In the year 1884 the experiment of freezing beef, killed in Buenos Aires, and shipping it to Europe was first tried. That was successful, but an immense improvement was made when the process of chilling became the common means by which meat could be exported. The frozen beef trade in Argentina has had a wonderful development; it commenced in 1884, and the export of chilled meat has progressed steadily at the rate of 25,000 beeves yearly, until, in 1908, it reached the enormous quantity of 573,946 beeves, or 180,000 tons. Frozen mutton has remained comparatively steady, and has only increased by 38,000 tons in twenty-two years, or from 2,000,000 sheep frozen in 1886 to 3,297,667 in 1908, whilst "jerked beef," which was mostly sent to Cuba and Brazil, has fallen from 50,000 tons per annum to 6,651 tons. The value of frozen and preserved meats exported in 1908 was £5,233,948.
The value of live-stock in Argentina in 1908 was made up as follows:—
| Cattle | £82,000,000 |
| Sheep | 25,000,000 |
| Horses | 18,000,000 |
| Mules | 2,000,000 |
| Pigs | 1,368,000 |
| Goats and Asses | 1,000,000 |
A few years ago it was common on an estancia feeding 50,000 or 60,000 cattle to find the household using canned Swiss milk. To-day 425,000 litres of milk are brought into the city of Buenos Aires each day for consumption, and no less than two tons of butter, one ton of cream, and three tons of cheese are used there daily. Argentina also exports butter. This trade has sprung up entirely within the last fourteen years, and in 1908 she exported 3,549 tons of butter, the value of which was £283,973.
Until 1876 Argentina imported wheat for home consumption; in that year, when for many years past agricultural labourers had been arriving at an average of 25,000 per annum, she began to export wheat with a modest shipment of 5,000 tons. Thirty years later the export had mounted up to 2,247,988 tons, and in 1908 the wheat exported amounted to 3,636,293 tons, and was valued at £25,768,520. Agricultural colonies had sprung up everywhere, and cattle became of second-rate importance; to-day the value of the exports of corn, which term includes wheat, barley, maize, oats, etc., is more than double that of cattle and cattle products. It is interesting to follow the evolution wrought by labour, intelligence, and capital in the prairie lands of Argentina. First, let us note the developments on those wonderful tracts of splendid prairie lands lying between the River Plate and the Andes: fifty years ago these lands were of little account, and only a few cattle were to be found roaming about them, but upon the advance of the railway they came under the plough, and, without much attention or care, produced wheat and maize. After a time improvements in the method of cultivation produced a better return, and to-day a great deal of attention is paid to the preparing of the land, and thought and care are given to the seed time, the growing, and the harvest. When it is found desirable to rest the land after crops of wheat and maize, etc., alfalfa is grown thereon. Alfalfa is one of the clover tribe, and has the peculiar property of attaching to itself those micro-organisms which are able to fix the nitrogen in the air and render it available for plant food. Every colonist knows the value of alfalfa for feeding his animals, but it is not every colonist who knows why this plant occupies such a high place amongst feeding stuffs. Alfalfa is easily grown, very strong when established, and, provided its roots can get to water, will go on growing for years. The raison d'être for growing alfalfa is for the feeding of cattle and preparing them for market, and for this purpose a league of alfalfa (6,177 acres metric measurement) will carry on an average 3,500 head. When grown for dry fodder it produces three or four crops per annum and a fair yield is from 6 to 8 tons per acre of dry alfalfa for each year. A ton of such hay is worth about $20 to $30, and after deducting expenses there is a clear return of about $14 per acre.
The figures supplied by one large company are interesting; they show that, on an average, cattle, when placed upon alfalfa lands, improve in value at the rate of $2.00 per head per month, so it is easy to place a value on its feeding properties. Thus, we will take a camp under alfalfa capable of carrying 10,000 head of cattle all the year round, where as the fattened animals are sold off an equal number is bought to replace them. Such a camp would bring in a clear profit of $200,000 per annum, and the property should be worth £175,000 sterling. An animal that has been kept all its life on rough camp, and, when too old for breeding, is placed for the first time on alfalfa lands, fattens extremely quickly, and the meat is tender and in quality compares favourably with any other beef. No business in Argentina of the same importance has shown such good returns as cattle breeding, and these results have been chiefly brought about by the introduction of alfalfa, and a knowledge of the life history of alfalfa is of the greatest importance to the cattle farmer. All cereal crops take from the soil mineral matter and nitrogen. Therefore, after continuous cropping the land becomes exhausted and generally poorer; experience has taught us that rotation of crops is a necessity to alleviate the strain on the soil, and such an axiom has this become that in many cases English landlords insist that their leases shall contain a clause binding the tenants to grow certain stated crops in rotation.
This system is known in England as the four-course shift. Knowledge gained by successive generations of observant farmers has given us the key to what Nature had hitherto kept to herself, and to-day we know why the plan adopted by our forefathers was right, and why the rotation of crops was, and is, a necessity. Men of science are devoting their lives to the systematic study of Nature's hidden secrets, and by means of Agricultural Colleges, as well as private individual research, these discoveries are being given to mankind, and long before the soils of Argentina show any serious loss of nitrogen from continuous cropping, science will probably have established means of applying in a practical manner those methods already known of propagating the nitrogen-collecting bacteria which thrive on alfalfa, clover, peas, soya beans, and other leguminous plants. Almost every country is now devoting time, money, and energy to agricultural research work. In 1908 the Agricultural College at Ontario prepared no less than 474 packages of Legume Bacteria, and in 309 cases beneficial results followed from the application thereof to the soil; in 165 cases no improvements in the crops were noticed, this may, however, have been due to the want of knowledge of how to manipulate the bacteria, or to lack of experience in noting effects scientifically, but in any case the experiment must be considered successful when the results obtained were satisfactory in no less than 65 per cent. of the trials. No greater factor exists than the microscope in opening up and hunting out the secrets concealed in the very soil we are standing on.
If soils were composed of nothing but pure silica sand, nothing would ever grow; but in Nature we find that soils contain all sorts of mineral matter, and chief amongst these is lime.
Alfalfa thrives on land which contains lime, and gives but poor results where this ingredient is deficient. The explanation is simple. There is a community of interest between the very low microscopic animal life, known as bacteria, and plant life generally. In every ounce of soil there are millions of these living germs which have their allotted work to do, and they thrive best in soils containing lime.
If one digs up with great care a root of alfalfa (it need not be an old plant, the youngest plant will show the same peculiarity), and care is taken in exposing the root (perhaps the best method is the washing away of the surrounding earth by water), some small nodules attached to the fine, hair-like roots are easily distinguished by the naked eye, and these nodules are the home of a teeming, microscopical, industrious population, who perform their allotted work with the silent, persistent energy so often displayed in Nature. Men of science have been able to identify at least three classes of these bacteria, and to ascertain the work accomplished by each. The reason for their existence would seem to be that one class is able to convert the nitrogen in the air into ammonia, whilst others work it into nitrite, and the third class so manipulate it as to form a nitrate which is capable of being used for plant food.