THE ARGENTINE AS AN AGRICULTURAL COUNTRY
AGRICULTURE
Natural Conditions—The Constitution of
Property—The three principal agricultural
districts—The northern, central, and southern
districts—The division of crops and their varieties.
The constitution of rural property—The division of
property—The great estates, called “estancias,” and their
dimensions.
The drawbacks of large properties—The necessity of a better
subdivision of the public lands—The division into
lots of large tracts of land, in order to encourage
colonisation—The system of exploiting property.
Agricultural Production—Progress realised in the last
seventeen years—Comparative yield of the chief products,
wheat, flax, and maize—Lucerne; the importance of the crop
and the excellent results obtained.
Increase of the area under seed—The total area cultivated in
the agricultural years 1908-1909—The great agricultural
belts.
The Province of Buenos Ayres, its agricultural development
and its crops—The Province of Santa Fé—The Province of
Córdoba—The Territory of the Pampa Central.
Agricultural machinery, its importation from abroad, and
especially from the United States.
The Agricultural Yield—The yield of the soil in
the different Provinces—Exceptional results in certain
districts—Detailed calculation of the yield of a wheat
farm—Two instances of great wealth realised by immigrants
into the Argentine.
The Argentine Republic, which we are now about to consider from the
geological and hydrographical point of view, offers, by the mere fact
of its physical constitution, an immense future for agriculture on the
largest possible scale, and at the same time for stock-raising and the
rural industries.
We find that the country contains three principal agricultural regions:
(1) the region to the north of the provinces of Santa Fé and Entre Rios;
(2) the central region which runs southward from the limits of the
northern, as far as the south of the Province of Buenos Ayres and the
Territory of La Pampa, including a portion of the Territories of Rio
Negro and Neuquen; (3) the southern region, which
runs
southward from
the limits of the central region, down to Tierra del Fuego.
The first region is characterised by a hot climate, with regular rains in
the eastern parts; in the west the rainfall is less frequent. The central
region enjoys a temperate climate; there, as in the northern region, the
rains are regularly distributed in the eastern parts, but are very rare
in the west, which is subject to long periods of drought. In the southern
region the rains are less frequent and the climate is more severe, with
the exception of the west and the extreme south, which are also in a
rainy belt.
After long experience a kind of natural selection has come into
operation with regard to agriculture; the various crops are to-day
distributed nearly as follows: Cereals, such as wheat, barley, oats,
maize, and
millet,[35]
are cultivated more especially in the region
formed by the Provinces of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, Entre Rios, Córdoba,
and the Territory of the Pampa, which latter is par excellence the
cereal-growing district. Maize, however, is grown over a still wider
region; it is cultivated with success in the whole of the central and
northern regions of the Republic. Rice can also be grown in these
regions; its culture is being developed in the Provinces of Tucuman,
San Juan, Mendoza, Salta, La Rioja, and Jujuy, and also in Corrientès,
Formosa, Chaco and Misionès. The Provinces of Santa Fé, Entre Rios, and
Buenos Ayres are also capable of producing
rice.[36]
Oleaginous plants, such as the castor-oil plant, sesame, and the poppy,
find favourable conditions of growth in the north, while
linseed,[37]
colza, and rape prosper in the cereal districts.
The sugar-cane is cultivated in the northern region,
but
especially in
Tucuman, in part of Santiago de l’Estero, Salta, Jujuy, and Corrientès,
and in the north of Santa Fé, Formosa, Chaco and Misionès.
The vine is cultivated chiefly in Mendoza and San Juan, where the
conditions of soil and climate are favourable, and where it is
methodically irrigated by the canals which water the whole of the
vine-growing districts; but the wine and the dessert grape can be grown
in the whole of the central region. It also prospers in La Rioja,
Catamarca, Salta, and Entre Rios.
Stock-raising is followed especially in the Provinces of Buenos Ayres,
Santa Fé, and Entre Rios, and in the south of the Province of Córdoba;
and in a great part of the Pampa Central.
The principal characteristics of Argentine agriculture having been
considered, we must now inquire how rural property is constituted; that
is, among how many proprietors or tenants the 35,000,000 acres under
cultivation at the end of 1908 are shared.
In the United States, for example, we know by the census of 1900 that the
840,000,000 acres given over to agriculture are divided into 5,739,657
distinct holdings, giving an average of about 142 acres per holding.
In France, according to the statistics for 1892, 11,250,000 acres were
divided into 5,702,000 holdings, the average extent being about 21 acres.
Is it possible to obtain similar figures for the Argentine? The national
census of 1895 gives us certain data respecting the division of rural
property in this country. The 172,000 holdings, agricultural or pastoral,
which were included in this census, had an area of 20,295,000 acres,
according to the declarations of the owners; and comparing this figure
with the area actually under cultivation, amounting to 12,800,000 acres,
we find that only about the half of these holdings is tilled and sown,
the rest being left as pasture.
This census also took note of the area of each agricultural holding,
and although the result of this inquiry has not been published, a
simple division of the number of acres by that of the holdings gives
us an average of 118 to 123 acres per holding; a figure that would be
satisfactory enough, if it came anywhere near the
reality.[38]
The national inventory gives only these data in respect of this subject.
As we see, they are far from complete; but even if they were, the
progress of agriculture during the last few years has been so great that
to-day they would only possess a purely historical interest.
Happily the agricultural census (including a census of stock), which was
taken during the first half of May 1908 throughout the whole Republic,
gives us some valuable information on this head.
This inquiry affected 222,174 holdings, agricultural or pastoral, which
had a total area of 450,000 square miles, the area of the Republic being
1,134,700 square miles. This is how these 222,174 holdings are divided:—
There are 53,954 holdings measuring from 27·2 to 123·4 acres; 48,323 of
less than 25 acres; 46,553 of from 250 to 740 acres; 29,624 of from 125
to 247 acres; 12,992 of from 743.5 to 1234 acres; 11,104 of from 1236 to
2470 acres; 2968 of from 2970 to 9260 acres; 2052 of from 9260 to 12,350
acres; 1157 of from 12,350 to 24,680 acres. Holdings of more than 24,680
acres are relatively rare, in comparison with the rest; 423 have an area
of from 24,680 to 30,870 acres; 781 of from 30,870 to 61,750 acres; 168
of from 61,750 to 114,250 acres; 65 of from 114,250 to 123,440 acres, and
finally there are 104 holdings of more than 123,440 acres.
These figures, compared with those of the census of 1895, reveal the fact
that in thirteen years the number of rural holdings has increased by
50,174, and that the area given over to the two forms of usage, which lie
at the base of the wealth of the Republic, has increased by 276,760,000
acres.
But in spite of this extraordinary development during the last few years,
from the point of view of the distribution of the soil, the Argentine
is still in a primitive, indeed, almost in a feudal state, by reason of
the enormous tracts of lands which are monopolised by a small number
of owners. These owners utilise their enormous properties in raising
cattle on the great ranches known as “estancias,” or employ them for
agricultural purposes, when they do not prefer to leave them in a waste
and unproductive condition, waiting until time and economic progress
shall give them a value which their own efforts are incapable of giving
them.
These “estancias”—that is to say, the most usual system of utilising the
soil—vary in area from 12,000 to 180,000 or 200,000 acres; some are even
over 330,000 acres in extent. Many of them are only a few hours distant
from the city of Buenos Ayres, or border on the outskirts of important
urban centres.
Such tracts of land given over to stock-raising and owned by private
individuals would be inconceivable in most European countries, where
private holdings are small; nor are they much more usual in a new country
of vast area, like the United States, where more than half the cultivated
lands are divided into farms of less than 100 acres each, and where
holdings of more than 1000 acres, whether under seed or in pasture, are
the exception, the average of all properties and holdings being 143 acres.
It is easy to understand, without a lengthy demonstration, how far
this state of affairs goes to retard the general development of the
country. It is equally easy to understand that in order to stimulate
this development it is necessary before all else to secure an increased
foreign population, by attracting it through the powerful bait of landed
property.
The great obstacle in the way of the agricultural development of the
Argentine arises essentially from the faulty property system; from
the fact that enormous tracts of land are held by a few men; from the
establishment, in short, of the most odious system of latifundia ever
known. This trouble arises from the lack of foresight with which the
State has parted with enormous tracts of land, which have passed into the
hands of speculators or large land-owners, who have left them untouched,
while waiting for the value of their holdings to rise.
In the national territories, according to the deputy Joachim Castellanos,
who is busily lighting the system of latifundia, there are belts
of land, now private property, which are divided in the following
proportions: 2,470,000 acres into holdings of from 25 to 99,000 acres
each; 7,400,000 acres into holdings of from 99,000 to 198,000 acres each;
and 7,934,000 acres into properties of 190,000 or 200,000, and over. This
means that there are 17,280,000 acres of
useful
and cultivable land, in
the hands of unenterprising capitalists remaining, unproductive, used to
increase neither the population nor the production of the
country.[39]
The principal author of this deep-rooted evil is incontestably the
Argentine State, which has squandered its rich inheritance, by allowing
it to pass into the hands of speculators, instead of dividing it
equitably among the new colonists. The subdivision of these great tracts
of land, now concentrated in the hands of a few large proprietors,
is, to-day, one of the necessary conditions of the development of the
country, and it is with reason that influential voices are raising
themselves, in Parliament and in the Press, to proclaim this economic
truth.
The great “estancias” of 180 square miles in area, covered by immense
herds of cattle, must finally, says M. F. Segni, author of an
Investigacion agricola, be divided into small concerns of from 4000
to 12,000 acres, which would, with fewer animals but a better system,
yield a greater profit both to the owner and to the country. The old
system of large ranching must gradually give way to an intensive system,
when stock-raising, combined with agriculture, will employ a larger
population, attract more capital, and realise better results.
There is happily no need to be greatly pessimistic on this point, as
we can already perceive a tendency to the subdivision of property,
which comes from the powers of the State as well as from land-owners or
commercial companies. Thus the land law of 1907 was passed solely with
the object of preventing large monopolies; it prohibits the acquisition
for the benefit of a single person of any portion of the national domains
of greater area than 6170 acres. The importance of this step will be
understood, when we remember that the State has still to dispose of 212
millions of acres of desert land, suitable for agriculture, and situated
in territories which are rapidly becoming peopled.
On the other hand, there are certain business concerns which, as owners
of enormous tracts of land, are dividing them into small lots, which
they are offering freehold to prospective farmers at fairly moderate
prices, and
facilities
of payment are offered at the same time. Among
these firms we may mention the “Sociedad Anonima la Curumalan,” owning
some 600,000 acres of land in the southern portion of the Province of
Buenos Ayres, suitable both for cattle-raising and for agriculture,
which is selling land at from £2, 2s. to £3 per acre, according to the
quality and the situation, payable in three or four years; the payment by
instalments being increased by an interest varying from 7 to 9 percent.
yearly. The “Stroeder Colonisation Society,” which has exploited a large
belt of agricultural country; the “Compañia de Colonisation del Rio de la
Plata;” the “Estancia y Colonia Trenel,” founded by the great Argentine
land-owner, Antonio Devoto, and a large number of other companies and
syndicates are working on the basis of enabling the colonist to acquire
his own land, and are doing successful business.
A striking example of progress in this matter of the subdivision of
property is furnished by the statistics of the Province of Córdoba for
the years between 1898-1899 and 1905-1906. During this period 3,193,600
acres of land, out of a total of 9,823,300 acres, which represent the
colonies and settled land of the province, have been sold to farmers;
that is, nearly a third. Thanks to this subdivision, the number of
colonists in this province who have become the actual proprietors of
larger or smaller holdings has risen to 4568. What is happening in
Córdoba is also happening more or less rapidly in the other agricultural
provinces; and it is by this method that the Argentine will one day
succeed in abolishing the latifundia, whose progressive disappearance
is a condition of further development.
We might multiply the instances of land-owners or commercial enterprises
which are helping the labourer to buy land, for the system of dividing
the land into small allotments, selling it at a cheap price, and allowing
payment by instalments, is every day becoming more widespread. The
journals are full of announcements of the sale by auction of lands which,
until to-day, have never felt the ploughshare, and are now given over
to colonisation. One also hears men speak, as of an accomplished fact,
of the method initiated by several railway-companies which
propose,
by
means of their own capital, to bring into the market and increase the
value of the vast tracts of uncultivated land which they own on the
outskirts of their systems.
Unhappily, in spite of this tendency to the subdivision of the soil, the
most usual system of working the land is still that of letting it at a
fixed rent, or for a certain proportion of the yield in place of rent,
or by a profit-sharing system, under which the tenant receives 50, 40,
or 30 per cent, of the harvest. The large land-owners, who are the most
numerous, prefer the former method, and often impose on the farmer the
obligation of leaving a crop of lucerne on the land in the last year of
the tenancy.
The chief drawback of this system is that the labourer never becomes
the owner of the soil he cultivates, so that he is not actuated by the
powerful ties of property, which should attach him to the country and its
destinies. On the other hand, too, the tenant tries to obtain from the
soil the largest profit he can, without troubling to consider whether
he is exhausting it or not; he leaves not even a tree behind him as a
monument of his tenancy. But in spite of all these drawbacks this system
does furnish the colonist with means to buy land cheaply later on, and
in another district. Such is the history of many farmers, who began by
humbly labouring under the conditions above described, and are to-day
rich land-owners, possessing enormous tracts of land, which they work in
the way that they find most profitable.
It is hardly necessary to say that the agricultural methods employed
vary according to the situation of the farms, their fertility, and the
means of communication. Agriculture, properly so called, establishes
itself and spreads along the waterways or railways which facilitate the
transport of the harvests. The crops principally grown cannot afford the
cost of transport at a greater distance than 180 or 190 miles by railway
from the nearest point of embarkation or consumption, and the nearest
railway-station must not be further than 18 or 20 miles. There are only
a few crops of greater value that can be profitably grown at greater
distances, their higher prices covering the increased cost of transport.
The region consisting of the Provinces of Buenos
Ayres,
Santa Fé,
Córdoba, and Entre Rios, which is the richest in cereals, is also that in
which the greatest number of small farms are to be found. The statistics
for 1901-1902 show that out of 37,434 farms 13,150, or about 36 per
cent., were worked by their owners; 18,819, or 50 per cent., by tenants;
and 5465, or 14 per cent., by métayers—that is, tenants who give up
from half to two-thirds of the crops to the owner of the land. Other more
recent statistics, relating to the Province of Santa Fé, give the number
of farmers owning their land at the time of the harvest as 6747, or 32
per cent., and the number of tenants as 14,227, or 68 per cent.
The majority of the farms, especially those cultivated by the owners,
says the Investigación agricola, have an area varying from 60 to 250
acres. Farms held on lease or by payment of part of the harvest are
usually larger, especially in the former case, and the work is done with
greater expedition, but as a rule less perfectly and without the same
stimulus. Farms varying from 750 to 1500 acres and more which employ
day-labourers are still less numerous, since as a general thing nothing
is gained by employing them. On the other hand, however, there are large
farms whose owners in reality only supervise matters of administration,
and which are divided among tenant-farmers or métayers, paying so much
per cent, of the harvest, or a rent in kind, according to the crops and
the conditions agreed upon. In such a case the proprietor or colonist is
not actually an agriculturalist, but a business man, who more often than
not has not sufficient knowledge to assume the scientific or even the
rational direction of the operations on his estate.
Having considered the physical conditions of the Argentine soil,
the regions given over to particular forms of agriculture, and the
disposition of rural property, the moment has now come to consider what
areas are at present respectively producing crops of various kinds from
seed, comparing them not only with the area of each province, but also
with the statistics of previous years. In making this inquiry, we have a
valuable starting-point in the Censo
agropecuario,
taken in the month
of October 1888; the first serious undertaking of the kind ever attempted
in the Republic under competent
direction.[40]
In an introductory chapter the Director of this census says: “It is
only eleven years since the products of Argentine agriculture have been
greater than the country’s needs. For example, the quantities of wheat
exported before 1878 were so small as to be negligible. Now we see that
in eleven years we have reached a point at which we export 8,800,000
bushels of wheat (1887), 255,000 bushels of flour (1888), 14,470,000
bushels of maize (1887), and 3,248,000 bushels of linseed (1887). Those
who will look into these figures will perhaps agree that they represent a
great progress for so short a time.”
