are estimated by the square league, almost six thousand acres. A man with only one square league is a small farmer, and there are many estates of five and ten square leagues. Many of these were purchased for a mere pittance twenty years ago, and the rise in value has made the owner a wealthy man, so that he can live in Buenos Aires a part of the year in luxury, or take a trip to Europe each year, as many of them do.
Formerly Argentina was almost entirely a pastoral country. Millions of cattle and sheep wandered over these plains and fed on the rich herbage. The amount of land devoted to stock grazing has been reduced, but the quick-growing alfalfa furnishes more pasture to the acre. At the present time there are thirty million cattle, sixty-seven million sheep, seven million, five hundred thousand horses and mules in the republic, which is a very respectable showing, and places Argentina as one of the most important stock-raising countries in the world. They are very fine stock too. It was the care of the stock that gave rise to the “gaucho,” the cowboy of South America, and it was this character that gave romance and local colour to the Camp.
THRESHING GRAIN ON AN ESTANCIA
As a grain-raising country Argentina has advanced by leaps and bounds. At the present time it is the greatest flax-raising country in the world, and our own linseed oil mills have been obliged to import seed from there during the past two years. It is second only to the United States and Russia in the production of wheat, and in some years has exported more than our own land. At the stations one will sometimes see mountains of wheat bags awaiting shipment to the ports, where hundreds of vessels are ready to carry this grain to the hungering millions of Europe. The threshing outfits move ponderously from one estancia to another, doing the entire work of harvesting on a percentage basis, usually one sack out of every three. Some of them are pulled by oxen or mules, and others are run by traction power. These processions move across the plains in imposing fashion. The huge stacks commence to rise in twos and threes like giant mushrooms, until the landscape is dotted with them. Then strings of wagons, laden to the brim, carry the wheat to the warehouses, which open wide their doors to receive this valuable product of the soil. The stacks must be made very secure, for the winds sweep over these plains with almost incredible velocity.
