[88] The number of wild animals and the area over which they roamed have often been exaggerated. It does not look as if they ever covered the whole of the Pampean plain. A salter who crossed Patagonia and the whole of the Pampa in 1753 (Voyage du San Martin au fort de San Julian, Coll. de Angelis, v.) only found wild herds near the Salado frontier, and he knew by this that he was close to the ranches. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were no wild cattle left on the right bank of the Paraná. There were still some in Entre Rios.
[89] The water problem is not as important for the history of colonization in the Pampean region as in the north. Primitive breeding was confined to natural supplies of water, lagoons or streams, and to shallow wells (jagueles) dug down to the superficial sheet, which is generally not deep, but is liable to dry up. As colonization improved, the breeder, and subsequently the farmer, were better equipped for boring wells, and no longer feared drought. They got down to the deeper waters, semi-artesian (Buenos Aires district) or artesian (west of the Santa Fé province, round San Francisco). In other places the superficial waters, which are fresher than the deeper layers, were used by adapting new types of filters to the wells (Buena Esperanza district). The only two districts where the quest of water offered any difficulty are the south-west corner of the Pampean region and the northern extremity of the prairie in the Sante Santa Fé province. The sheets of water are very irregular there, often saline, and it was a long time before the ranches got an assured supply.
One remarkable circumstance is the importance of the dunes in connection with the distribution of the underground water. The rain-water accumulates in the dunes and flows slowly through the sand to the sub-soil. The level of the underground sheet in the clay on which the dune rests is always nearer the surface in the neighbourhood of the dune. The dune itself has often a greener vegetation than the land around it. Nothing is more surprising than to find at Medanos (west of Bahía Blanca), in the middle of a plain of arid aspect, fields of lucerne and orchards lodged in the hollows of dunes that are still fresh. In the whole of the Buenos Aires province the dead district of the dunes is, on account of its water-supply, a good place for habitation. D'Azara notices the numerous water-spots which ran along the foot of the dead dunes of the Cerillada. All round were the white bones of the baguales. In the valleys of the central Pampa, where the sheet of water in the centre of the valley is often saline, the underground water improves gradually as one approaches the line of the dunes.
[90] V. Galvez, Memorias de un viejo (Buenos Aires, 3 vols, in 16mo, 4th ed, 1889).
[91] Diario de un reconocimiento de las guardias y fortines que garnecen la linea de frontera de Buenos Aires (1796), by D. Felix de Azara (Coll. de Angelis, vi.).
[92] Nueva plan de fronteras de la Provincia de Buenos Aires por el Colonel Garcia (1816, Coll. de Angelis, vi.).
[93] This is, in a special form, the first instance of specialization, in the cantons of the Pampean region, in the breeding industry, properly so called (producing breeders).
[94] The variations in number are less considerable for the Pampean region than for the whole of Argentina. It is better supplied with capital than the other breeding districts, and can rapidly replace the losses caused by excessive export by buying cattle in the adjoining provinces.
[95] Fernando Barrero, Descripción de las provincias del Rio de la Plata (published by the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Buenos Aires, 1911).
[96] Amongst the specialized industries connected with the development of the lucerne farms we must mention the growing of lucerne for seed, which has settled in the dry zones, where the lucerne is not so much invaded by other species; for instance, the district of Madanos, west of Bahía Blanca.