The area of agricultural land in cultivation, according to the census
of 1888, amounted for the whole Republic to 5,984,790 acres, of which
2,014,000 acres, or about 33 per cent. were under wheat; 1,979,830 acres,
or 33 per cent., under maize; 963,320 acres, or 16 per cent., under
lucerne; 299,050 acres, or 5 per cent., under linseed; 71,420 acres, or
1·2 per cent., under barley; 97,660 acres, or .9 per cent., under vines;
52,020 acres, or ·8 per cent., under sugar-cane, and the rest under crops
of no great importance.
This point of departure being established, let us pass over the follies
of and the damage caused by the frantic speculations of 1888 and 1889,
as well as the financial failures of 1890, and let us call a halt at the
year 1895, in which the country, still under the effect of a terrible
catastrophe only lately undergone, had recovered itself and resumed work
with a fresh ardour: the only proper remedy to heal its wounds, and to
set it once more on the paths of progress. This inventory of the progress
realised by the Argentine during seven years of misfortune is all the
more interesting in that the second national census was taken at this
time, thus precisely marking the economic, democratic, and political
progress of the country. We find that in 1895—limiting our inquiry to
the four principal
cultures—the
progress realised during these seven
years was as follows:—
| Products. |
1888 |
1895 |
Increase in Seven Years. |
| |
Acres
Cultivated. |
Acres
Cultivated. |
Absolute. |
Per cent. |
| Wheat |
2,014,130 |
5,062,717 |
3,048,587 |
151 |
| Linseed |
299,050 |
946,690 |
647,640 |
219 |
| Maize |
1,979,910 |
3,073,130 |
1,093,220 |
55 |
| Lucerne |
963,300 |
1,729,000 |
766,700 |
79 |
| |
———— |
————— |
———— |
—— |
| Totals |
5,256,390 |
10,811,537 |
5,555,147 |
105 |
If we now compare the figures for 1895 with those for 1902, we find that
the national agricultural expansion has never ceased during this second
period of seven years. During this period, moreover, an important change
occurred; one which encouraged production by placing exchange upon a
solid basis: we refer to the law of monetary conversion, which gave paper
a fixed value and abolished the discount which had hitherto affected all
private commercial transactions.
In comparing the figures of the years 1895 and 1902, we find that the
progress was as follows:—
| Products. |
1895 |
1902 |
Increase in
Seven Years. |
| |
Acres
Cultivated. |
Acres
Cultivated. |
Absolute. |
Per cent. |
| Wheat |
5,062,717 |
9,124,449 |
4,061,732 |
80 |
| Linseed |
946,690 |
3,228,774 |
2,282,084 |
238 |
| Maize |
3,073,130 |
4,450,060 |
1,376,930 |
44 |
| Lucerne |
1,729,000 |
4,273,502 |
2,544,502 |
147 |
| |
————— |
————— |
————— |
—— |
| Totals |
10,811,537 |
21,076,785 |
10,265,248 |
94 |
It now remains to examine the third period, from 1902 to 1904-1905, the
statistics of which are as follows:—
| Products. |
1902 |
1904-1905 |
Increase in Two Years. |
| |
Acres
Cultivated. |
Acres
Cultivated. |
Absolute. |
Per cent. |
| Wheat |
9,124,449 |
12,110,706 |
2,986,257 |
33 |
| Linseed |
3,228,774 |
2,674,738 |
554,036 |
18 |
| Maize |
4,450,060 |
5,648,988 |
1,198,928 |
27 |
| Lucerne |
4,273,502 |
4,940,000 |
666,498 |
15 |
| |
————— |
————— |
———— |
—— |
| Totals |
21,076,785 |
25,374,432 |
4,297,647 |
21[41] |
We see that, with the exception of linseed, the progress of agriculture
has received no check; on the contrary,
the
figures speak of still
greater expansion, attesting to the great economic future of the country.
The culture of wheat, as we see, has increased by 2,986,257 acres; maize,
by 1,198,928 acres; lucerne, by 666,498 acres. Unfortunately, the culture
of linseed has suffered a decrease of 554,036 acres; a result to be
attributed partly to low prices, and to the loss of a certain proportion
of the previous crops.
As for maize, we see that in 1904-1905 5,648,988 acres were sown, a
figure which represents an increase of 27 per cent. over the 4,450,060
acres of 1902. Yet the yield was only 131,155,000 bushels in 1904-1905,
whereas in 1903-1904 it was 163,300,000 bushels. This sensible decrease
was felt chiefly in the Province of Buenos Ayres, where the loss was one
of 31,490,000 bushels, out of the total loss of 32,145,000 bushels, while
in the Province of Santa Fé the yield was almost unaltered.
The average yield in 1904-1905 for the whole country and the entire area
of land under seed may be estimated as 23 bushels per acre, as against
31.4 bushels in 1903-1904. The harvest of 1904-1905 would thus have left
a large deficit, had not the increase of sown lands compensated in part
the diminished yield of the soil per acre. This fact is a witness to the
truth of the important fact to which we have elsewhere drawn attention:
that the Argentine need no longer as before fear a bad total harvest, by
reason of the enormous increase of sown
lands.[42]
Since 1905 the agricultural expansion of the Republic has assumed
considerable proportions, thanks to the splendid harvests, which have not
only attracted a greater number of cultivators, but have also enabled
these already established to take in and cultivate new land.
Examining only the figures relating to the harvest of 1908-1909, we
find that the area sown in wheat, linseed, and oats has increased to
20,342,920 acres, which are divided, according to the figures issued
by the Statistical
Division
of Rural Economy of the Ministry of
Agriculture, in the following proportions:—
| Provinces. |
Acres
under Wheat. |
Acres under
Linseed. |
Acres
under Oats. |
| Buenos Ayres |
6,184,139 |
1,090,750 |
1,431,839 |
| Santa Fé |
3,210,050 |
1,631,188 |
34,539 |
| Córdoba |
3,711,930 |
421,870 |
10,068 |
| Entre Rios |
793,610 |
565,630 |
37,050 |
| Pampa Centrale |
780,400 |
74,100 |
49,400 |
Other Provinces and
Territories |
185,250 |
6,370 |
1,235 |
| |
—————— |
—————— |
—————— |
| Total |
14,865,379 |
4,489,908 |
1,564,151 |
If we add to these figures the 7,042,710 acres sown with maize in
1906-1907, and the 7,410,000 acres of lucerne which were already in
cultivation, we obtain a general total of more than 35 millions of acres
of land bearing the principal Argentine crops at the end of 1908.
These figures reveal the large increase of 10 millions of acres over
these relating to the harvest of 1904-1905.
In speaking of the chief crops of Argentine agriculture, there is
one which we must especially mention, which, although not capable of
repetition year by year, yet assumes considerable proportions, occupying
already many millions of acres. We refer to the fodder known as lucerne,
which in 1890 was grown only on 1,480,000 acres, and on 1,729,000 in
1895; while to-day no less than 7,412,000 acres are under lucerne.
This crop is a new source of wealth for the Argentine. Its growth
has arisen from the increased value of lands which were until lately
considered unfit for the production of cereals. These lands are now
greatly in demand, and of late years great fortunes have been made out of
them.
Lucerne serves two different purposes; it is exported as dried fodder,
or is used at home to feed and fatten cattle. Hence the lucerne farmer
may either graze his holding or mow it; so that there are lucerne
farms and lucerne “estancias,” or ranches, each having its distinct
characteristics.[43]
The farms are mostly near the stations of the chief railway-lines
which lead to the ports of embarkation, and consist of holdings of
150 to 250 acres, cultivated by
small
proprietors, or more generally
by métayers—tenants who pay in kind. The mowing, drying, raking,
gathering and stacking of the lucerne are operations which last from
October to March; the embalement, or packing into bales, which are
pressed and bound with iron, by means of a press worked by horse-power,
occupies the rest of the year. There is also a form of exploitation which
is more elementary and also more rapid: the cutting and immediate sale of
the crop as green fodder; this method is in use on farms near the cities.
But the great lucerne belt, which occupies by far the greatest proportion
of the sown lands, is composed of the “estancias”, which are composed
of fields or farms of lucerne destined for the feeding and fattening of
animals, chiefly cattle. These exist of all sizes; from the “estanzula”
to the largest ranches. Latifundia sown with lucerne are common in
the south of Córdoba, and there are instances of immense green savannas
of from 35,000 to 50,000 acres—roughly, from 50 to 80 square miles in
extent—consisting entirely of lucerne farms and belonging to a single
lord and master. There are several settlements or colonies of this kind
in this region; such as the Colonia Maria Soledad, situated at Carnerillo
and at Chucul, including some 42,000 acres of lucerne farms; and the
Duggan prairie, which has 32,000 acres of lucerne. Properties of 15,000
acres are numerous.
According to the last statistics published, the culture of lucerne is
distributed as follows: Province of Buenos Ayres, 1,235,000 acres;
Province of Córdoba, 1,235,000; Province of Santa Fé, 740,000; Pampa
Central, 300,000; Province of San Juan, 200,000; other Provinces,
250,000; giving a total of some 4,000,000 acres. At the moment of writing
these lines this area should certainly have increased to a total of 71⁄2
millions of acres.
In spite of the great progress already achieved—it was not less than
25 per cent., for instance, in the Province of Córdoba in 1903-04—the
culture of this species of forage is still in its infancy in the
Argentine; it is bound to increase notably, on account of the superb
results to be obtained, both from its use as fodder and on account of the
manner in which it will transform a certain kind of uncultivated soil
which
grows nothing but tough grasses of slow growth and low nutritive
value.
One of the first economic effects produced by the growth of lucerne on
a particular estate or in a given neighbourhood is that it increases
the value of the land on which it has been sown. On this point several
cases have been cited which would seem incredible, were they not easily
verified. Fields which three or four years ago were sold for 2 paper
piastres per acre are to-day worth 30, and lands which were sold for 25
to 30 piastres are now sold for 80 and 100
piastres.[44]
Lucerne farms also increase the value of the land in their neighbourhood.
It is enough to use the phrase, “good land for lucerne,” and the land
referred to will immediately realise a high commercial value.
Of the profits to be derived from lucerne when exploited in a rational
and up-to-date manner, we may judge from a single instance reported in
the Buenos Ayres Standard: a
league[45]
of meadows sown with lucerne in
La Penca, in the south of the Province of Córdoba, has yielded in a year
a profit of £30,000; and in another year it actually produced a profit
of £42,800. This journal also adds that a league of similar land in New
Zealand would be worth no less than
£360,000.[46]
The constant increase of sown lands is certainly the most notable feature
of the agricultural situation. It is the more interesting to note
that of late years this development has been due to the nation’s own
resources, as after the politico-financial crisis of 1890 the current of
immigration and colonisation which had assisted agriculture in previous
years was almost completely checked. As soon as the flow of immigration
is re-established—and it seems to us
that
it is already recovering,
thanks to the attractive power of the abundant harvests rather than to
any political or administrative measure—we shall certainly see that the
agricultural yield of the Republic will receive a fresh impulse from this
cause.
The 35 millions of acres sown in 1908-9 represent a little over 4·07 per
cent. of the entire surface of the country, as compared to a percentage
of ·008 in 1888. Besides this, we must not forget that according to the
figures of the agricultural and pastoral census of 1908, 646,620 square
miles, or rather more than 39 per cent., are employed in the feeding of
67,211,754 sheep, 29,118,625 horned cattle, 7,531,376 horses, 465,037
mules, and 285,088 asses.
Finally, if we admit the possibility of considerably increasing, by
means of the intensive system, the yield of cultivated soil, we see that
it will also be possible, on the same stretch of land, to increase the
number of head of cattle; so that it is permissible to conclude that the
Argentine Republic can still conveniently give up a third of her surface
to colonisation, without in the least affecting or damaging the industry
of stock-raising.
Knowing the extraordinary progress attained by Argentine agriculture
during the last twenty years, as well as the development of each of
the particular crops preferred by the Argentine farmer, we must now
inquire in what regions of the country this expansion has made itself
particularly felt. For this purpose we will divide the Republic into
geographical belts, confining ourselves here to an examination of these
Provinces in which agricultural progress has been particularly notable,
and limiting ourselves to the three principal forms of culture:
Total Surface cultivated during the Agricultural Year
1908-1909.
| |
Geographical Belts. |
Number of Acres Cultivated. |
| |
| Province of Buenos Ayres— |
| |
Northern Section |
998,940 |
| |
Western Section |
3,043,700 |
| |
Central and Southern (first group) |
1,807,190 |
| |
Central and Southern (second group) |
2,755,980 |
| |
|
———— |
| |
|
|
8,605,810 |
| Province of Santa Fé— |
| |
Northern Section |
326,210 |
| |
Central Section |
3,194,698 |
| |
Southern Section |
1,455,650 |
| |
|
—————— |
4,976,558 |
| |
| Province of Entre Rios— |
| |
First Section |
360,300 |
| |
Second Section |
506,950 |
| |
Third Section |
527,980 |
| |
|
—————— |
1,395,230 |
| |
| Province of Córdoba |
|
4,064,760 |
| Territory of Pampa Central |
|
913,900 |
| |
|
|
—————— |
| |
|
Total |
19,956,138 |
It will be seen from this table that the great agricultural belt of the
Argentine is formed by the Province of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, Córdoba,
Entre Rios, and the Territory of Pampa Central. This latter has taken an
important place in the national production, and so rapidly, that we may
still prophesy a notable expansion of its resources. The other productive
belts have in proportion made less progress, excepting the Province of
Mendoza, where vine-growing has been developed, and that of Tucuman,
where the culture of the sugar-cane has made great strides.
There, for the moment, the progress of agriculture has halted, as the
other districts will only be developed later on, when the populations of
the former regions overflow, unless some hitherto unexploited source of
wealth—such as the quebracho in Chaco—attracts capital and labour.
At the time of the last harvest the Province of Buenos Ayres was in the
front rank in the matter of wheat, no less than 6,184,180 acres being
devoted to that cereal. This enormous area represented an increase of
2,933,920 acres since the year 1901-1902, and of 5,254,310 acres since
1895. If we compare this figure with that of 1888, when only 609,560
acres were under wheat, we find an increase of 5,574,570 acres.
Of the 6,184,130 acres of wheat sown in the Province of Buenos Ayres in
1908-1909, 3,620,300 acres, or 53 per cent., were in the region known as
the “Centre and South” (the first and second groups united), formed by an
assemblage of
fifty-six
cantons, of which some, although they were only
lately affected by the movement which has turned untouched and desert
prairies into green fertile fields, are to-day important centres of
production, having a considerable influence upon the commercial balance
of the country.
The real development of agriculture in the Province of Buenos Ayres
dates only from 1895. Until then it was considered merely as a country
especially adapted for stock-raising, and this false conception was so
rooted in many minds that it was believed that agriculture was out of
the question, except in the Province of Santa Fé. Comparing statistics,
we find that the latter Province had 992,080 acres of wheat in 1888 and
2,470,000 in 1895, while Buenos Ayres boasted only of 510,090 and 906,490
acres in the same years.
It was much the same with linseed; the figures being 180,300 and 657,020
acres in Santa Fé, and 108,650 and 160,550 in Buenos Ayres. Maize formed
an exception; while Santa Fé, in the two years given, had only 150,670
and 429,540 acres under maize, Buenos Ayres had 1,259,700 and 1,652,430
acres.
Only in the agricultural year 1901-1902 did Buenos Ayres step in front
of Santa Fé, and attain such crops of wheat as until then were unknown,
leaving all competitors far behind. In the matter of linseed, for which
Santa Fé has always had a special predilection, that Province has always,
since 1885, maintained its superiority over Buenos Ayres. As for maize,
Buenos Ayres retains its superior position, although it is just to admit
that in 1901-1902 the other Province made considerable progress.
