The 1908 Census shows a very different state of things. The density of the wheat-cultivation has continued to grow appreciably in the whole of the northern region, and also in the south-west of the province, at some distance from the Paraná (General Lopez department). On the other hand, it has been reduced in the adjoining district of Rosario (departments of Iriondo, Belgrana, Caseros, and Constitución), where maize-growing has developed. Maize has won part of the wheat belt.
| Departments.[98] | Wheat Area (in kilometres). | Maize Area (in kilometers). | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1889 | 1895 | 1908 | 1889 | 1895 | 1908 | |
| Las Colonias | } 1,623 { | 1,307 | 1,621 | } 82 { | 24 | 31 |
| Castillanos | 1,845 | 3,425 | 4 | 7 | ||
| S. Jeronimo | } 664 { | 854 | 849 | } 65 { | 15 | 264 |
| S. Martin | 964 | 1,884 | 22 | 35 | ||
| Iriondo | } 971 { | 929 | 442 | } 65 { | 81 | 641 |
| Belgrano | 1,137 | 638 | 37 | 296 | ||
| S. Lorenzo | } 652 { | 387 | 1,390 | } 178 { | 150 | 1,169 |
| Caseros | 1,139 | 468 | 83 | 970 | ||
| Gal. Lopez | } 12 { | 888 | 1,370 | } 51 { | 373 | 1,558 |
| Constitución | 227 | 165 | 575 | 736 | ||
| S. Justo | } 12 { | 732 | 2,345 | } 48 { | 7 | 34 |
| M. Juarez | 1,504 | 1,442 | 53 | 92 | ||
Restricted in the south by the extension of the maize belt, the region of the colonies has now a very distinctive character amongst the agricultural areas of the Pampa.
This originality is not so much in virtue of its crops (hard wheat and flax) as on account of the age of colonization and the division of property. Most of the colonists are owners, and estates of 50 to 200 hectares are the rule. The houses are comfortable; they are surrounded by orchards and kitchen-gardens. Moreover, the rural economy has been complicated, and it has assumed a familiar aspect for the European observer, owing to the introduction of cattle-rearing on a small scale by the farmers. The number of horned cattle doubled between 1908 and 1914 in the Castellanos department, and increased by a third in Las Colonias. The area of lucerne has extended in proportion. The farms have been multiplied on the low lands (cañadas), unsuitable for wheat, which the older colonists had disdained; but they are now regarded as the best bits of land. The recent rise in the value of land in the region of the colonies is connected, not with an increase of agricultural production, but a development of breeding. A few co-operative diary dairy societies have been established. In general, however, breeding is solely for the meat-market. The cattle-trade goes on very different lines from those of the large estates and ranches. It has remained in the hands of small dealers (Jews of Moïsesville).
Agricultural colonization in the Buenos Aires province was at first entirely independent of the Santa Fé colonization. The crops of the adjoining region of Buenos Aires never disappeared altogether. In the period to which Daireaux's description of the economic life of the Pampa refers (1880-89), the farmers disputed with the breeders a belt some ten leagues broad round the capital. But sheep-breeding left no place for agriculture in the next belt, which enclosed the first on every side, and extended almost as far as the Salado. Agricultural colonization had found free land only beyond the sheep-farm area, 170 miles west of Buenos Aires, round Chivilcoy, Chacabuco, and Bragado. As early as 1872 the Chivilcoy district produced 130,000 hectolitres of wheat; or nearly half the total production of the Buenos Aires province. In 1889 it formed a comparatively dense agricultural patch, the cultivated area being devoted half to wheat and half to maize.
| Wheat. | Maize. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chivilcoy | 307 | kms. | 399 | kms. |
| Chacabuco | 155 | " | 164 | " |
| Bragado | 147 | " | 261 | " |
At that date the whole west and south of the Buenos Aires province was exclusively pastoral. There were only two isolated nuclei of agricultural colonization. The first was round Olavarria, on the old Indian frontier, where Russo-German colonies had been established in 1878. The second was in the Suarez department, at the extreme north of the Sierra de la Ventana, where a group of French colonists settled five years later, at Pigüe.[99] The opening of the line from Buenos Aires to Bahía Blanca ought, one would think, to have prepared the way for agricultural colonization in this section. However, the 1895 Census shows a check to these first attempts at tillage in the south. It fell by one half at Suarez, and by three-fourths at Olavarria. The Pigüe colonists have succeeded in keeping to their lands, but those of Olavarria have abandoned them, and most of them have emigrated to the Entre Rios province.
THE PAMPEAN PLAIN. BUENA ESPERANZA (SAN LUIS PROVINCE).