GROUP OF HEREFORDS.
The Hereford is the second favourite in Argentina, but breeders only pay about half as much for them as for good Durham bulls. Where the surroundings do not conduce to early maturity and where lucerne cannot be had, the Hereford is excellent. It is slow in maturing, and at three years of age is said to be 15 per cent. lighter than its rival, but the popularity of the Hereford is steadily increasing.
The factory at Colon is only seven years old and is splendidly equipped. Every process follows the other in geographical order, and each departmental factory duly delivers its produce into the vast shipping wharf. Behind stand the houses of the Company's servants, stores, schools for the children, and a club. Standing by a mighty river, in a green country, the industry presents none of the dingy conditions and ugliness which are associated with European wealth-production. It is rather a palace of health.
PEDIGREE COW AND CALF.
The killing season opens in January and ends in June, and usually about a quarter of a million beasts are slain—hecatombs as much exceeding the etymological sense of the word as the Homeric phrase doubtless fell below it. They are a stupendous yearly sacrifice to Æsculapius. It should be added that the factory at Colon is constantly inspected by a representative of the Cattle Inspection Department of the Ministry of the Argentine Republic, and he is required to certify each month that he has not allowed any animal to be killed that was not sound and free from disease. Nothing that the bounty of Nature or the skill of man can achieve is left undone to secure the perfect condition of all the products.
That statesman is proverbially the wisest who can make two blades of corn grow where one grew before. In like manner, the men who can transmute scrubby sheep and big-boned, lean cattle into well-proportioned animals with heavy fleeces and fat stock is a benefactor to the human race. In Argentina, at least, to say nothing of other lands, this work has been most effectually accomplished by private effort, and in reviewing the pastoral industries of Argentina we must admire the enterprise which has scattered plenty over the land. The old poets associated wealth and peace with great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep.
"One way a band select from forage drives
A herd of beeves, fair oxen and fair kine,
From a fat meadow ground; or fleecy flock,
Ewes and their bleating lambs over the plain."