The Argentine Republic: Its Development and Progress

by Pierre Denis

The constitution of the flock and the first occupation of the land have compelled breeders to undertake difficult journeys, and more than one of these proved disastrous. The earliest arrivals, driving their sheep along little-known tracks, could not avoid losses in crossing the arid parts of the tableland: parts which D'Orbigny, translating literally the Spanish word travesia, calls "crossings."[70] When the ranch is established, the breeding does not necessitate any further movements of the flocks to a great distance, apart from certain special migrations, or "transhumations," which I will consider later. It is on each ranch, sometimes on each group of ranches combined in a single estate, that they pass alternately from winter to summer pasture. The only transport necessary is that of wool. The fleeces, which the west wind has heavily laden with dust, are collected in the sheds belonging to the ranch, or, in the case of the intrusos, on the premises of certain small traders (bolicheros) who are scattered over the tableland even at its extreme limits. Convoys of wagons then take them to the ports on the coast.

For some years now, however, wool has ceased to be the sole product of the ranches. A little before 1895 the first slaughter-houses, for killing the older sheep that were no longer fertile, were erected on the Straits of Magellan. Refrigerators have succeeded these, and were opened at Puerto Callegos and San Julian. A third refrigerator is being constructed (1915) at Puerto Deseado. In southern Patagonia, also, part of the flock is sent to the refrigerators or to the slaughter houses of the Pampean region. The creation of the refrigerator has compelled breeders to adapt their work to the new economic conditions. The merino breed is being eliminated by the Lincoln in all districts which feel the influence of the refrigerator; the Lincoln is of greater weight and quicker growth, but the merino survives in arid northern Patagonia.

Besides this, the establishment of the refrigerators has caused important movements of transport. The flocks which are to go to the refrigerators or the northern railways are moved in the good season, after the shearing, from November to April. The routes they take are not invariable. One of the most frequented, leading from the sub-Andean tablelands to San Julian, follows the Santa Cruz valley. When the land was cut up, there was no reason to foresee these movements, and nothing was done to facilitate them. The roads cross the ranches, which are compelled to allow it. It is a serious burden for some of them, unless they can make a profit out of their situation on the road by hiring pasture for the flocks as they pass.

The Andean zone itself is still mainly pastoral, but it is nevertheless far more varied and richer in possibilities of development than the tableland. Agriculture is already combined with breeding in that area.

The name vegas, which in the Puna and at San Juan means alpine pasture, is applied here to tilled patches in the Andean valleys. They are found in the north in the valley of the Neuquen, round Chosmalal. In the south, the valley of the Rio Pico marks the limit of cultivation. Irrigation is almost always necessary north of Lake Nahuel Huapi, where the vegas have, as a rule, a soil of coarse alluvia or permeable tufa, which dries up quickly. Water is plentiful, it is true, and increases in quantity rapidly as one travels southward. The chief obstacle to the extension of cultivation is the frequency of frost in spring and summer. The deep hollows of the sub-Andean depression south of Lake Nahuel Huapi, the height of which drops to 1,000 feet at the Bolson, and 1,600 feet at Diez y seis de Octubre, have no frosts in summer, and they sustain small agricultural communities. At higher levels, in the basin of the lake or on the vegas of the Traful and Lake Lacar, at an altitude of about 2,600 feet, the distribution of the summer frosts is closely related to the contour and lie of the land, which may facilitate or impede the circulation of the layers of cold air, and the play of what has been called atmospheric drainage. The valleys which are very open from west to east, at the outlet of the lakes, where the west winds have a free passage, are little liable to frost. Wherever frost is frequent, cultivation has to be restricted to fodder plants. The more favoured cantons, which grow wheat, rye and potatoes, help to feed the local pastoral population, and export part of their produce to some distance on the tableland.

Cattle-breeding is, like sheep-breeding on the tableland, practised both by the pobladores on public lands and by ranchers who have settled on regular concessions, which they have worked up and fenced round. The high alpine pastures, above the fringe of the forest, are partly used, from December to March, as summer-pasture. The forest also serves for pasture; it is a sort of common land, available both in winter and summer. Below the height of 3,500 feet the clumps of bamboos in the underwood provide shelter during the winter and fodder which is not buried under snow. The fires lit by the breeders have changed part of the primitive forest into a scrub which has been invaded by a leguminous climbing fodder, and it has superior pastoral capacity to the forest. East of the forest, the prairie, which is too much exposed to the winds, is not generally suitable for winter-pasture. The cattle take refuge in sheltered valleys and in the mayten thickets which follow the depressions. Bailey Willis puts the pastoral capacity of the virgin forest at 400 cattle to each 2,500 hectares, 600 for the burnt forest, and 350 for the sub-Andean prairies. The essential problem in connection with the question of completely developing the pastoral resources of the sub-Andean region is the problem of transit. There are no roads from one district to another and to the higher prairies. The fallen trunks which lie about the forest obstruct the way of the cattle. Collecting the animals for sale and watching them are both difficult.

It seems that the profit of exploiting the timber must necessarily be small. The forest, thinned by fire and difficult of access, is partly composed of trees that are too old. The libocedrus has disappeared from one-third of it. The larch, which is the most valuable, passes into Argentine territory at few places. Saw-mills are not so numerous on the eastern slope of the Andes as they are in the Magellan area.

The essential function of the forest is, according to Argentine experts on forestry, to control the water-circulation. In this land of glacial erosion and recent captures, where the water-courses have always a great variety of form, and there are lakes to make their output more regular, it is particularly easy to make use of hydraulic power. "White coal" will, Bailey Willis says, make a great industrial region of it, and plant an urban life in it. Bailey Willis, whose optimism and prophetic gift will not fail to surprise the European reader, has drawn the plans in detail of a future town of 40,000 souls at the eastern end of Lake Nahuel Huapi. The Patagonian land will supply the raw material of its industries; timber, leather, and wool.

One, at least, of the indispensable conditions of the development of urban life is fully realized in the district of Lake Nahuel Huapi and the Limay. It is a remarkable meeting-place of natural roads, and its economic value will increase in the future. It is the point where the road from eastern Patagonia by the sub-Andean depression, from the Gulf of San Antonio on the Atlantic, and from the Rio Negro by the Limay, and the roads that lead to Chile across the Cordillera, meet. The whole zone of the Andes between 36° S. lat. and 42° S. lat., the latitude of the southern part of the Chilean plain, has numerous and easy passes. There has always been close communication between the two slopes, and people have emigrated freely from one to the other. But north of 39° S. lat. the passes are rarely lower than 5,000 feet. They are covered with snow in the winter, and can be used for traffic only in certain seasons. It is not the same south of the volcano Lanin. That is the beginning of the glacial valleys which go to the heart of the Cordillera, some of them crossing the mountains from east to west. They have not yet been entirely explored. The Bariloche pass, south of the Tronador, by which the Chilean missionaries reached Nahuel Huapi in the eighteenth century, is no longer used. The Cajon Negro pass, west of Lake Traful, through which Bailey Willis traces the line of a southern trans-Andean railway, was only recently discovered, and the valleys which run into it on the Chilean side are not yet well known. The two best-known trans-Andean routes to-day are the Perez Rosales road, which leads from Chile to Nahuel Huapi by the north of the Tronador, and further north, the road from Lake Lacar to San Martin. Both these have received some attention, and the lakes are connected by telegraph or telephone. The frequent need to unload and reload makes the traffic costly, but it is permanent and is not interrupted in winter. The reduction of the export of cattle to Chile has cut down the traffic for a time, but it is sure to recover. The permanent importance of it is one of the facts most clearly written by nature upon the soil of South America.