At Mendoza and San Juan the water-rights, codified in provincial laws which date, like the dams, from the end of the nineteenth century, are very different from the water-rights which hold in the Andean provinces of the north-west. The variety of the physical conditions is reflected in the institutions. Here water is not an object of private ownership independently of the soil. The concession of water is assigned to a definite estate, and it is formulated in superficial measurements. The law fixes the volume of water that goes with each unit of surface. If the output of the river is not large enough to provide the volume stated in the law to the whole of the irrigated district, all the lands with definitive rights receive at least an equal amount, and the available water is shared by the canals in proportion to the extent of the surface they irrigate.
No law could secure for the farmers of Cuyo, even those with definitive rights, a constant supply of water, or save them from suffering in common from the variation in the volume of the torrents, and it was not even possible to guarantee them water in any permanent fashion. The turno is used everywhere when the water is low. Lower down, where the drought lasts nearly the whole year, the turno is the standing rule. At La Paz, on the fringe of the irrigated area, it has to be applied rigorously. The turn of each owner comes every eight, ten, or twelve days. In normal times he receives the suerte de agua; that is to say, the output of a sluice of a fixed size during a half-hour for each hectare (a little over two acres) of land. But if the river runs low, it becomes impossible to supply several neighbours simultaneously, and, in order to avoid making the interval between supplies too long, the duration of the suerte de agua is reduced by half or three-quarters.
The oases of Cuyo are like the small oases of the north-west as regards the function of those who are engaged in the administration of irrigation. The water-laws give the provincial functionaries general directions. Below them, however, to arrange the distribution of the water and the upkeep of the canals in detail, they have allowed to survive, and have merely regulated, certain primitive democratic organisms. At San Juan the superintendence of the irrigation is entrusted to elected municipal councils and the governor of the department. At Mendoza, the owners appoint a council of three delegates and an inspector for each canal, and these settle the annual budget of the canal, submit it to the provincial authorities, receive the taxes, carry out the necessary repairs, and so on. The great subdivision of property and the large number of electors make these little republics very lively; and they are very jealous of their autonomy.[37]
Even within the narrow limits of the Cuyo district the climatological conditions, which control the growth of the vine, are not everywhere the same. The opening of the vineyards varies by several weeks, according to the locality.[38] The northern slope of the cone, exposed to the sun and protected from the southern winds, is more precocious. Some districts, poorly sheltered from the southern winds, and very liable to have late frost, have not been planted with vines (district of the Tucuyan below San Carlos, to the south of Mendoza). Everywhere the dryness of the atmosphere causes the ripe grapes to remain long on the vine, so that the harvest may last two months or more without any harm. It thus requires a relatively small supplement of manual labour, and does not necessitate seasonal migrations. The length of the harvest, moreover, facilitates the trade in grapes, which is one of the special features of the Argentine vine-industry.
The climate is not so suitable for making wine as it is for growing vines. The temperature is high at the time of the harvest, and it retards fermentation in the cellars. The grapes have too much sugar and too little acid for the transformation of the must to proceed of itself. Hence it is necessary to have an expensive equipment, improved cellars, and skilled workers. This industrial organization is beyond the reach of the small cultivators. The cultivation of the vine and the making of wine are, therefore, not always associated. They are taken up by two different classes of the population. Tucumán has its cañeros and factories, and Mendoza, by a division of labour which seems to the European visitor as strange as the climate which partly explains it, has its vine-growers (viñateros) and its manufactures (bodegueros).[39]
Each of these two classes has had its share in the common work. The viñatores have created the vineyard. The creole vine, imported into Peru from the Canaries and spreading over the whole of the southern Andes, yields great quantities of a sugary, but rough fruit, which does not lend itself to imitating the wines of Europe. At Mendoza it has almost entirely disappeared, though it survives at San Juan. It is grown on trellis-work, wooden frames resting on forked branches of algarroba; though sometimes the strong stems rise without support to a height of about six feet and are crowned with shoots and leaves. The new vine has been grown from French cuttings. While the creole vines look like orchards, the French vines are grown in rows of iron wire.
The plantations were first made by creole workmen, who were paid by the day. Afterwards, as immigration from Europe increased, long-term contracts came into vogue, in virtue of which the colonist received the bare land and undertook to have it planted with vines at the end of three, four, or five years. The owner supplied the material, and at the end of the contract the colonist received a few centavos for each vine, or sold the whole or part of the first harvest. On account of these contracts there were always a great many foreigners in the districts where vineyards were in course of formation. The proportion is now less at Mendoza than at San Rafaël, where colonization is more recent. Whenever they could, the owners left to the colonists, not only the business of planting the vines, but the upkeep of adult vineyards. In those cases the colonist receives a fixed sum per hectare (100 piastres, for instance), and has to dig, prune, irrigate, etc. A large number of these agricultural workers and small contractors have saved a small capital, and purchased land of their own. This they have planted, and they thus form a new class of working owners.