The heading "cereals" appears in the statistics of Argentine exports in 1882. In 1900 the value of the agricultural produce exported is equal to that of the products of breeding. In 1904 it is higher.
Pastoral colonization, again, has not been entirely independent of the home market. Martin de Moussy says, it is true, that the area which sent the products of breeding to Europe in 1865 extended as far as the Sierra de Córdoba. But this statement needs correction. The hides from the whole of this zone were, in point of fact, sent down to the ports on the Rio de la Plata, but live animals were sent to Chile from the whole of the north-west of the Pampean region. It was for the purpose of selling cattle to Chile that ranches were multiplied about 1860 in the neighbourhood of Villa Mercedes and lower down, on the Rio Quinto. Jegou's description shows that even in 1883 the breeders of the San Luis province devoted themselves exclusively to supplying the Chilean market.[102] Buyers from Chile and the Andean provinces still visit Villa Mercedes, and until a recent date they came to Villa Maria, in the province of Córdoba. The Santa Fé ranches found their customers, until the opening of the Córdoba line (1870) amongst the troperos, who bought draught oxen for their waggons. The loss of these customers and the crisis that followed are one of the reasons why agricultural colonization met with so little resistance on the part of the breeders, and was able to take root so easily at Santa Fé. In the San Cristobal department the breeders who settled there after 1890 found their first market in the obrajes of the neighbouring forest. The opening of the railway to Tucumán afterwards enabled them to send their cattle to the provinces of the north-west. The Buenos Aires buyers were late in this remote canton of the Pampean plain. They did not arrive until 1911.
The importance of the Pampean region itself as a market of consumption grew in proportion to the increase of its population. The extent to which it absorbs the products of breeding and agriculture varies a good deal. For some of them it is paramount. Horse-breeding, for instance, which is still one of the great industries of the Pampa, has never contributed to the export trade. It is the same with regard to potatoes, which are concentrated in two strictly limited districts, round Rosario and north of the Sierra de Tandil. Only a small part of the dry fodder is exported. As regards cereals, a comparison of the statistics of production with the statistics of export shows that the home consumption is about one-third of the production. It is almost nil for flax, and nearly fifty per cent for wheat.
| Wheat. | Maize. | Flax. | Total (including Oats). | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Production | 4,241 | 6,398 | 931 | 12,662 |
| Export | 2,140 | 4,227 | 790 | 8,038 |
As the chief centres of consumption are the ports themselves, it follows that the commercial currents that have to supply them are confused with the currents which maintain the exports. The exchanges between the various regions of the Pampa are more interesting to the geographer. In their tendency to specialize, these regions have ceased to be self-contained, and they have to look to adjoining regions. The feeding of the mills necessitates the transport of wheat in different directions. The chief mills are at Buenos Aires, where they are suitably located to work both for the home market and for export; and the mills in the interior have some difficulty in competing with them. Some of these, however, are still active. They mix hard wheat, bought in the district of the Santa Fé colonies, with the soft wheat that is grown in the middle and south of Buenos Aires province.
But this inter-regional transport of cereals is a small thing in comparison with the transport of cattle. The extension of the lucerne farms has developed the fattening industry in many districts, while others still confine themselves to breeding in the ordinary sense, and they feed the other centres. The most specialized fattening district is that of Villa Mercedes and the western part of the lucerne belt, while the eastern part of the province of Buenos Aires and Entre Rios are still areas of production. The differentiation of the pastoral zones can be gathered from a study of the statistics. According to the 1908 Census, milch cows represent 53 per cent. of the whole of the cattle in all the departments which form the heart of the breeding area east of Buenos Aires, and only 45 per cent. in the departments of the north-west of Buenos Aires and south of Córdoba and in the Pedernera department of San Luis, where fattening is common.
According to the 1914 Census oxen are 24 per cent. of the herd in the same departments of eastern Buenos Aires; 24 per cent. also in Entre Rios; and the proportion rises to 31 per cent. in the lucerne area. Dolores department (eastern Buenos Aires) has 64 per cent. milch cows and 21 per cent. oxen. Pedernera department (San Luis, in the lucerne area) has 49 per cent. cows and 38 per cent. oxen. General Roca department (Córdoba) has 48 per cent. cows and 34 per cent. oxen. Arenales (Buenos Aires) has 39 per cent. cows and 46 per cent. oxen.[103]
Oxen intended for the refrigerators are bought either on the ranches or at Buenos Aires, where beasts in good condition are consigned to buyers, but oxen for fattening are bought at fairs which are held periodically in the towns of the interior. Another transaction at these fairs is the trade in pedigree breeders. The best known of them is held at Villa Mercedes (province of San Luis), where 8,000 oxen are sold every month. At the Mercedes fairs one may see Durham steers from the east of Buenos Aires which are to be fattened and sent back to the refrigerators or the slaughter-houses of Buenos Aires. There are also creole cattle from the north of the San Luis province and Rioja which will later be eaten in Mendoza or in Chile. There is, in fact, on the western frontier of the Pampa no line of demarcation corresponding to that set up in the north by the limit of the area contaminated by the garrapate, separating the district of creole breeding from that of selective breeding. There is free communication here between the two zones, and the lucerne fields for fattening at Villa Mercedes are used in common by the breeders of the Pampa and of the bush.[104]