Before leaving Buenos Ayres, we must mention that the second place in
the culture of wheat, is taken by the region known as the West, which,
with its 1,471,360 acres, or 29 per cent. of the total, forms, like the
analogous region in North America, one of the great grain districts
of the Argentine. In this region there are cantons, such as those of
Nueve de Julio, Lincoln, Pehuajo, General Villegas, Trenque Lauquen,
and others, which, reputed from all time unfit for agriculture, have
surprised every one by revealing themselves as absolute mines of
wealth. This region has been touched, it is true, by the magic ring of
the railroad, which has unrolled
in
these new territories, so full
of unexploited wealth, an immense network of tracks, whose marvellous
effects make us think of the tales of the Thousand and One Nights.
It is in this region that we have seen, as the logical result of the
agricultural awakening, the most surprising increase in the value of
the soil. These prices mounted by leaps and bounds; from £1, 15s. to
£3, 10s., from £3, 10s. to £7, from £7 to £8, 16s. per acre, and even
more; yet one is forced to admit that this increase, though apparently
capricious, has a real enough foundation, since it is based upon the
remunerative qualities of the soil.
In the Province of Santa Fé, the cradle of the agricultural settlement in
the Argentine, there are at present 820 colonies and cultivated lands, of
which the surface under seed embraces an area of 7,223,980 acres, divided
as follows: Wheat, 3,259,920 acres; linseed, 2,037,990 acres; pea-nuts,
29,390 acres; lucerne, 1,787,280 acres; other crops, 111,400 acres.
The Province of Córdoba has furnished another of the Argentine’s
agricultural surprises. Neglected, not so long ago, by the stream of
immigration which set in for preference towards Santa Fé or Buenos Ayres,
Córdoba began to attract the attention of labourers when the latter
(discouraged by some calamitous years in Santa Fé) were drawn thither by
the fertility of its soil, the scarcity of swamps, the regular rains,
the cheap land, and the proximity of centres of consumption and ports of
embarkation, and by the facilities of transport offered by an extensive
network of railways. There the labourers set up their tents, and their
numbers increased day by day; there they devoted themselves to the
strenuous task of reclaiming the virgin soil, and there, in return, they
obtained magnificent harvests, a veritable benediction of grateful nature.
The results surpassed all expectation; to such a degree, that to-day
the Province of Córdoba is one of the first colonial centres of the
Republic, and the Province which offers the most brilliant future to the
cattle-breeder and the agriculturalist. To-day the transformation of the
soil progresses so rapidly as to astonish both natives and foreigners.
To give some idea of the enormous development of this Province, it is
enough to say that in 1898-1899 it counted 176 colonies and 71 settled
estates. In 1905-1906 these figures were respectively 348 and 190.
The size of these colonies has increased in the same proportions; in
1898-1899 their area was roughly 3,800,000 acres; it increased to
8,910,000. Of this enormous area, reclaimed and cultivated at the time
of harvest in 1898-1899, some 3,150,000 acres represented wheat, 434,500
linseed, and 355,000 maize. We must also mention another important crop,
which covers a large area of the Province of Córdoba; lucerne, which is
represented by some 2,240,000 acres.
But the most surprising fact concerning the Province of Córdoba is not
the vast area under the plough, but the prodigious increase of crops
of every kind. Thus the area sown with wheat, which in 1898-1899 was
1,588,800 acres, was 2,417,920, in 1903-1904 and 2,695,620 in 1904-1905.
It is the same with linseed; in 1898-1899 184,490 acres were sown; in
1903-1904, 439,830 acres. These figures give some indication of the vast
agricultural future which lies open before this Province.
Another agricultural revelation has been afforded by the Territory of
Pampa Central, which in 1888 had only 14,900 acres under the plough;
some 11,000 being in maize, 2100 in lucerne, and 300 in wheat. In 1895
it contained 25,520 acres under culture, and in 1903 308,750 acres were
bearing crops of various kinds; wheat, 71,630 acres, and maize, 419,900;
and in 1908-1909, the Pampa contained 913,900 acres of cultivated soil;
790,040 under wheat, 74,000 under linseed, and 49,400 under oats.
In the space of twenty years the Pampa, once regarded as a sterile waste,
almost impossible of cultivation or of settlement, has seen a great
development. It contains to-day more than 80,000 inhabitants; twenty
centres of population: about 914,000 acres under cultivation; 464,645
cattle; 4,809,077 sheep, and 281,537 horses; with an annual export of
products estimated at 15 millions of paper piastres, or £1,280,000.
Its soil has greatly risen in value; the square league of 2500 hectares
(or 6175 acres, or a square nearly 3·14 miles
on
the side, or just under
10 square miles) sells for anything up to 100,000 paper piastres, or
£8800; and even in the remoter cantons it will sell for £3500 or £4400.
This extraordinary progress has been accomplished quite recently; it
dates back hardly three years, and the prices tend to increase each day.
Before completing this sketch of the agricultural products of the
Argentine, according to the official statistics, we must remind the
reader that the total of these products increases by leaps and bounds,
so that the figures given must be regarded as strictly provisional,
on account of the great development to be foreseen as new centres of
colonisation are formed. The Pampa Central, of which we have just spoken
as a very mine of wealth, is capable of producing in the future enough
meat and grain to nourish a great part of the population of the world.
In the Argentine men employ, for the more important crops, such as
wheat, maize, linseed, lucerne, etc., the latest and most perfect
agricultural implements and machines; cultivators, ploughs, drills,
harvesters, etc., etc. We have not space to mention all; but it is enough
to say that in the regions where farming on a large scale is the rule,
a progressive spirit is in the air, which impels the owners of great
establishments, and even simple settlers, to furnish themselves with the
very best machinery, for which they sometimes pay considerable sums. That
agriculture has achieved the rapid expansion of which we have just given
details, notwithstanding the little help which immigration has lately
rendered, is due principally to the employment of the perfected machinery
in common use.
The best types of ploughs, harrows, drills, and reapers of all
kinds—binder-reapers, traction-engines, winnowing and thrashing
machines, all of the best construction and the most recent model—are
familiar to the Argentine farmer, who makes constant use of them.
The owners of the great “estancias” make all necessary sacrifices in
order to work their estates in the latest and most perfect manner.
The machinery comes from the United States, and facilitates all the
operations of la grande culture. Two or three years ago, for example,
saw
the
advent of a new machine, simple and of moderate price, which
replaced the reaper and thrasher, by performing both operations at once
as it moved. It reaps the ears of corn, winnows them, grades the grain,
and pours it into sacks; leaving the straw, it is true, but the value of
straw in the Argentine is negligible. All these operations are performed
as the machine progresses; four horses are enough to draw it. With this
new machine corn that is standing in the morning is reaped during the
day, and by the evening is ready for despatch to the port of embarkation.
To give some idea of the extent to which agricultural machinery is used
in the Argentine, we may mention that in the period 1890-1904 there were
imported from abroad, mostly from the United States, 459,006 ploughs,
officially valued for customs purposes at £1,331,409; 22,783 winnowers,
valued at £277,976; 98,470 reapers, valued at £2,041,982; 37,824 drills,
or sowers, valued at £176,268; and 4770 thrashing-machines, valued at
£1,250,184. From 1898 to 1904 13,725 maize huskers were imported, valued
at £340,479.
To complete these data we append a table, giving the number of
agricultural machines imported in the course of the years 1905, 1906,
1907 and 1908:
| |
1905 |
1906 |
1907 |
1908 |
| Ploughs |
66,404 |
84,948 |
59,196 |
29,775 |
| Winnowers or huskers |
790 |
785 |
134 |
98 |
| Reapers |
14,492 |
20,739 |
17,334 |
18,722 |
| Drills or sowers |
7,911 |
25,447 |
13,975 |
9,528 |
| Harvesters |
706 |
2,011 |
226 |
1,866 |
| Thrashers |
909 |
1,136 |
490 |
969 |
We must also mention that there has been a great development of factories
in the Argentine, which turn out agricultural machinery and implements;
some of these have been established with large amounts of capital,
and possess an equipment fully equal to that of the best equipped
establishments of Europe.
Having now considered the agricultural progress achieved in the
Argentine, the areas under seed at different periods, the prevailing
crops, and the regions in which agriculture is more especially
established, we must now study the results
of
agriculture; that is to
say, its yield, and shall attempt to forecast the future reserved for the
country.
As we have already stated, there are no complete statistics available,
such as there are in the United States and in other countries, which
give in detail the cost of working farms of various sizes, and the
prices at which the latter sell their produce; and it is only from such
details that we can calculate the net profit of each acre. But, despite
this lack, we can probably find the data we require by resorting to the
opinion of those competent in such matters, either because they are
themselves practising farmers, or because they have set themselves the
same problem as that we are facing.
In the good lands of the Provinces of Córdoba and Buenos Ayres, and in
the Pampa Centrale, the hectare may yield the settler 50 piastres (in
notes), or £4, 8s.; in other words, £1, 15s. 71⁄2d. per acre; provided
there is no hail, and if he escapes the other agricultural plagues.
Some estates this year have produced as much as 2000 kilos of wheat per
hectare, or 29 bushels per acre; yielding, at $6 per ton (the Argentine
ton of 2205 lb.) a yield of 120
piastres[47]
(paper) per hectare, or £4,
5s. 61⁄4d. per acre. Estimating the expenses at 25 to 33 per cent.,
there remains a profit, let us say, of £3, from which we must still
deduct some 10s. for rent, so that the labourer draws a final profit of
70 piastre notes per hectare, or £2, 10s.
In one particular establishment, not far from the station of Labenlaye,
on the Buenos Ayres Pacific line, the yield of a family of métayers,
who cultivate 125 to 150 acres, and pay a quarter of the crop to the
proprietor, and also work on the cattle-ranch on days when there is
no work in the fields, make an annual profit of £88 a year. This is
equivalent of a profit of from 10s. 4d. to 14s. 4d. per acre, earned by
cultivating the soil as métayers or tenants in kind, retaining 75 per
cent. of the crop; but it must be remembered that this is absolutely
a net profit: all the labourers’ expenses, the cost of nourishment,
clothing, and other current expenses, are all debited first; so that the
£88 may be saved or spent or invested.
But an argument more eloquent than all the arithmetical demonstrations
which we might draw from particular cases is the well-known fact that
every year a large number of labourers become the proprietors of the
holdings they cultivate, or acquire other holdings in the neighbourhood.
It is by no means an exceptional thing for those who cultivate a tract
of land to draw from it in a single year a sufficient sum of money to
acquire it for themselves, while reserving the expenses of sowing and
other work to be done before the next harvest.
To support this statement, here are a few exacter details as to the
capital required to reclaim a holding and its approximate yield.
According to calculations furnished by a man of great experience in
matters of colonisation, the capital required by a family of four or
five persons cultivating 250 acres of wheat, including the expense of
installation in the first year, may be estimated as follows:—
| |
£ |
S. |
D. |
| Two Ploughs, sulky type |
21 |
2 |
0 |
| Two Harrows, threefold |
7 |
18 |
0 |
| One Roller |
4 |
8 |
0 |
| One Husker or winnowing machine |
39 |
12 |
0 |
| Twenty Oxen |
88 |
0 |
0 |
| Two Horses |
8 |
16 |
0 |
| Two Carts |
35 |
4 |
0 |
| Harness, chains, implements, etc. |
8 |
16 |
0 |
| House, corral, well, fencing |
105 |
12 |
0 |
| |
—————— |
| |
£319 |
8 |
0 |
| |
—————— |
The family or the colonist who does not possess such capital will find
rich proprietors or colonists who will furnish him with implements,
draught animals, and seed corn, as well as the necessaries of life. The
harvest over, the seed corn is reserved for the next sowing; the expenses
of the harvest are deducted, and the net profit is halved, one half going
to the proprietor, and one to the colonist. It is thus that the majority
of immigrants begin to earn the capital which enables them to become
proprietors.
For bachelor immigrants there is another method, which gives excellent
results: they place themselves with colonists who possess some capital
as “interested servants,” or profit-sharing labourers, lending their
services from the
ploughing
to the harvest of wheat and linseed. They
receive for their services food, board, and 6 or 7 per cent. of the
gross profit of 100 hectares. They put the sums received during three or
four years out at interest, and have then sufficient money to buy the
necessary implements and to become tenant farmers. Three or four years
later they buy land on the instalment system, and finally become large
land-owners; one may count by the hundred those who have followed this
course, have become the proprietors of wide tracts of land, and have
to-day made large fortunes.
As soon as he is a land-owner the colonist or farmer has already an
almost certain future before him, as the net profits he obtains each year
accumulate in geometrical progression, unless some fatality pursues him:
a thing that is of sufficiently rare occurrence. To gain some idea of his
net profits, we turn to the following details, which are drawn from a
competent source:
Approximate Estimate of the Expenses and the Yield of
247 acres of land sown with Wheat.
| Expenses. |
| |
£ |
S. |
D. |
| Preparing the soil.—Two ploughings and a raking, at 2s. 31⁄3d. per acre |
28 |
3 |
2 |
| Sowing, drilling and harrowing, at 3·38d. per acre |
3 |
10 |
5 |
| Seed.—238 bushels of seed corn, at £8,16s. per ton |
57 |
4 |
0 |
| Harvest.— Reaping and stacking, at 4s. 2·68d. per acre |
52 |
16 |
0 |
| Thrashing.—4400 bushels (120 tons) of grain, at 17s. 6d. per ton |
105 |
12 |
0 |
| Sacks.—1500, at 5·024d. each |
26 |
8 |
0 |
| Transport.—To granary, port or station, 120 tons at 8s. 8d. per ton |
52 |
16 |
0 |
| Rent.—247 acres, at 8s. 6·6d. per acre (approx.) |
105 |
12 |
0 |
| General expenses.—Repairs, tools, dilapidations, wages, hire of machinery, etc. |
52 |
16 |
0 |
| |
———————— |
| Total |
£484 |
17 |
7 |
| |
================ |
| |
| Receipts. |
| |
| |
£ |
S. |
D. |
| Sale of 120 tons (4400 bushels) of wheat, at £6, 3s. 21⁄2d. per ton (3s. 4·28d. per
bushel)[48] |
739 |
4 |
0 |
| Expenses of growth and preparation |
484 |
17 |
7 |
| |
———————— |
| Settler’s net profit |
£254 |
7 |
5 |
| |
================ |
In short, a profit of about one pound per acre.
The above figures relate to the property known as “La Vizcaina,” in the
Department of Bolivar; it consists of 123,800 acres of agricultural land,
or 183 square miles, and is the largest agricultural farm in the Republic
belonging to a single owner or held by a single tenant. It must be
mentioned that, on the whole, the land is high; it has never been invaded
by locusts; the depth of the mould or upper soil is considerable, and the
property has two railway stations built upon it and a third about 21⁄2
miles distant, which facilitate the despatch of the harvests.
The above figures do not give a precise idea of the farmer’s situation,
since agricultural land is let for four years, and in four years, six
harvests may be obtained (three of wheat and three of maize), which
sensibly diminishes the cost of working and increases the profits in
proportion.
We may use the same table as relating to linseed, substituting £7, 18s.
6d. per ton, or thereabouts, for the sowing, and £1, 1s. per ton for
thrashing. In this district linseed-farming is accompanied by certain
risks, on account of the scanty rain and the late frosts; sometimes the
harvest is 7, 8, or 10 quintals (metric) per hectare; but it is usually
only 3 or
4.[49]
In order that these figures representing the farmer’s profit shall give
a true idea of the reality, it must be remembered that besides the wheat
crop he can also obtain another and equally profitable crop of maize in
the same year, and he may also increase his profits by fattening pigs
and raising game and other products which command a ready sale in the
neighbouring towns.
These examples must not of course be taken as representing a general
law; the net income of course depends upon the cost of production and
the yield of each harvest, and these two factors may vary infinitely,
where the crops under consideration are as large as those raised in the
Argentine. But what we may affirm is that, besides a certain number of
farms lying fallow, there are hundreds of thousands of
acres
of virgin
soil, purchasable at a low price, on which it is enough to cast the seed,
after a superficial cultivation, in order to obtain a splendid harvest.
