On the other hand, colonization has kept the land won in the district of the middle Salado, and it extends in a sporadic way toward the south-west and west. (Nueve de Julio, 252 square kilometres of wheat and 400 of maize: Veinte Cinco de Mayo, 84 square kilometres of wheat and 218 of maize: Junin, 197 square kilometres of wheat and 204 of maize in 1895). It has been maintained ever since, with slow progress, but without being ousted by breeding. This is one of the regions of the Pampa where the most different types of rural exploitation are mingled together. Agricultural colonization has been carried on both by small proprietors and farmers or tenants. Wheat and maize seem to be permanently associated, and the climate is equally good for both; the maize crop being the better if the summer is wet, and the wheat crop when the summer is dry. The two cereals follow each other on the same land, in rotation, the wheat being helped by the constant weeding and clearing which the maize requires. The colonists use oxen in the work, and fatten them afterwards.[100]
Agricultural colonization in the lucerne region dates from 1895 to 1905:
| Wheat Area (in kilometres). | Flax Area (in kilometres). | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1895 | 1908 | 1895 | 1908 | |
| Buenos Aires: | ||||
| Lincoln | 152 | 819 | 100 | |
| Pehuajo | 106 | 727 | ||
| Guamini | 20 | 528 | ||
| Trenque Lauquen | 100 | 1,439 | 59 | |
| Villegas | 4 | 812 | 1 | 84 |
| Pinto | 469 | 60 | ||
| Córdoba: | ||||
| Gal. Roca | 1,009 | 89 | ||
| Rio Quarto | 5 | 1,156 | 172 | |
| Juarez Celman | 144 | 1,679 | 183 | |
| Union | 373 | 2,548 | 12 | 316 |
I have shown how this was bound up with the development of the lucerne farms themselves. The extreme west of the lucerne belt (Pedernera department and San Luis) is the only place where the cultivated area was reduced. The contracts by which the ranchers entrust their lands to the colonists, on condition of returning them sown with lucerne, were gradually modified as the stream of colonization developed. The land was at first left to the colonist rent free, the rancher being paid by the creation of the lucerne fields. But in proportion to the increasing volume of the stream of immigrants, and the keener competition of the colonists, the rancher asked better terms. There are similar contracts in regard to the restoration of lucerne fields which have been worn out by pasturage, so that the land has to be ploughed up periodically. The men who clear the land in the lucerne belt have mostly been recruited in the district of the old colonies of Santa Fé, where the new generation had begun to feel the pinch. The crops which they raise during the four or five years of their lease are chosen without any idea of sparing lands which they are not to keep. Wheat succeeds wheat, and the first and last crop is often flax. The proportion of flax is lower only in the southern part of the lucerne belt. In the Buenos Aires province the colonist grows lucerne on his own account, either to sell as dry fodder or for breeding or fattening.
Colonization does not in these parts correspond with the division of property. Not only does the farmer not become the owner of the soil, but he does not live on it permanently; he is a veritable nomad. His house has a temporary look that strikes one at the first glance. The area cultivated is almost stable, if the region is considered as a whole. But cultivation passes periodically from one section to another, and its removals cause sudden alterations or crises in the railway traffic and the development of the urban centres.
The lucerne belt has been peopled by Santafecinos, and it has in turn sent colonists to the western agricultural belt at the foot of the Sierras de San Luis and de Córdoba. They have less suitable climatological conditions, but they have the advantage of greater stability, as the breeders do not dispute the land with them.
While agricultural colonization has been an aid to pastoral colonization in the north-west of Buenos Aires, it tends to displace breeding, or restrict its sphere, in the north-east and the south. Maize-growing started on the banks of the Paraná, where it was already paramount in 1889, between Campana (north of Buenos Aires) and San Nicolas. In 1895 it advanced up the Paraná as far as the Santa Fé province (Constitución) and spread over the interior for some sixty miles in the Salto department. In the next few years it made rapid progress toward the west and north-west, covering the departments of Pergamino, Rojas, and Colon, and part of General Lopez, San Lorenzo, and Constitución in the province of Santa Fé.
| Maize Area. | Flax Area. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1889 | 1895 | 1908 | 1889 | 1895 | 1908 | |
| Campana | 67 | 45 | 22 | 15 | 31 | 17 |
| Baradero | 339 | 260 | 291 | 26 | 78 | 173 |
| S. Pedro | 398 | 353 | 420 | 5 | 73 | 235 |
| Arrecifes | 124 | 126 | 155 | 15 | 50 | 265 |
| Salto | 16 | 326 | 236 | 13 | 3 | 75 |
| Gal. Lopez | } 51 { | 373 | 1,538 | 70 | 752 | |
| Constitución | 575 | 736 | 270 | 404 | ||
| Pergamino | 168 | 160 | 340 | 50 | 30 | 275 |
| Rojas | 86 | 81 | 247 | 4 | 23 | 275 |
| Colon | 44 | 126 | 14 | 78 | ||
| S. Lorenzo | 178 | 150 | 1,169 | 11 | 36 | 450 |
| Caseros | 83 | 990 | 13 | 319 | ||