An article in the Telegrafo Mercantil of September 9, 1801 (reproduced in the Junta de Historia y Numismatica americana, Buenos Aires, 2 vols., 1914-5) contains very valuable information in regard to the mule trade. From 1760 to 1780 Salta sent between 40,000 and 50,000 mules annually to Peru. At Salta they were worth ten piastres each before they were broken in, and thirteen or fourteen afterwards; and they were sold at the age of four years. The arrieros, who conveyed European goods and home products (ropas y frutas), bought a large number of them. The Telegrafo complains that this trade has been gradually transformed. The mules now came from Santa Fé and Córdoba to Salta two years old, and after the invernada they were still, at fair time, barely three years old. They suffered much during the long journey to Lima, and the losses of the caravans were heavy. They could not be loaded for the journey, and, as the arrieros could no longer secure adult and strong animals, the freight to the tableland had risen, to the serious loss of merchants on the coast. The reply of a Potosi mule-dealer (December 13th) clearly shows that the last years of the eighteenth century had been marked by increasingly heavy demands from Peru for Argentine mules. In order to meet these demands the Córdoba breeders had developed production. The buyers, coming to Salta from Lima, Cuzco, and Arequipa, took, without discussion or examination, the batches that were offered them. The correspondent of the Telegrafo complains bitterly of these caballeritos who came from Peru with their 100,000 piastres, and raised the price at Salta, alleging that their instructions were to get mules at any cost.

Robertson gave in 1813 the recollections of a mule-dealer as to the convoys of mules between Santa Fé and the Andes, which had already ceased at that time. Each convoy or arreo comprised 5,000 to 6,000 mules. They came from Entre Rios, or even from the Uruguay, whence they were brought, after crossing the Paraná, to the Santa Fé ranches. The Santa Fé breeders owned the best part of the land on the left bank of the river. The expedition also included thirty waggons of goods and 500 draught-oxen; and fifty gauchos were in charge of it. The main expense was then tobacco and yerba. One feature of this mule traffic that is emphasized in all the descriptions is that it was divided into two stages, with an interval between them, for breaking in. As we have already learned from Azcarate, Córdoba, Santa Fé, Santiago, and Salta kept the mules for two or three years before sending them to Peru. Córdoba and Santiago del Estero seem to have been important in connection with the industry of breaking in the mules.

The sending of cattle on foot to Bolivia and Chile is now only a subsidiary element of the national economy, but it is not yet quite extinct, as the table on [p. 53] shows.

Whatever its point of departure, the traffic in stock always passed through the valles. Transport of cattle was particularly difficult in the Argentine Andes. The chief obstacles were not the elevation of the passes or the steepness of the roads, but the scarcity of water and the extent of the travesias, which were equally poor in pasturage and water, and had to be crossed rapidly by doubling the stages. The difficulties of the journey were very profitable to the oases that lay along the route. The cattle-driver could not dispense with the hospitality of the vallista or dispute the price he cared to charge.

MAP II.—IRRIGATION IN THE WEST AND NORTH-WEST OF ARGENTINA.

Extent of the irrigations in the north (zone of the great summer rains), and the south (glacier zone) The historic industry of fattening cattle in the invernadas and the export of cattle to the Andean regions only survive in part. On the other hand large modern industries have developed at Tucumán, Jujuy (sugar-cane), Mendoza, and San Juan (vines), and they supply the Buenos Aires market.

[Click to view larger image.]

The length of the journey and the difficulty of keeping the animals in good condition in the poor pastures of the breeding districts made it advisable to stay longer in the oases. There thus arose lucerne-farms—the invernadas—to receive and fatten the cattle which passed through. Lucerne is the characteristic and most profitable produce of the valles. It is grown wherever there is an assured supply of water, and is invariably found in the upper section of the system of irrigation-channels; the cereals are sown lower down, and are the first to suffer from drought. In the quebradas, where space is more limited, the lucerne-fields cover the entire oasis. Every cattle track has a corresponding line of invernadas, which is often completed on the opposite slope by a last group of lucerne-farms where the beasts recover from the journey before they are sold and dispersed.