In conditions as favourable as these, and using machinery which enables
the farmer to cultivate enormous surfaces with little labour, there are
always serious probabilities of success for the agriculturalist. This it
is that explains the great increase of cultivated lands during the last
few years, whether virgin lands divided and sold by the owner, or lands
leased to tenants who pay in kind or give up a percentage of the crops.
In a country whose soil gives such wonderfully abundant yields, great
fortunes, and fortunes rapidly made, are common. The Argentine, like the
United States, has her legendary type of immigrant, who has progressed in
a very short time from extreme poverty to great riches, by applying his
energy and initiative to agriculture or stock-raising.
Here are two of the most notable and best-known, examples.
A few years ago there died in the Argentine one of the greatest landed
proprietors; a man named Santamarina, whose life-history is worth
relating.
Son of a small farmer of Galicia, Santamarina decided, when about twenty
years of age, to seek his fortune in America. His means not permitting
him to meet the expenses of the voyage, he resorted to the classical
procedure; he shipped as a stowaway on a vessel about to leave Vigo on a
voyage, to Buenos Ayres.
Discovered on the voyage, the captain had compassion on him, kept him
on the vessel and landed him, fifty years ago, in the capital of the
Argentine; without any resources, and sustained only by the hope of
gaining a livelihood more easily than in Spain.
Santamarina immediately made his way towards the great plaza, where the
produce of the country was at that time sold; and there, hoping to secure
a job, he spoke to a man who was conducting a wagon, and whose business
it was to bring wool from the country into the Buenos Ayres market.
This man, seeing him strong and willing, offered to share with him
his work as wagoner; but he first inquired
of
Santamarina whether he
possessed a knife, as at that time in the Argentine it was the necessary
instrument of defence, and at need, of attack, and was also employed in
all the usages of the nomad life.
Santamarina had no knife; but he had a piastre, which the captain had
given him before he left the ship, and with this piastre he bought a
knife, which served in this partnership as his only capital.
Having led the common wagon for some time, Santamarina had saved enough
to buy a better one for his own; then, chance aiding him, he purchased a
few sheep whose wool he sold; and finally, by dint of work, he succeeded
in saving sufficient capital to buy a little land and start sheep-raising
on his own account. This was the beginning of his success; little by
little Santamarina bought more sheep and more land, and became in the end
one of the greater landed proprietors of the Argentine. He died in 1904,
leaving a large fortune and a name justly honoured throughout the country.
To-day a visitor to his magnificent “estancia” of Tandil may still see,
under a glass shade, the knife and a model of the wagon which were the
first instruments of his fortune.
The second story is more commonplace, but no less true. Twelve years ago
two Neapolitan immigrants came to settle at Rosario. To gain a living,
and no doubt in memory of their former trade, they founded in partnership
a boliche; that is, a bar for the sale of drinks. When a certain time
had elapsed, their business being far from prosperous, they decided
that one or the other of the two was one too many, and so determined
to separate. But which of the two should retain the boliche? They
drew lots to decide the point; and he whom chance favoured retained the
business alone, while the other went in search of his fortune elsewhere.
The latter, far from allowing himself to be discouraged, made for Rosario
harbour, in search of a new trade: he assumed that of a dock-labourer or
lighterman. This was at the time when the growing of maize was beginning,
in the Province of Santa Fé, to give satisfactory results. Our hero,
having spent some time in carrying sacks of grain upon his back from the
quays to the vessels about to
sail,
conceived the idea of buying, with
his savings, a sack of maize, and to sell it retail, in the country, for
the purposes of seed. This first venture having succeeded, he continued
his operations with a larger number of sacks; then, finally, he abandoned
the trade of porter in order to enlarge his new business, which from that
time increased by thousands of sacks, and soon became a great export
business.
Thanks to the development of the culture of maize in this region, he has
become one of the greatest merchants and speculators in this product, and
enjoys to-day a fortune of many millions, while his companion, less happy
in his affairs, still keeps the little drink-shop in Rosario.
THE PRODUCTION OF WHEAT IN THE ARGENTINE, COMPARED
WITH THE YIELD OF OTHER EXPORTING COUNTRIES
The world’s wheat-harvest—Comparison between the statistics
of consumption—The conditions of production in Russia and
in the Argentine—Comparison with the United States, India
and Canada—The prospects of the Argentine export trade in
wheat.
Having described the progress realised by the Argentine Republic in
the course of the last few years, it will be not without interest to
inquire what are the resources of those nations which are, or may be, the
competitors of the Argentine in the world-market and in the production
and consumption of wheat.
Here, according to the most reliable sources, are the figures relating
to the average yield of wheat in the whole world during the last sixteen
years:—
| |
|
Period |
Year |
Year |
| |
|
1894-1903. |
1904. |
1907. |
| |
| Europe |
(bushels of 60 lbs.) |
1,468,000,000 |
1,656,000,000 |
1,652,000,000 |
| America |
” |
684,000,000 |
756,000,000 |
889,000,000 |
| Asia and Australia |
” |
295,000,000 |
396,000,000 |
458,000,000 |
| Africa |
” |
43,000,000 |
57,600,000 |
54,800,000 |
| |
|
—————— |
—————— |
—————— |
| |
Totals (approx.) |
2,490,000,000 |
2,865,600,000 |
3,050,000,000 |
| |
|
—————— |
—————— |
—————— |
We see that the European production of wheat represents nearly 59 per
cent. of the world’s production, for a population which, according to
the calculations of M. Levasseur, consists of about 411 millions of
inhabitants. If we reduce this figure by one-fourth, thus eliminating
infants and the aged, we find that this population disposes of only 272·8
lb. of wheat per head, or 521·2 lb. less than the “type” or standard
ration of 793·8 lb. per annum, recommended by the Bureau of Experimental
Stations of the Ministry of Agriculture of the United States, after long
and patient research.
In pursuing this inquiry into the distribution of wheat production among
all the countries of the world, we shall be able to judge of the rank
occupied by the Argentine Republic, and by so doing to rectify an error
which is frequently
committed,
the error of confounding exportation and
importation, which gives this country a very different place to that
which is its right.
Here are the figures showing how the production of wheat is distributed:—
| Country. |
Period. |
Year. |
| |
|
1894-1903. |
1904. |
1907. |
| United States |
(bushels of 60 lbs.) |
576,000,000 |
504,000,000 |
601,000,000 |
| Russia |
” |
360,000,000 |
605,000,000 |
547,000,000 |
| France |
” |
316,000,000 |
290,000,000 |
336,000,000 |
| Austro-Hungary |
” |
180,000,000 |
170,000,000 |
197,000,000 |
| Argentine Republic |
” |
76,000,000 |
147,000,000 |
177,000,000 |
| Italy |
” |
119,000,000 |
143,000,000 |
148,000,000 |
| Spain |
” |
93,600,000 |
91,800,000 |
109,600,000 |
| Germany |
” |
116,000,000 |
144,000,000 |
101,700,000 |
| Canada |
” |
63,000,000 |
67,300,000 |
82,000,000 |
| Roumania |
” |
57,600,000 |
50,700,000 |
54,800,000 |
| England |
” |
54,000,000 |
36,700,000 |
47,000,000 |
| Bulgaria |
” |
— |
50,700,000 |
42,800,000 |
| Asiatic Countries |
” |
— |
340,000,000 |
364,000,000 |
| Australia |
” |
— |
59,400,000 |
82,000,000 |
| Other European Countries |
” |
— |
78,800,000 |
65,400,000 |
| African Countries |
” |
— |
47,000,000 |
54,800,000 |
| Other American Countries |
” |
— |
29,000,000 |
27,000,000 |
| |
|
|
—————— |
—————— |
| |
|
Totals (approx.) |
2,890,000,000 |
3,030,000,000 |
This table shows that in 1907 the Argentine occupied the fifth place as a
wheat-growing country.
If we compare this production of wheat with the minimum ration of 793·8
lb,[50]
which is considered indispensable to human nutrition, we see that
apart from European Russia, with its 116 million inhabitants, there is
left for the remaining 300 millions of Europeans, less a quarter, as we
have explained above—that is, for a population of 225 millions—about
1,200,000,000 bushels of wheat. This quantity represents an average of
151·5 lb. per head per annum, or a deficiency of 249·7 lb. per head.
The population of Germany, estimated at 59 millions, has only 147·4 lb.
of wheat per head, making a deficiency of 644·6 lb. per inhabitant.
The United Kingdom furnishes its 42,500 inhabitants with only 50·6 lb. of
bread per annum, leaving a deficiency of 741·4 lb. per head.
Thus Europe, which, without Russia, produces more wheat than the rest of
the world, does not produce enough for her own consumption, low as it is.
It is therefore necessary to seek out these wheat-producing countries
which are in a position to make up this deficiency. Now at the present
time there are very few such countries; they are Russia, the United
States, the Argentine Republic, Canada, and India, and among these it
is the Argentine for which the most important place seems to have been
reserved.
Russia has hitherto been one of the great providers of wheat to Europe;
but it would seem that this position is not one that she can retain.
Russia is far from having attained the degree of agricultural evolution
which the Argentine has achieved; it is true that she exports 80 per
cent. of her wheat harvest, but then the Russian peasant eats only rye
bread. Of the 326 millions of acres of cultivated land in Russia, 30
millions only are devoted to wheat, or rather less than double the area
used for the same cereal in France, or just double the wheat-area of the
last Argentine harvest.
In the wheat-belt of Tchernoziom, the black earth is all in cultivation,
and its extent cannot be further increased. Fertile though this soil may
be, and although its depth is from 12 to 40 inches, the results amount to
no more than four or five grains of wheat for each grain sown. The last
harvest gave about 5·54 bushels per acre, while the average in France is
20 bushels.
These results are due chiefly to the poverty and ignorance of the Russian
peasant; it often happens that his wheat crop no longer belongs to him,
having been sequestrated by the tax-gatherer in payment of unpaid taxes.
On the other hand, the Russian peasant cannot procure agricultural
machinery, the price of which is increased by exaggerated
tariffs.[51]
He
cannot even obtain draught animals, his wretched resources not allowing
him to procure them.
If to these factors we add the progressive exhaustion of the soil, we see
that the production of Russian wheat for export is very near its limit;
the more so as the home consumption of wheat tends to increase with the
economic development of the country. We can hardly wish otherwise than
that these peasant farmers, habituated to a life of poverty, should
themselves consume some of the wheat they produce, instead of contenting
themselves with rye.
Let us now compare this picture of Russian production to that presented
by the Argentine.
What is it that is responsible for the superiority of the Argentine Pampa
over the Russian steppes? It is the inexhaustible fertility of a virgin
soil, which produces abundant crops, without necessitating artificial
enrichment, nor even the system of the rotation of crops. The soil yields
harvests of 20 bushels to the acre, without exhaustion, producing for
many years in succession, as it is doing now in Chubut, in the south of
Buenos Ayres, and in Córdoba, while the yield of the Russian harvests is
only 5·5 bushels.
For the exploitation of this wealth, Argentine agriculture employs the
most perfect machinery to be obtained in the world, employing thousands
of horses also, to drive it; while the Russian peasant has to work
with his own hands, having neither machines nor horses to multiply his
strength.
What shall we say of the prosperous and fortunate situation of the
Argentine colonist, who is not only enabled out of the fruits of his
labour to have bread and meat in abundance upon his table, but is often
in process of acquiring, and that without long delay, the earth he
cultivates. His happy lot has nothing in common with that of the Russian
peasant, the veritable serf of the soil, who never gets so far as to eat
the smallest crumb of the wheat he has harvested.
The one labours under a soft, benign sky, which does not expose him
to the rigour of extreme temperatures in an atmosphere of freedom and
brotherhood which make for energy, while the other labours at his
furrow in a severe and unequal climate, and under a system of political
oppression which crushes his individuality and diminishes the
value
of
his efforts. A comparison between the social and economic conditions
of agriculture in the two countries inclines us to conclude, without
prejudice, that Russia cannot be considered a dangerous rival to the
Argentine or the markets of the world.
The Republic of the United States of America is incontestably the first
wheat-growing country in the whole world; and it is interesting to
consider whether this country, which is also the greatest exporter of
wheat, will remain in the future, in spite of the growth of internal
consumption, a formidable rival to the Argentine in the markets of the
world.
Let us first of all consider what great progress there has already been
in the production of wheat in the United States.
| Year. |
Population. |
Production. |
Proportion Exported. |
| |
|
(in Millions of Bushels.) |
Per cent. |
| 1877 |
46,353,000 |
280 |
25·6 |
| 1882 |
52,495,000 |
373 |
31·8 |
| 1886 |
57,404,000 |
346 |
26·5 |
| 1891 |
63,844,000 |
386 |
26·6 |
| 1894 |
67,692,000 |
383 |
41·5 |
| 1897 |
71,592,000 |
414 |
33·9 |
| 1901 |
77,647,000 |
506 |
41·36 |
| 1904 |
— |
533 |
— |
| 1905 |
— |
645 |
— |
| 1906 |
84,216,433 |
669 |
26·6 |
| 1907 |
— |
621 |
24·1 |
In the United States the area under wheat has considerably increased, but
the yield per acre has steadily decreased. Thus we find that in 1875 the
yield was 12·3 bushels per acre; 17 bushels per acre in 1879; 11·7 in
1883; 14·9 in 1892; 13·4 in 1899; 10·5 in 1902; 10 in 1903; and 13·6 in
1904. Thus in spite of the increased yield, the results per acre have not
increased, and the average of 1904 is inferior to that of 1879; while in
France the average yield has been one of 20 bushels per acre from 1900 to
1904.
The national census of the United States for 1900 contains a graphic
chart, which represents the average yield; from which we find that only
in the north-west, certain districts of the west, and in a portion of the
States of Washington, Oregon, and California has the production equalled
this
maximum of 20 bushels per acre; in most other localities, which
afford the vast majority of cases, the yield has varied between 8·5 and
15·6 gallons per acre.
Having glanced at the production of the United States, we must inquire
whether this great nation is increasing its exportation of wheat
proportionately, and how far such exportation may prove an obstacle to
the development of the Argentine.
The following figures representing the years of the largest export of
wheat, will throw light upon this matter.
| Years. |
Wheat Exported. |
Price. |
| |
(Millions of bushels.) |
(Per Bushel on the Dock.) |
| 1879 |
145 |
5s. 51⁄2d. |
| 1892 |
218 |
5s. 3d. |
| 1898 |
210 |
5s. 0d. |
| 1899 |
214 |
3s. 104⁄5d. |
| 1901 |
209 |
3s. 83⁄4d. |
| 1902 |
227 |
3s. 111⁄4d. |
We see that in spite of the European alarmists, who in 1876 denounced
the “American Wheat Peril,” it took fourteen years for the exports to
increase from 145 to 218 millions of bushels, and that the latter figure
has been only four times surpassed since 1892.
The production of wheat, on the other hand, increased 116 per cent,
between 1875 and 1903, while the population, during the same period,
increased only by 82 per cent. But we must not forget that although the
increase in population is constant, that of production is not—indeed,
the harvest of 1901 amounted to only 273 million bushels of wheat, as
compared to 280 millions in 1877. There is a decrease in years of bad
harvests, but the population naturally knows no such decrease.
The consumption of wheat did not increase between the census of 1890 and
that of 1900; the average remained 424·6 lb. per head, representing a
deficit of 368·8 lb. below the standard allowance of 793·4 lb.
On the other hand, as the population increases by about 11⁄4 or 11⁄3
millions per annum, while consumption remains stationary, we may conclude
that if this country has not yet reached its maximum of wheat-production,
it is very near that stage, and that the moment is approaching at which
all
its wheat harvest will be absorbed by internal consumption, to the
detriment of the export trade.
We have mentioned India as a wheat-exporting country; but it is no longer
a rival to the Argentine in the conquest of the international markets.
Here is the comparative table of exportation from India and the Argentine.
| Years. |
India. |
The Argentine. |
| |
(Millions of Bushels.) |
(Millions of Bushels.) |
| 1891-2 |
54·5 |
34·2 |
| 1900-1 |
·9 |
36·8 |
| 1902-3 |
18·5 |
60·0 |
| 1905-6 |
26·7 |
109·0 |
| 1906-7 |
28·9 |
106·8 |
A mere glance at these figures is more eloquent than any commentary,
since the exportation of wheat from India increased by barely 10,000,000
bushels between 1902 and 1907, while that from the Argentine increased
by 46,000,000 bushels. On the other hand, it is known that India
exports only 10 per cent. of her harvest, although her extremely frugal
population consumes only 1·26 lb. of wheat per head, instead of the 793·4
lb. we have taken as our basis of annual consumption. We see then that
the production of India, if her population consumed a normal amount of
wheat,[52]
would not satisfy the national requirements, so that far from
exporting wheat she would, on the contrary, be forced to import large
quantities from without.
Canada is among those wheat-growing countries whose competition is most
to be feared; and this for many reasons—geographical, political and
economical. If Argentine statesmen do not seriously apply themselves to
attracting a foreign population, and to reducing the expenses which press
upon the inhabitants, the Argentine will run the risk of being supplanted
in the future by this important British colony.
Canada, from many points of view, presents a singular analogy to the
Argentine Pampas. Like the latter, it is an almost desert country, its
area being 3,190,000 square miles (nearly 2 millions more than the
Argentine), with a population of 5,371,000, or slightly less than that
of the Argentine; and like the latter, Canada is a country in process
of
formation. A similarity which completes the comparison is that the
exports of Canada consist principally of the products of agriculture and
stock-raising. Her principal client for wheat is England; in 1906-1907
the harvest was 84,470,000 bushels, and 41,033,000 bushels were exported;
or almost exactly half.
Here we should remark that the Canadian Government is making every
effort to increase the population, and spares no pains to attain its
object. In contrast to what has been done in the Argentine, where the
public lands have only served to form latifundia, and to enrich a few
individuals, the soil in Canada is sold by the aid of accurate maps,
which are accompanied by a mass of information upon questions that may
interest prospective colonists; more, the purchaser is given all kinds
of facilities for payment, as well as for meeting the first expenses of
installation. Thanks to a rational and active propaganda, immigration is
abundant; the figures for 1903 were 128,364, compared with 112,671 in the
case of the Argentine. Finally, Canada contains 19,500 miles of railways,
as against 13,600 in the Argentine.
From the foregoing data we may conclude that the countries capable of
exporting wheat are far from numerous, and that the area sown with
cereals throughout the world is comparatively small. Hitherto wheat has
been grown on an extensive scale in the United States, Russia, and India;
the agriculturalist demands everything of the soil and gives it nothing,
so that the alternative will soon arise of losing the harvest, or of
restoring fertility to exhausted soils, by means of costly manures which
will absorb enormous sums. Then the legend of new countries will have had
its day.
To resume: there exists an enormous discrepancy between the needs of the
consumer and the production of wheat; and the Argentine Republic, thanks
to a concatenation of favourable economic and physical circumstances,
is certainly in the best position in a great measure to supply this
deficiency. But to obtain the desired result it is indispensable that she
should still increase her population, and that the colonist should find
upon the hospitable Argentine soil not only the guarantees of liberty and
justice, but conditions propitious to his evolution as a land-owner.
STOCK-RAISING
The transformation of the; old “estancia”—The principal
stock-raising establishments: description, extent,
number of heads of cattle and favorite breeds—The great
“estancias” of the South and Patagonia.
Approximate area of the soil devoted to cattle and
sheep; general estimate of the numbers of cattle and
sheep—Results of the census of 1908—The capital
represented by Argentine stock-raising.
Having spoken of agriculture and its future, we must mention another
industry, which is the second source of national wealth—the pastoral
industry.
As a result of the rapid rise in the value of land, and the
multiplication and selection of animals, the old form of Argentine
stock-raising is undergoing, at the present time, a profound modification
throughout the country. The traditional ranch or estancia, on which
the animals browsed at will on vast prairies enclosed by wire fences,
exposed to all the variations of the weather and all the vicissitudes
of the temperature, feeding only on the grass of their pastures.
This old type of estancia is gradually disappearing; is undergoing a
transformation into carefully-managed farms, on which artificial prairies
are constructed; farms with lucerne fields of 12,000, 25,000 or 50,000
acres, surfaces difficult for a European to
conceive.[53]
The science of pedigree herds and the culture of carefully-enclosed
pastures have created, says a distinguished writer, the true pastoral
industry, in which stables and barns and sheds take the place of the
ancient
“corral.”[54]
The wealthy owner drives from the railway station
to his
estancia
in a carriage; the old rustic ranch-house is transformed
into a true country-house, sometimes a veritable château, with a park
and gardens. There are estancias within a hundred leagues of Buenos
Ayres which we remember as desert country in the power of the Indians,
where now traps and carriages of English type are seen crossing the
plains, where folk dine in evening dress in luxurious homes. The European
stock-breeders have driven back the Gaucho to the great estates on the
borders of the desert.
Nothing would be more difficult—and for our part we renounce the
task—than to say which are the first stock-raising establishments of
the Republic; whether by reason of their extent, the numbers and the
breed of their animals, or the magnificent dwellings of their owners.
Establishments of this type are to be counted by hundreds, by thousands.
Nevertheless—though exposed to the danger of falling into inevitable
errors or omissions, for lack of precise information—we must not forget
to mention the Estancia San Juan, founded by Señor Leonard Pereyra,
at a distance of 25 miles from Buenos Ayres, and a mile and a half from
the La Plata, and consisting of over 40 square miles of meadows in full
luxuriance. Then there is the Estancia San Jacinto, belonging to Señor
Hugel T. de Alvear, an establishment reputed as one of the foremost
in the country, which embraces an area of 244 square miles, or about
one-third the area of the county of Surrey. Of this enormous area some
64 square miles are under lucerne, and support 100,000 Durham cattle,
100,000 Lincoln sheep, and 10,000 horses.
The Estancia la Gloria of Santamarina & Sons, situated at Laprida, in
the Province of Buenos Ayres, comprises 145 square miles, and supports
20,000 cattle and 60,000 sheep.
Another establishment, which might be taken as a model, is the Estancia
San Martin, the property of Señor Vincent L. Casares; which is situated
at Cañuelas, and covers an area of some 30 square miles. The specialities
of this establishment are the breeding of draught-horses—Morgans,
Hackneys, Shires and Clydesdales; the breeding of cattle—Durhams,
Holsteins and Swiss—of which the finest individuals are kept for
breeding, and the second-grade animals fattened for export; the keeping
and selling of bulls of the
three
varieties named for general breeding
purposes; and finally the breeding of pedigree rams of the Lincoln
and Negrete breeds, and also of pure cross-breeds and of pure-blooded
Yorkshire pigs. The horses from this estancia have a merited fame
throughout the Argentine, and are even beginning to be known abroad.
A portion also of this estancia is an establishment known as La
Martona, which alone supplies three-quarters of the milk consumed in
Buenos Ayres, and which also manufactures butter for home consumption and
for export.
Another of the great stock-raising establishments of the Republic is
the Señor Carlos Casares’ Estancia Huetel, about 150 miles from
Buenos Ayres, on the Southern Railway. It occupies an area of some 240
square miles, all enclosed by wire fencing, and divided into forty-two
stock-raising establishments, with fifty-seven shepherds’ houses and
five managers’ houses. This establishment contains about 62,000 Durham
cattle, 87,000 Lincoln sheep, with pedigree rams, imported or born on the
estancia, and 4200 Clydesdale horses, draught-horses and saddle-horses.
About 11,000 acres are sown with lucerne, and 5000 with maize, wheat,
oats and linseed. There are fifty-six or more imported bulls, and notably
one of the finest of his race, the celebrated Aguinaldo, winner of the
first prize awarded by the Agricultural Society.
The park of this estancia draws the attention of visitors; it is 500
acres in extent, and contains some 520,000 forest trees, 870,000 shrubs,
and 35,000 young trees. The total number of trees on the estate is over 2
millions.
There is a school on the estate, all the expenses of which are paid by
the proprietor.
The Estancia San Jacinto, owned by Señor Saturnin J. Unzue, also merits
a special description. It is a few hours distant from Buenos Ayres,
and covers an area of some 55 square miles. It supports 10,000 cattle
and 30,000 sheep. On this estancia the Durhams have been brought to a
great pitch of perfection. The stud is famous for its saddle-horses, and
contains 140 pedigree animals, imported or born in the country.
Las Palmas, belonging to Colonel Alfred T. Urquiza, would figure as
a model establishment in any country in
the
world. In the Province
of Buenos Ayres, in which it is situated, it would be difficult to
find a pedigree stock-raising establishment so well organised, and so
well adapted to its purpose. The estate consists of some 4000 acres,
overlooking the majestic Parana de las Palmas, with its green islands,
which reach as far as the Rio de la Plata. Here about 3000 beasts are
annually fattened for export. The cattle are shorthorns, and the horses
Hackneys.
Yet another establishment, which must be reckoned one of the best in the
Argentine, is the Cabaña San Gregorio, belonging to Señor Gregorio
Villafañe; an Argentine who in strict justice ought to be mentioned as
one of the first breeders in the country, on account of the intelligent
efforts and pecuniary expenditure devoted by him to improving the breeds
of cattle, sheep, and horses, during many years of personal labour.
Señor Villafañe’s establishment is not of very great extent, its area
being only 18,000 acres, but is notable for the great number of its
pedigree cattle and the purity of type to be observed in his sheep. He
devotes himself chiefly to breeding Durham and Hereford bulls, Lincoln
rams, Hackney and Clydesdale stallions, collie dogs, fox-terriers, Brahma
fowls, Catalans, Dorkings, and Plymouth Rocks.
We must also mention the Estancia San Pascual del Moro, the property of
Señors Adolfo and Rufino Luro. It is famous for its stud of race-horses,
from which issued, in 1904, the great winner of the season, Old Man.
This long list of breeding establishments would still be incomplete
indeed, did we fail to make special mention of the Estancia Chapadmatal
of Señor M.-A. Martinez de Hoz, who has made the greatest efforts to
raise his establishment to the level of the best European models.
“Equal to the best in Europe,” was the judgment of a competent and
impartial observer, Colonel Holdich, who, in his last book, entitled Los
Paises del Fallo del Rey, bestows upon it this well-merited praise:—
“A well-known estancia, that of Señor Michel-Alfred Martinez de Hoz,
near the Mar del Plata, surprised me by the singular character of its
surroundings. The soil, with its irregularities, had the look of an
English park.
Little
hills and knolls, one after another, stretched
away, covered with their golden harvest, with soft undulations, to the
precipitous borders of the sea; instead of the eternal barbed-wire fence,
living hedges were already springing up, dividing the fields and the
pastures. On the highest hillocks rose stacks of oats, carried up from
the fields in the high-wheeled wagons characteristic of the country-side;
and there the stacks were being rapidly built by hand-labour. It was a
beautiful rustic scene.
“Lower to the right, on the softer soil by the banks of a stream, which
descended babbling to the sea, through beds of rushes and buttercups,
was a pasture; here, standing in the branches of the bank, were the
Shire horses; they formed animated groups, and placidly watched our
movements; they were the most magnificent examples to be found out of
Lincolnshire. Further down still, on drier soil, was a troop of mares,
of an English-Creole cross, with their foals. These animals were for
draught, and the excellence of their breeding is proved by the registers
of the Argentine Rural Society, which record the prizes awarded to the
Estancia Chapadmatal.
“In a higher part of the estate, in a quarter reached through long
avenues of poplars, which lead thither from the house, and where the
ground is covered with forests of eucalyptus or willows, are the bulls
and cows. The Argentine stock-breeder does not consider expense when it
is a matter of importing good English cattle for breeding purposes. The
chief estancia has a series of breeding bulls, which are led before the
visitor, each by his special keeper, with the same pomp and ceremony as
the stallions which precede them in the brilliant review. It is not only
near the capital and the principal centres of population that we find
these model estancias, which afford their owners every European comfort.
They are to be found also in the extreme south of the country, in the
solitudes of Patagonia, near the 50th degree of south
latitude.”[55]
“From the River Coyle, from Puerto Gallegos and Magellan Straits, to
a point near Last Hope,” says an Argentine traveller, Mr George J.
M’Lean, who visited
these
regions a few years ago, “the country is
fairly peopled, and one comes across estancias, such as El Condor, the
property of Messrs Wood & Waldron, an establishment of 337,500 acres,
with a wire-fenced enclosure containing 160,000 sheep, equipped with
forty steam shearers, with hydraulic presses, and sheep-dips warmed by
steam calorifier. It is a common thing to find estancias, many of which
are fenced with wire, feeding 40,000, 60,000 or 70,000 sheep. The most
important are united by telephone, by which means they communicate not
only with each other, but with Puerto Gallegos or Punta Arenas. I have
spoken down these over a distance of 300 miles. In the Chilian portion
of Tierra del Fuego, there is a telephone connecting Cape Dungeness with
Punta Arenas, and also to the channels of Last Hope.”
In the Territory of Santa Cruz is the Estancia San Julian, belonging
to the San Julian Sheep Company. This “estancia” has an area of 296,000
acres—462·5 square miles—and contains 70,000 sheep, with an annual
yield of 90 per cent. of lambs, or 63,000.
In the same Territory is another very prominent estancia, the property of
the Patagonian Sheep and Farming Company Limited. This embraces an area
of 471,000 acres—734 square miles—the area of a medium-sized English
county.
Finally, in the same Territory is a vast property of 700,000 acres—1060
square miles—belonging to the Bank of Antwerp.
In the Territory of Chubut, which for some years has been a favourite
locality for European capital and European immigrants, and which contains
a large French colony, there is a very important estancia belonging
to the Lochiel Sheep Farming Company Limited, which covers an area of
327,000 acres, and contains 35,000 sheep.
Another foreign company established in the southern part of the
Argentine, “The Argentine Southern Land Company,” possesses 1,518,000
acres of land, of which 859,000 are in the Territory of Rio Negro, and
659,000 in that of Chubut. This company was established in 1899, with a
capital of £230,000, later reduced, on account of business misfortunes,
to £140,000, which is the present capital. On this
company’s
lands are
45,000 cattle, 40,000 sheep, and 4300 horses.
In all these establishments, and in many others which we are unable to
cite, as it is difficult to obtain precise information concerning them,
we find that, thanks to the intelligent efforts of their owners in
seeking to import the best breeds of the most famous European breeding
establishments, there are now many stallions, bulls, and rams of the
purest blood and of great value, which are either imported or selected;
and through these the general stock of the country has reached a very
high quality of race.
All stock-breeders, even the smallest, are aware to-day of the great
advantages to be obtained by crossing selected animals with sires of
pure blood, and the result has been a great advance in the stock-raising
industry. The statistics of importation show that in nine years, from
1899 to 1907, plus eleven months of 1908, there have entered the country
from England, where the Argentine breeder usually seeks his stud animals,
10,040 bulls and cows, and 35,094 sheep. These two figures alone show
the importance which the Argentine breeder attaches to the improvement
of the breed of his flocks and herds. The prices paid for these animals
are sometimes extravagant; in one case £3520 was paid for a bull; but
land-owners willingly pay such sums in the certainty that such sires will
bring them considerable profits.
The area at the disposal of the Argentine stock-raiser is still
practically unlimited. We need only remember that of the 750 millions of
acres which roughly represent the area of the Argentine soil, one-half,
or some 375 millions of acres, are adapted to stock-raising.
Of this enormous area some 185 millions might be sown at once with
cereals and fodder, notably in the coast Provinces, in Córdoba, and the
Pampa, and there remains as much more for stock-raising, without taking
into account the millions of animals that might be nourished by intensive
culture in the cultivated zone. This extension would allow of the
existence of 40 million cattle and 200 million sheep.
What is the amount of stock at present in the Argentine Republic? We are
in a position to answer this question, one of the present writers, Señor
A. B. Martinez, having been appointed Director of the last agricultural
and pastoral census, which was taken during the first fortnight of May
1908, according to a law passed by Congress. The work which sums up the
results of this important undertaking is in three volumes, and is at
present in the press; thanks to which fortunate circumstance we are able
to anticipate its publication, and to give our readers the benefit of
this investigation.
The census of agriculture and stock-raising, undertaken over the entire
territory of the Republic, has revealed the existence in Argentine
territory of 29,116,625 cattle, 7,531,376 horses, 465,037 mules, 285,000
asses, 67,211,754 sheep, 3,945,086 goats and 1,403,591 swine.
If we compare these results with those of the two previous censuses, that
of 1888 and that of 1895, we obtain the following table:—
| Census. |
Cattle. |
Horses. |
Sheep. |
Swine. |
| 1888 |
21,963,930 |
4,262,917 |
66,701,097 |
403,203 |
| 1895 |
21,701,326 |
4,445,859 |
74,379,562 |
652,766 |
| 1908 |
29,116,625 |
7,531,376 |
67,211,754 |
1,403,591 |
We see from these figures that in twenty years, between 1888 and 1908,
the number of cattle has increased by 7,152,695 head; and in thirteen
years, between 1895 and 1908, by 7,415,099 head. The number of horses has
increased by 3,268,459 between 1888 and 1908, and by 3,085,517 between
1895 and 1908. Sheep have increased by 510,657 between 1888 and 1908, but
decreased by 7,167,808 between 1895 and 1908. Swine, far from numerous
if we compare their numbers with these obtained from other countries,
present a continual increase: 1,000,388 between 1888 and 1908, and
750,825 between 1895 and 1908.
The decrease of 700,000 in the numbers of sheep in thirteen years is
in keeping with what has been observed in the principal wool-producing
countries. Authorities assure
us
that of the 400 millions of sheep
which existed in various parts of the world in 1873, there remain to-day
barely 300 millions. In Germany, for instance, to go by the Journal
des Économistes, the number of sheep has dropped from 19 millions to 7
millions in a space of twenty-five years.
The causes of this constant diminution are numerous. First of all
we will take the development of agriculture, which has expelled the
sheep. According to an eminent collaborator in the census, “The sheep
has to walk, must walk far and wide, must walk always, in order to eat
sufficiently—unless he does so, his food will be too costly; he is
essentially a vagabond, and he consequently requires a great space and
continual
supervision.”[56]
For these reasons the European small farmer
prefers, if he can, to keep one or two cows in his cow-shed and suppress
the sheep entirely.
Sheep-breeding really gives encouraging results in regions where the
area of the soil and the prairies is out of all proportion to the number
of labourers available for its culture. Land given up to sheep cannot
support the high rents paid by the producers of cereals; this is the
principal cause of the decline of sheep-farming all the world
over.[57]
The following table gives the total number of beasts of various kinds,
classed according to purity of breed:—
| Species. |
Pure. |
Cross-bred. |
Native. |
Total. |
| Cattle |
984,897 |
13,060,446 |
13,071,282 |
29,116,625 |
| Horses |
49,000 |
1,693,037 |
5,788,739 |
7,331,376 |
| Mules |
— |
— |
465,037 |
465,037 |
| Asses |
— |
— |
285,088 |
285,088 |
| Sheep |
1,179,482 |
55,448,749 |
10,583,523 |
67,311,754 |
| Goats |
3,321 |
129,800 |
3,816,965 |
3,945,086 |
| Swine |
34,462 |
589,126 |
780,003 |
1,403,591 |
In the matter of cross-breeding the Argentine has made astonishing
progress, the proof of which is to be found in the comparison of the
figures for 1895 with those of 1908. It is enough, for our purpose,
to mention that in 1895, in the Province of Buenos Ayres, out of 100
cattle, 6 per cent. were of pure blood: 49·2 per cent. were cross-bred,
and 50·2 per cent. were of native breeds; and that thirteen years later
these figures were transformed into 6·2 per cent. of pure blood, 85·1
per cent. of cross-bred cattle, and 8·7 per cent. of native breeds. This
improvement in the Province of Buenos Ayres is repeated in the other more
productive Provinces, and in the case of other species of animals.
We have stated that the number of cattle in the Argentine Republic is
over 29 millions; this number may be analysed, according to sex, age,
etc., in the following manner:—
| Male calves |
3,820,443 |
| Heifers |
3,511,412 |
| Bulls |
886,450 |
| Bullocks |
4,687,027 |
| Cows for breeding |
12,825,904 |
| Milch cows |
2,163,900 |
| Oxen |
1,221,489 |
| |
————— |
| |
29,116,025 |
| |
————— |
It now remains to consider the value of the animals registered as
existing in the Republic in the year of census 1908.
In 1895 this value was estimated at 1,136,780,411 piastres (paper), which
with the exchange at 300 per cent. was equivalent to 378,926,803 piastres
(or dollars) in gold, or £75,785,360, 12s., while the latest census gives
a value of
1,481,282,245
piastres in paper, which with exchange at 2·27,
is equivalent to 651,764,187 piastres in gold, or £130,352,835.
If now we analyse these figures, dividing them among the various species
of animals, as given by the censuses of 1895 and that of 1908, we obtain
the following table:—
| Species. |
1895. |
1903. |
| Cattle |
£44,568,493 |
£82,604,353·4 |
| Horses |
5,099,281·4 |
18,112,761·4 |
| Mules |
666,159·6 |
1,985,374·6 |
| Asses |
131,914 |
251,235 |
| Sheep |
24,525,101 |
25,287,598·6 |
| Goats |
389,139 |
732,322 |
| Swine |
405,272 |
1,379,192 |
| |
—————— |
—————— |
| |
£75,785,360 |
£130,352,837 |
We see from this that, in spite of the moderate valuation of the stock in
1908, its value had increased, in thirteen years, by nearly £54,600,000.
Knowing the numbers and the value of the live stock of the Argentine
Republic, a last question arises of the highest interest. What place does
the Argentine hold among those nations in which stock-raising has reached
its highest development?
To answer these questions, we have resorted to the most authoritative
publications available, with the result that we are enabled to draw up
the following table:—
| |
Species. |
| States. |
Cattle. |
Horses. |
Sheep. |
Swine. |
| The Argentine Republic |
29,116,625 |
7,531,376 |
67,833,112 |
1,403,501 |
| The United States |
69,438,758 |
21,216,888 |
61,837,112 |
64,694,222 |
| Canada |
5,376,451 |
1,577,493 |
2,510,239 |
2,353,828 |
| Australia |
9,349,409 |
1,765,186 |
83,687,653 |
813,569 |
| Cape Colony |
2,000,000 |
300,000 |
11,800,000 |
400,000 |
| India, Burmah, E. Indies, etc. |
91,700,000 |
1,300,000 |
18,000,000 |
— |
| European Russia |
39,000,000 |
22,600,000 |
42,900,000 |
11,200,000 |
| Germany |
20,600,000 |
4,300,000 |
7,700,000 |
22,100,000 |
| France |
14,000,000 |
3,200,000 |
17,500,000 |
700,000 |
| Austria |
9,500,000 |
1,600,000 |
2,000,000 |
4,700,000 |
| Great Britain |
7,000,000 |
1,600,000 |
25,400,000 |
2,700,000 |
This table shows us that, in the matter of cattle, the Argentine Republic
holds the third rank; it is also in the third rank in the matter of
horses; in the second rank in
the
matter of sheep; and in the matter of
swine she holds one of the lowest ranks.
If we compare the Argentine with the United States in particular, the
contrast is striking; while in North America the value of all bestial
reaches the colossal sum of £664,800,000, in Argentina it amounts only to
£130,400,000, distributed as follows:—
| |
Numbers. |
Values. |
| Species. |
United |
Argentine |
United |
Argentine |
| |
States. |
Republic. |
States. |
Republic. |
| Cattle |
69,438,758 |
29,116,625 |
£315,660,088 |
£82,604,353 |
| Horses |
21,216,888 |
7,531,376 |
218,601,571 |
18,112,761 |
| Sheep |
61,837,112 |
67,211,754 |
35,571,250 |
25,287,598 |
| Asses |
111,450 |
285,088 |
1,412,307 |
251,235 |
| Mules |
3,445,029 |
465,037 |
43,239,035 |
1,985,374 |
| Swine |
64,094,222 |
1,403,581 |
49,657,202 |
1,379,192 |
| Goats |
1,949,005 |
3,945,086 |
707,865 |
732,322 |
Consequently the Argentine is far from achieving the wonderful results
obtained by the great northern Republic of
America;[58]
for that matter,
she could not compare with the States, having only 6,000,000 inhabitants
to the latter’s 86,000,000; and her wealth is equivalent only to a small
fraction of the colossal wealth of the States. Yet an examination of the
above figures is encouraging, for in view of the progress accomplished
before the previous census, the Argentine may justly regard her flocks
and herds with pride, and continue to increase them, thanks to her
climate, the fertility of her soil, and the energy of her inhabitants.
THE VALUE OF THE SOIL
Difficulties in estimating this value—Principal factors of
valuation—Examples taken from lucerne fields and the
forests of quebracho—Despite adverse circumstances, and
with a few exceptions, there has always been a tendency for
the price of land to rise—Alienation of lands acquired
by conquest from the Indians; their enormous present
value—The rise of value dates from 1902, and has hitherto
continued without relapse—The causes of this rise, and its
rational principles, according to an authoritative opinion.
Examples of valuation drawn from the sales of public lands—The
rise of prices in the Provinces of Buenos Ayres, Córdoba,
Santa Fé, and the Pampa, with figures indicating the prices
realised in some large recent transactions.
Nothing is more difficult than to determine the value of land in a
country in the course of formation, like the Argentine Republic, in which
it undergoes considerable increase from one moment to another; not only
on account of general progress, but also from special reasons, such as
good harvests, the construction of a railroad, etc. In the same region,
in the same district, two neighbouring tracts will often have a different
value, accordingly as they have or have not a permanent water-supply, or
as they are more or less adapted to agriculture, nearer to or further
from a railway, a station, or a centre of population.
For some years now, two new factors of valuation have come into being:
the culture of lucerne and the planting of quebracho wood.
Since farmers have known of the enormous—the fabulous—profits to be
derived from fields of lucerne, every buyer of land inquires first of all
if there is water available; that is, if the subterranean water-level is
near the surface; as on that factor depends the existence of the lucerne
pasture for many years.
If upon investigation it is found that there is water the land, by this
sole fact, acquires an enormous value in comparison to what it would be
worth if it were unfit for lucerne.
An important newspaper, published in Buenos Ayres in the English tongue,
the Standard, has shewn that the price of land in Victoria (Australia),
where the acre is worth from £4, 6s. to £9, compared to the prices paid
for land in the Argentine suitable for sowing lucerne (that is, in the
south of Córdoba and San Luis, where there are no invasions of rabbits,
where there is no drought, and which are half-way, so to speak, to the
European markets) proves, by comparison, the low value of Argentine land.
Even when near a railway, such lands may be bought for 17s. 6d. or £1 per
acre.
In proof of the above affirmation, the Standard has made the following
calculation: Let us suppose an expense of 6s. 5d, per acre for the
expenses of sowing and cultivating an acre of soil (including sowing it
with lucerne at £2 per cwt.), it follows that the acre costs from £1, 3s.
to £1, 8s., and the square league of 6175 acres (representing the work of
eighteen months) about £7920. Adding £880 for fencing and watering, we
find the price of the square league (9.648 square miles) amounts to some
£8800.
What, according to the Standard, is the profit to be drawn from this
square league? It will fatten some 4500 head of three-year-old cattle,
which may be bought at £4, 8s. per head, and seven months later sold
at £7, 18s. 6d.; this will give a profit of £3, 10s. 6d. per head, or
a gross profit of £15,862. Deducting
£7040[59]
for expenses (allowing
freight to the extent of 10s. 6d. per head), there remains a net profit
of £8800 per league per annum, or 100 per cent. on the outlay. If such
are the results to be obtained from the transformation of an uncultivated
tract of land into a lucerne pasture, it is not surprising that rural
property is so quickly attaining so high a value.
In the case of quebracho—a very hard wood which is useful for building
and constructive purposes, and from which an excellent tannin can be
obtained—matters are much the same. Having had experience of the large
profits to be derived from the manufacture of quebracho extract, and
the splendid dividends paid by the companies engaged in
the
work, men
or business, anxious to invest their capital to advantage, hastened to
acquire forests of quebracho, with the result that the price of such
land suddenly rose to a level hitherto undreamed of. Tracts situated
in the Chaco—a region where quebracho abounds—which were selling a
year previously for £88 the square league of 9648 square miles, rose in
price to £880, and this latter price can by no means be considered as a
definite maximum.
What is true of lucerne and quebracho is also, though on a much smaller
scale, true of linseed or wheat, when after an abundant harvest the
land-owner or farmer procures the requisite capital for the purchase of
the land he has been cultivating and pays a good price for it. There are
here elements which confound all calculations made in advance, and make
it difficult to fix even an approximate value on the soil.
At the present moment there is no basis for such a valuation. A farm
selling to-day at 20s. per acre, may to-morrow sell for 26s., the day
after to-morrow for 32s., and so on, until prices are reached which
astonish the first vendor, and give him the melancholy conviction that he
did ill to part with his land. For this reason, the best thing one can do
to-day is to hold on to the land.
The value of rural and urban property has gone on increasing more and
more rapidly for more than forty years; and although there have been
great fluctuations in prices, the rise has always been constant in the
long run; owing to the increase in the population, the consolidation of
political institutions, the construction of far-reaching railway systems,
the prodigious development of international traffic, and, as a natural
consequence, the great increase of public wealth.
To gain an idea of the entire significance of this increase in values,
we must go back to the more than modest prices of rural property which
ruled before the later development of the upward movement. It is enough
to recall the fact that in 1879, with the object of procuring funds in
support of the expedition which General Roca was leading against the
Indians of the wilderness, an expedition which resulted in the conquest
of 226,800 square miles of territory, the Government offered for sale
an enormous tract of land
at
the price of £80 the league (about £9 the
square mile), the purchase-money to be payable over five years. But the
devaluation of these lands was so great, and faith in their remunerative
possibilities so inferior, that very few accepted the offer. Many did so
rather as a patriotic loan than as a serious investment. Others did so as
a mark of personal deference towards the men who were at the head of the
Government. But all have been abundantly rewarded, since much of the soil
which they were able to obtain at £35 the league is selling to-day at
£26,000 and £35,000. More than one of the great private fortunes in the
country had no other foundation than this.
This depreciation of rural property continued still unchanged for a dozen
years; so much so, that in order to tide over the crisis before the crash
of 1890, the Government, which so disastrously handled the affairs of
the nation, had the evil inspiration to offer for sale in Europe, by
virtue of the law of October the 15th, 1889, those very 24,000 leagues
of land obtained by conquest by General Roca’s expedition. The sale was
to be effected at the figure of 10 francs per hectare—about 3s. 3d. per
acre!—payable half upon purchase and half at the end of two years. No
limit was set to the powers of purchase of any one buyer; each could buy
just as much as his purse would allow. The law, in palliation of this
incredible
operation,[60]
promised to apply the whole product of the
sales to the fund for converting the issue of the guaranteed bank-notes
of famous memory. Providence, happily, which more than once has taken
the Argentine under its especial protection, prevented this disastrous
alienation of territory from taking place. Had it been otherwise, the
Republic would have sold for a mess of pottage a magnificent portion of
her territory, a country large enough to house more than one European
nation, and which to-day perhaps would be in the hands of a company or a
foreign government—a new state within the State.
The depreciation of rural property continued for
some
years. Thus,
in 1897, the Government sold by tender to the highest bidder a large
portion of its best lands, at the price of 3750 piastres, or £330 the
square league (about £36 the square mile), payable in five years, with
permission to pay in bonds of the patriotic loan, which then stood at
about 75 per
cent.[61]
This situation continued until 1902—a year which saw the settlement of
the old question of the Chili-Argentine frontier; a year of abundant
harvests and enormous development in the stock-raising world; a
development which took shape first in the export of cattle on the hoof
and then in the despatch of great quantities of chilled or frozen meat
to the English markets; a year which also saw the advent of a financial
stability resulting from the “law of monetary conversion,” which gave a
fixed value to paper money, the medium of all commercial transactions in
the interior. Then came a steady and decisive rise in the value of landed
property in general and of rural property in particular.
Since the beginning of this movement the value of the soil has steadily
increased; the last price is always greater than the previous one,
although the latter may have appeared stationary, if not final. This
being the case, we ought to ask whether this general rise responds
to permanent and sufficient causes, or if it is only the result of
capricious speculation, affecting landed property now as at another time
it affected paper money.
In reply to this question, Señor Roman Bravo, one of those Argentines who
are most familiar with all the complex aspects of land valuation,—for he
is the Director of the house of
business[62]
which transacts the greater
proportion of such operations—has at our request summed up, in the
following terms, the causes which at present determine the increase in
the value of property:—
“The economic life of the country offers at each step signs of further
progress. The enlargement of ports, the extension of railways, the
dredging of channels,
the
development of the building trade in the
chief city of the Republic, all show the spirit of enterprise at present
animating the individual and the people. Commerce and vigorous industries
reinforce these elements of prosperity and welfare.
“But it is in matters of land purchase that we best perceive the material
expansion and the intensity of the forces in action. Without going back
to the year 1904, we have only to consider the transactions of the last
few years to realise that, both in the capital of the Republic and in the
national Territories and the Provinces, the period has been a fertile one
in the matter of transactions in landed property. There has been no more
active period since 1889; and this time the facts have an explanation,
a natural and logical sanction. Agriculture and stock-raising have so
augmented the sources of national wealth that in a few years the balances
in favour of the country have reached the figure of nearly £20,000,000.
This is the effective cause of the increased value of the land: to which
we must add the confidence which we all feel in the gradual development
of the forces which labour has released, to the benefit of public
tranquillity.”
One of the most surprising examples of the increased value of the soil,
and of the interest awakened by sales of land, is to be found in the
public and official auction of national lands which took place in the
month of April 1905.
These sales were to be effected on account of those who had bought these
lands in analogous circumstances in 1897, and who had not paid for them
during the delay stipulated by the law. The whole surplus over the price
established by the previous sale, less deductions for interest and other
expenses, went by law to the original purchaser. The auctions were
conducted in the presence of a crowd of speculators, capitalists, and
labourers, eager to invest their money in so remunerative a speculation,
since in the Argentine all are convinced that the purchase of the soil is
the best form of saving. The result of the sale was that in many cases
double the original price was obtained; three times the price in some
cases, and in some five times the original price was realised.
In the Territory of Pampa Central an area of
933,680
acres was offered
for sale, the previous price being £49,693; the sale price was £135,297,
representing an average price of £842·6 per league, or 2s. 8·7d. per acre.
In the Territory of Chubut, 265,278 acres were put up to auction, the
original price being £5243·5, and the sale price £25,361·6, or an average
of £590·28 per league, or 1s. 9·7d. per acre.
In the Territory of Santa Cruz an area of 98,800 acres was put up for
sale, the first price being £3391·34, and was sold for £9477·6, or 1s.
10d. per acre.
In the Territory of Chaco, in which especial interest was felt, as the
lands in question bore forests of quebracho trees of great value (the
quebracho industry being then in vogue), higher values were obtained,
representing five times the original sale price. The lands to be sold
in this Territory represented a surface of 123,500 acres, and were
first disposed of for £4948. However, a price of £24,170 was obtained,
representing an average of £1208·24 per league, or 4s. 6·9d. per acre.
In the Territory of Rio Negro 74,100 acres were put up for sale, which
were previously sold for £3058. They realised £8712, or £726 per square
league, or 2s. 4·2d. per acre. The general result of the sale was that
the Government did a splendid stroke of business; but the transaction
was still more to the profit of the fortunate first applicants, who, for
failing to comply before a given date with the conditions established
by law, were rewarded by receiving the price of sale less the price at
which they bought; sums which to many of them represented a considerable
fortune.
Since that period the value of land has continually increased, as we see
from the following information, which was given us by the “General Bureau
of Lands and Colonies” of the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1906 and 1907,
this Bureau sold by public auction a large section of public lands, and
the prices obtained were far higher than those we have recorded above.
In the Territory of Rio Negro, in August 1906, 497,600 acres were sold at
an average price of 9s. 8d. per acre.
In March 1907, 314,974 acres of land, situated in
the
Peninsula Valdez
(Chubut) found a buyer at 6s. 73⁄4d. per acre.
Numerous sales were effected in 1907 in the Pampa Central. Among others,
we may cite the following: 18,520 acres sold at 10s. 6·7d. and 4640 at
10s. per acre; a lot of 18,750 acres at an average price of 6s. 9·7d.;
7500 at 6s. 5d.; 151,410 acres at 4s. 4.8d.; 1235 acres at 3s. 7·6d.; and
12,350 acres at 3s. 11·3d. per acre.
In October of the same year, auction sales were held in various portions
of Pampa Central, the results being as follows: 16,425 acres at 8s.
10·24d.; 5390 at 8s. 2·3d.; 40,137 at 10s. 3d.; 24,700 at 7s. 4·3d.;
306,050 at an average price of 3s. 8·5d.; 24,700 at 3s. 7·8d., and 9182
at 6s. 7·8d. These examples are given to show the variety of actual
prices, according to the situation and the yield of the land.
In the matter of private sales, it is difficult to keep track of rising
values on account of the number of sales which take place every day. We
will try, however, to give a few examples, to arrive at some approximate
value of the Argentine soil in the year 1905.
The Province of Buenos Ayres, which is the most thickly populated and
the wealthiest in the Republic, is also that in which rural property has
reached its highest value. In the district of Lobos, a few hours from
Buenos Ayres, a field of 170 acres, known as the Atucha Meadow, was sold
for £26, 7s. 2d. per acre; another of the same area for £59, 8s. 9d. per
acre; another of 635 acres for £12, 1s. 0d. per acre, and another of 587
acres for £14, 4s. per acre.
In the region of Rojas, also some hours from the Federal capital, the
land on which stood the “San José,” “Santa Barbara,” and “La Matilde,”
establishments belonging to Señor Roberto Cano, and whose area was 15,800
acres, was sold for an average price of £8, 8s. per acre.
In the neighbourhood of Dolores, not far from Buenos Ayres, a meadow
belonging to the “Montes del Tordillo” estate, composed of 18,850 acres,
was sold for 19s. 1·4d. per acre. In the section of Lincoln 10,000 acres
were sold at prices varying from 48s. to £5, 2s. per acre. At Trenque
Lauquen, one of the belts of land in Buenos Ayres which has seen the most
rapid rise in values, sales have been effected of
22,000
acres at prices
rising from £1, 18s. to £3, 6s. per acre, the average being £2, 8s.
In this same section, some 8 miles from the railway station of Primera
Junta, 1976 acres were in 1907 sold at prices varying from £2, 8s. 3d.
to £5, 12s. 9d. At General Pinto the land belonging to the “Filadelfia”
estate, 23,198 acres in extent, was sold at an average price per acre of
£2, 2s. 9d.
In the department of Olavarria 19,856 acres were sold in 1908 for prices
varying from £3, 7s. 8d. to £7 per acre, the average being £5.
In the department of General Conesa, 11,085 acres, facing the Bay of São
Borombon, and 23 miles east from San Dolores, found a buyer at an average
price of £1, 3s. 4d. per acre. In the department of Coronel Pringles, the
establishment known as El Bombero, situated some 19 miles to the west of
Tres Arroyes, divided into thirty-one lots of from 370 to 4940 acres, was
sold at prices running from £2, 1s. 11⁄2d. to £4, 2s.
Among these sales of 1908 which attracted most attention were those
transacted in the Province of Buenos Ayres. These included a tract at
Exaltacion de la Cruz of an area of 914 acres, near the railway station
of Cardales, which, sold in small lots of from 58 to 180 acres, obtained
an average price per acre of £29.6 per acre. At Lomas de Zamora the land
of the establishment “Santa Ines” were sold to the Sansinena Company for
£13, 3s. 6d. per acre. In the department of Azul, a meadow known as “La
Vanguardia,” of an area of 2080 acres, 11 miles from the town of Azul,
found a buyer at £7, 16s, per acre. The San Miguel estate, near the
Manzanares railway station, subdivided into thirty-six lots, was sold at
an average price of £10, 5s. per acre. On the 19th of August 1908, in the
same department, 741 acres fetched a price of £12, 9s. 2d. per acre. At
General Belgrano, less than 2 miles from the railway station, 3294 acres,
divided into five lots, were sold at prices varying from £8, 11s. to £10,
13s. 10d. A tract of 499 acres about 1000 yards from Jeppener Station, in
the department of Brandzen, was sold at the rate of £12, 5s. 9d. Finally,
at Burzaco, at a distance of 2500 yards from the station,
494
acres of
land attained the fabulous figure of £42, 15s. per acre.
These are high prices in comparison with those ruling formerly, and at
present they are firmly maintained.
The prices of lands suitable for agriculture vary greatly, according
to their distance from the great city of Buenos Ayres or the port of
Bahia Blanca, and their proximity to a railway station; accordingly as
they have water near the surface, and are thus adapted to the growth of
lucerne; and according to the terms of payment granted by the vendors.
There are, of course, other factors as well.
Among many other examples, we will cite the 588,050 acres of land at
Curumalan, ten hours from Buenos Ayres, the property of a syndicate
which bought them in 1903 from Messrs Baring Bros, of London, at a price
of £807,575. Up to July the 1st, 1905, this company had sold more than
247,000 acres of land directly to agriculturalists—Russian for the most
part—at prices varying from £2, 10s. 8d. to £3, 4s. 1d., allowing them a
term of three or four years for payment, plus an interest of 8 per cent,
per annum.
The Province of Córdoba is, after the Province of Buenos Ayres, that in
which the land has most rapidly risen in value. Transactions in rural
property are very numerous and represent an important figure. In the five
years from 1899 to 1903, about 9,386,000 acres have changed hands, and in
1904 alone 3,820,830 acres were sold.
It is difficult to give an account of these transactions by reason of
their number; but to cite only the most important, we may mention a
block of 61,750 acres in the department of Juarez Celman, belonging to
Alejandro Roca, which was sold at public auction in the early part of
1905, at prices varying from 17s. 101⁄2d. to £2, 6s. per acre. In view
of the prices which the buyers realised later, they made a splendid
bargain; none of them sold for less than double what he gave. In the
Union department of the same Province, 59,904 acres were sold at prices
varying from 13s. 3d. to £1, 16s. 11d. per acre.
Another important sale, effected also in the early part of the same year,
was that which took place in the department of Tulumba, fifty miles from
the colony and railway station of Morteros on the Central Argentine
railway. The
block
sold comprised an area of 20,826 acres, and the
prices obtained varied from 1s. 5.8d. to 2s. 2d. per acre.
In the Province of Santa Fé, the appreciation of land values has of late
years been neither so great nor so rapid as in Buenos Ayres and Córdoba;
the reason being that it was this Province which initiated the colonising
movement in 1856, by the foundation of the Esperanza Colony, so that
its land values had already undergone sudden augmentations in previous
years. In the five years from 1899 to 1903, the sales have amounted to
£5,831,160 acres, and in 1904 to 2,026,420 acres. In the department of
General Lopez 23,487 acres were sold for prices varying between 2s. 4d.
and £2, 18s. 3d.
We may also note a tract of 8204 acres, 8 miles from La Serna railway
station, which in 1908 was sold for £1, 12s. per acre.
The Provinces of San Luis and Santiago de l’Estero were the last to take
part in this movement of appreciation of land values. The former, in
especial, has from this point of view been a revelation to every one. As
soon as it was discovered that the soil of this Province was admirably
adapted to the formation of splendid meadows of lucerne, its value
rapidly rose from 1s. 51⁄2d. to 6s. 5.7d., 12s. 11d., and 19s. 5d.
We must, in particular, mention a meadow known as the “Agualapada,”
98,000 acres in area, which on the 27th of July 1908 was sold at the rate
per acre of 5s. 4d. 53,219 acres of land, some 13 miles from the railway
stations of Nueva Galia and La Fortuna were bought at an average price of
10s. 3d. per acre. In the department of Pedernera 16,043 acres, divided
into five lots, found purchasers at prices varying from 16s. 2d. and £1,
1s. 2d. to £1, 15s. 9d.
But, as we have already said, it is in the Pampa—in that vast country
of 56,170 square miles in area—larger than England—which was
incorporated in 1880, after the expedition led by General Roca—that
the most surprising examples of appreciation are to be found. There all
is undergoing a continual transformation; each year the plough opens
wider furrows for the seed; the sowing of lucerne is rapidly increasing;
stock-raising establishments are to be found
in
the very confines of the
country; and a large network of railways, in operation, in construction,
or under consideration, promise to surround it on every hand, to
circulate its products and to facilitate exchange. All these wonderful
transformations are being effected under our eyes, day by day; so that it
is not surprising that the value of the soil follows this tide of energy.
In the Pampa Central, of late years, we have seen land suitable for
lucerne, with water 10 to 30 feet below the soil, not far from populated
centres, and with means of rapid communication, fetch prices which
quadrupled those it had touched eighteen months earlier, selling for
as much as £3, 11s. 3d. per acre. In more than one case land which was
bought for £880 the square league was afterwards sold for £8800.
Among the sales of 1908 was one of a meadow of 18,525 acres, six miles
from Utracan Station, which, sold by order of the law, fetched a price
of 17s. 10d. per acre. In another part of the same Territory 7698 acres
were sold in a single lot, on the 1st of October 1908, at the rate of £1,
4s. 7d. per acre. In the Alfalfa Colony, during an auction sale, several
chacras, or small farms, attained prices varying from £1, 19s. 3d. to
£2, 2s. 9d. per acre.
By the Catrilo railway station on the Western Railway, situated in
the same Territory of El Pampa, is a field whose owner, M. Mathias R.
Sturiza, was offered £61,600 for it; two years earlier he had bought it
for £5280.
Competent authorities assure us that in the neighbourhood of Santa Rosa
de Toay, the capital of the Territory of the Pampa, the value of the
fields has been shown by recent sales to have increased by 300 per cent.
In the department of Victoria, in the same Territory, fields which a
while ago were offered at 2s. 1.5d. per acre, are to-day selling for £1,
1s. 4d.—ten times that sum.
Such are the chief manifestations of the economic phenomena of the
appreciation of land values; one of the most interesting of the problems
which present themselves to the observer of the modern Argentine
Republic. Is it a true symptom of national vitality, or must we see in
these data the warnings of a period of commercial crisis,
characterised,
according to the learned economist Juglar, by the rise of all values and
by frantic speculation?
Events, which unroll themselves amidst our feverish Argentine activities
far more rapidly than in other countries, will not be long in giving us
the answer to these
questions.[63]
AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES
Sugar-cane—Area of plantations—Statistics of
production—Legislation affecting sugar—Consumption.
Vines—Area of vineyards planted—Production,
consumption—Imperfect quality—Competition of foreign
imports.
Tobacco—Area of plantations—Value of the
product—Defective preparation.
The Mulberry—The culture of the silk-worm might be
established in the Argentine, but at present exists only in
an experimental condition.
Maté—Large consumption of this product.—Statistics
of foreign importation—Districts suitable for its growth.
Cotton—Physical conditions proper to its growth—The
first favourable results in the Argentine—Its introduction
into Chaco—Lack of manual labour for the development of
this industry.
Rubber—Existence of rubber plants in the
Argentine—An unexploited source of wealth.
Arboriculture—On account of the diversity of
the climate, all fruit-trees can be grown in the
Argentine—The various fruits cultivated in different
regions—Amelioration of the products. The trade in
fruit—Its development possible on account of the inversion
of seasons as compared with Europe—Refrigeration applied
to the transport of fruit—Regions particularly suitable
for fruit-growing.
Besides the culture of cereals, such as wheat and maize and linseed, and
the important grazing and cattle-breeding industries of the Argentine,
together with their dependent industries, there are other forms of
agriculture and forms of natural produce, some of which have already
attained a great importance, while others are destined to become equally
important in the near future; that is, if the progress of evolution in
the Argentine follows, as there is reason to hope, its natural upward
course.
Sugar-cane.—Among the agricultural industries the culture of the
sugar-cane assumes the first rank. The cane is cultivated principally in
the Province of Tucuman, in which Province are established the greater
number of the sugar factories existing in the Republic. The cane is
also
planted, and flourishes, in portions of the Provinces of Santiago,
Salta, and Jujuy; in the north of Santa Fé, in Corrientès, and in the
Territories of Formosa, Chaco, and Misionès.
Sugar-planting is an industry of considerable antiquity in the Argentine;
but it has attained a remarkable development chiefly in the last ten
years, owing to the high price of sugar and the establishment of numerous
factories equipped with perfected machinery; owing also to the notable
profits which the industry offers.
The result has been an excess of production, which led the industry
into a dangerous crisis, from which it is now in a fair way to recover.
Those who suffered the most were those who had abused their credit by
building expensive factories and laying down costly plant; and those who
had planted sugar in soils unsuited to its culture, or in regions of
unfavourable climate, or where the means of transport were insufficient.
The total area cultivated in 1907 was estimated at about 172,900 acres,
of which 14,029 were in the Province of Tucuman; 11,115 in Southern
Chaco; 6916 in Salta; 3952 in Jujuy, and 2717 in Santiago de l’Estero;
the rest being divided among various other regions of the Republic; these
figures representing an increase of nearly 24,000 acres over those of
1895. These 172,900 acres of cane give an average yield of 30 tons of
sugar per hectare, or 11·727 tons per acre, representing a total yield of
132,160 tons of sugar.
The greatest number of sugar refineries are to be found in the Province
of Tucuman, where there are thirty-two. In the other sugar-growing
districts there are only thirteen, which are distributed as follows:
Three in Jujuy, two in Santiago de l’Estero, one in Salta, one in
Misionès, six on the banks of the Parana River, two in Santa Fé, two in
Corrientès, one in Chaco, and one in Formosa.
The net cost of producing the cane, ready for delivery, is about 5 to
7
centavos[64]
per 10 kilograms. Taking
as
basis a yield of 30,000
kilograms per hectare and a sale price of 12 centavos, the growers would
make a net profit of 140 piastres per hectare; or, with the value of the
piastre note at 2·2 francs, of £4, 2s. 6d. per acre. Thus sugar-planting
is a profitable industry under normal conditions.
The outgoings and receipts on an acre of soil planted with cane may be
estimated as follows:—
| Receipts. |
| By sale of 12 tons of cane, at 12·8d. per cwt. |
£12 |
16 |
0 |
| |
| Expenses. |
| Cost of Planting— |
|
Tilling and preparing soil |
£0 |
9 |
11 |
|
Lining out and fixing shoots |
0 |
16 |
4 |
|
Shoots, preparation, etc. |
0 |
12 |
9 |
| Cost of Harvesting— |
|
Cutting 12 tons of cane |
0 |
14 |
2 |
|
Preparing the cane |
0 |
14 |
2 |
|
Transport to factory and extras |
2 |
13 |
5 |
|
Interest on the land, or rent, taxes, and redemption |
1 |
1 |
3 |
| |
|
———— |
| |
|
£7 |
2 |
0 |
| |
|
12 |
16 |
0 |
| |
|
———— |
| |
Net profit |
£5 |
14 |
0 |
| |
|
———— |
With an increased consumption of sugar, the culture of the cane will
occupy a far greater area of the belt in which it is already established.
It is, however, limited by the interests of the manufacturers themselves,
who limit production in order to keep up the price of sugar, and so
obtain higher profits; sugar of native preparation being protected by
laws which strike at the importation of foreign
sugar.[65]
In 1907 2,498,000 lb. of foreign refined sugar were imported, their value
being £181,755; but on the other hand 140,370 lb. were exported during
the same year.
It is to be hoped that the price of sugar will not fall too low, as this
might bring about the ruin of an industry which is worth encouraging
and preserving: but it is essential, on the other hand, to oppose an
excessive inflation, which would diminish the consumption of this
valuable alimentary product, and would force the consumer to pay the
exaggerated profits of a small number of manufacturers and planters. This
is the inherent peril of excessive protection.
The law of 23rd January 1904 and the regulation of 25th October of the
same year have provided for this condition. One must not forget that all
commerce is conditioned by the law of supply and demand, and that to
avoid overloading the market with produce, production must be limited,
according to circumstances, and in proportion to actual requirements; and
beyond the limit of absorption the productive energies of the country
must be diverted to other cultures or industries, more remunerative and
more certain as to
results.[66]
Of all the sugar sold in the Argentine, only part is refined; there is
at present only one
refinery[67]
in the country; namely, the “Refineria
Argentina” of Rosario. The greater proportion of Argentine sugar is
delivered to the consumer in the form of “moist” or brown sugar, which is
graded according to its colour and the care taken in its manufacture.
There are in several districts, and especially in the neighbourhood of
Misionès, rudimentary factories where an impure sugar known as “rapadura”
is prepared, which is sold in cubes or tablets. We have no precise data
as to the production of the various grades of sugar.
During the last twelve years the manufacture of
sugar
has been greatly
improved, as a consequence of the crisis through which the industry
passed, which demonstrated the necessity of perfecting the methods of
preparing and refining the “sap,” etc. To-day a yield is obtained of
71⁄2, 81⁄2, and even 9 per cent. of sugar.
The capital sunk in the sugar industry in the Province of Tucuman amounts
in round figures to £4,136,000, and is distributed as follows: Land,
£1,232,000; plantations, £440,000; machinery, £1,496,000; buildings
£968,000.
It will be as well to give some retrospective data here, which will show
how far the production of sugar has developed during the last few years.
In another chapter we shall deal with the production of sugar from the
industrial point of view.
Thus, in 1884 the harvest was 24,000 tons; in 1894, 75,000 tons; and in
1895 it amounted to 109,000 tons, or an increase of 352 per cent. in
eleven years. In 1904 the yield was 134,000, or an increase of 360 per
cent. over that of 1884. In 1905 it was 137,000 tons; in 1906, 180,000;
in 1907, 113,000.
We have stated that the Argentine Republic underwent a crisis in the
matter of sugar, on account of excessive production; and that like other
sugar-producing nations she has had to facilitate the export of the
surplus by granting a bounty to exportation.
This premium or bounty was conceded in the following manner: a law of
1894 forced the producer to pay 6 centavos per kilogram, or ·576d. per
lb. on manufactured sugar; but offered him a bounty of 16 centavos
per kilogram—1·536d. per pound—on all sugar exported under certain
conditions.
This law ceased to be in force on the 31st of December 1904; but
was replaced by another, of the 1st of January 1905, by which the
manufacturer who did not export 25 per cent. of the sugar he produced
paid 15 centavos per kilogram—or 1·44d. per lb.—on a quarter of his
produce, or on the proportion which he did not export.
These two laws contain a radical difference. By the first, the State
received 6 centavos per kilogram upon all sugar manufactured, of which
it restored 4 centavos for each kilogram delivered for consumption, and
then restored 16 centavos for each kilogram exported; thus keeping to
a
minimum tax of 2 centavos on sugar delivered for consumption. By the
second law the State received nothing on sugar leaving the factory, as
the producer confined himself to giving an undertaking for the value
of 15 centavos per kilogram on a quarter of his manufactures, which
undertaking was returned to him if he exported a quarter of his produce;
so that in case he did export his produce the State gained absolutely
nothing. But according to a resolution on the part of the Government,
passed in April 1905, the tax of 15 per cent. was suppressed, together
with the obligation of exporting a certain percentage of the sugar made.
The sugar industry thereupon entered upon a new period of absolute
liberty, and at the same time was deprived of official protection.
In this matter the Argentine Republic acted in accordance with the
international agreement of Brussels, which suppressed the sugar bounty.
The consumption of sugar during the eight years 1897-1904 was 780,000
tons, or 97,000 tons per annum. This consumption has not actually been
uniform; for instance, in 1897, about 80,000 tons were consumed; while in
1904, 1905, 1906 and 1907, the figures were respectively about 115,000,
162,000, 127,000, and 109,000 tons.
Vines.—Another important branch of agriculture in the Argentine is
viticulture, which is more especially utilised in the Provinces of
Mendoza and San Juan. To give some idea of the development of this branch
of agriculture we may state that in 1885 80,376 acres were planted with
vines, while to-day the figure is over 139,000. Of this total 74,620
acres are in Mendoza and 30,580 in San Juan. The different species of
grape are selected from the best to be found in cultivation in France and
other vine-growing countries.
The vineyards have been laid out under favourable conditions, yet their
product leaves something to be desired. Moreover, bad wines have often
been put on the markets, sour wines, and wines adulterated with water,
which have discredited the native wines, and have led many to doubt
whether the Argentine wine industry can ever really take root.
The factor which has chiefly contributed to this disastrous result is the
lack of capital from which the industry
suffers;
the result being that
the processes of fermentation and maturing are not given sufficient time.
Pressed by their liabilities, the Argentine vine-growers hurry over
their wine-making, so as to put their wares on the market as quickly as
possible, in order to meet their engagements. The general result, apart
from exceptions as honourable as few in number, is that the industry
produces decoctions of a kind, but not wines.
Despite these unfortunate conditions the consumption of the wines of the
country has reached a very considerable figure, which fact has greatly
contributed, thanks to very heavy customs duties, to the exclusion of
foreign wines. In 1899, to go back no further, the total consumption of
wine in the Republic was 322,431,166 pints, of which 237,600,000 pints
were of wines of the country, and 84,800,000 of foreign wines (not
including those imported in bottles). In 1900 304,440,000 pints were
consumed; 221,760,000 of native wines and 82,680,000 of foreign wines. In
1901, out of 327,360,000 pints, 242,880,000 were of native and 84,480,000
of foreign wines; in 1904, of a consumption of 373,120,000 pints,
307,000,000 were of native and 66,120,000 of foreign wines.
In 1907 the total consumption of wines in the entire Republic, according
to the office of National Statistics and Administration of Inland
Revenue, amounted to 638,843,680 pints, of which 558,096,000 were of
native production and 100,747,680 were imported.
The production of native wines is limited, as we have seen, to wines for
general consumption. The finer varieties are imported.
The consumption of wines of quality in 1907 reveals a considerable
increase since the previous year; which is yet another proof in support
of the many to be found in this book of the excellent economic and
therefore gastronomic conditions of the country. The large and profitable
results of the harvests enable the people to place fine wines upon their
tables.
The customs, which are always a faithful barometer of the degree of
well-being which a people enjoys, afford us a proof of what we have
affirmed. In 1907 there passed through the customs houses, coming from
abroad, 59,520
dozens
of bottles of champagne, 1988 dozens of sherry,
plus 31,438 pints in the wood; 6925 dozens of port, plus 113,843 pints in
the wood; 516,520 dozens of vermouth; 27,624 dozens of semi-fine wines;
1249 dozens of French clarets, and 8111 dozens of sparkling wines. The
vins ordinaire imported represented a total of 100,748,680 pints.
As we have already seen, the area of the vineyards in existence at the
end of 1907 was of 139,132,630 acres, their value being £18,400,000. As
for their yield, it amounted to 1,121,523,300 lbs. of grapes, or more
than 518,000 tons, with an estimated value of £3,680,000.
There are, in the Argentine Republic, 3097 establishments devoted to
the exploitation of the vineyards and the making of wine, disposing of
a total capital of some £4,320,000. Their products amount to 66,762,000
gallons of wine, representing a value of £4,720,000.
If we compare the production of the Argentine with that of the principal
nations of the two Americas, we obtain, for the year 1907, the following
table:—
| Argentine Republic |
556,096,000 |
pints |
| Chili |
475,200,000 |
” |
| United States |
281,160,000 |
” |
| Brazil |
56,320,000 |
” |
| Peru |
17,248,000 |
” |
| Uruguay |
16,192,000 |
” |
| Bolivia |
5,576,000 |
” |
| Mexico |
3,168,000 |
” |
The Argentine wine industry, in which millions have been engaged, is, as
we see, on the road of progress. It has to-day accomplished a rapid and
a very considerable development, which might well, in the near future,
eliminate the imported product from the market, at least in the case of
wines for ordinary consumption.
Like the sugar industry, the wine-growing industry has gone through
its crisis. On the one hand the abuse made of credit in establishing
warehouses, cellars, and costly plant, and on the other defective methods
of manufacture which brought the product into discredit, produced a
deep-rooted depression, from which the industry has hardly yet emerged.
It cannot look to the future until it perfects its means
of
preparation,
working out its brands with the aid of time and patience.
This industry, says an eminent writer, gives work to more than 100,000
inhabitants, and represents, as a matter of national wealth, a value
in vineyards and factories of some £19,000,000; it produces annually
£4,840,000 worth of merchandise, contributes £6,950,000 to the general
trade, and surpasses in importance, both in the capital employed and
in its products, the sugar industry of the country, which in 1907
manufactured sugar only to the value of
£2,772,000.[68]
Tobacco.—For a long time the tobacco-plant has been cultivated in the
Argentine; for we find, in various zones, conditions very favourable
to its production; but its culture has by no means as yet acquired the
importance of which it is capable, and is very far from satisfying the
needs of national consumption.
The exports are insignificant: 37,983 lb. in 1906, and 16,612 lb. in
1907, of the respective values of £539 and £226. The lack of care brought
to the cultivation of the plant and to the preparation of the leaf,
together with incomplete experience from the industrial point of view,
have contributed to check the increase of plantations, which ought to
occupy a far larger area than they do.
Tobacco is grown chiefly in the northern region composed of the Provinces
of Corrientès, Salta, and Tucuman; it is also grown to a less extent in
the Provinces and Territories of Misionès, Formosa, Chaco, Catamarca,
La Rioja, and Jujuy. It may be grown equally well in the central region
composed of the Provinces of Buenos Ayres, Entre Rios, Santa Fé, and
Córdoba; and even further south. There were formerly, and are still,
tobacco plantations in the Province of Buenos Ayres, which appeared
to promise a fair future for tobacco-planting; but all is as yet in a
rudimentary condition, and the industry makes no appreciable progress.
The areas planted with tobacco in 1895 and 1907 were as follows:—
| |
|
1895. |
1907. |
| |
|
Acres. |
Acres. |
|
Province of Corrientès |
16,287 |
27,910 |
|
Province of Salta |
2,277 |
8,645 |
|
Province of Tucuman |
6,880 |
7,410 |
|
Territory of Misionès |
5,705 |
1,976 |
|
Territory of Formosa and Chaco (South) |
1,294 |
1,235 |
|
Province of Córdoba |
3,348 |
1,729 |
| Other Provinces— |
|
Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, Catamarca |
3,631 |
2,470 |
| |
|
——— |
——— |
| |
Totals |
39,422 |
51,375 |
| |
|
——— |
——— |
The agricultural census of 1895 affirmed the existence of 3348 acres of
tobacco in Córdoba, while the Bulletin of the Division of Statistics
at the Ministry of Agriculture announced only 1729 acres; in short,
everything leads to the conclusion that we have to deal either with gross
blunders or with erroneous information. As it has not been practicable
for us to verify these figures we must suppose that in 1895 there was not
so large an area planted as the figures would lead us to
believe.[69]
The Mulberry.—The culture of the mulberry-tree should perhaps be
included in that of industrial crops, since its leaves are the food of
the silkworm.
From the time of the Spanish Conquest, says Carlos Girola, the engineer,
our competent guide in the matter of industrial crops, the silkworm
was raised in the Province of Cuyo, and silk was woven there on the
hand-loom; but, on account of the facilities of transport, imported silks
brought such a competition to bear upon the hand-made native article that
the silkworm industry gradually dwindled and finally became extinct.
Numerous experiments have of late years proved that the silkworm can be
raised over a great part of the country; and that it has the best chances
of development where the population is densest, labour most abundant,
and the houses of the workers largest and most comfortable, as in the
Provinces of Buenos Ayres (North) and Santa Fé, and in
parts
of Entre
Rios and Córdoba. So far, however, there is no demand for the native
cocoons, and it is so difficult to place them that at present one cannot
recommend the silkworm industry except as an experiment or a speculation.
The mulberry-tree grows and flourishes excellently on the greater portion
of the Argentine soil, and especially in the central and northern
districts, where it springs up quickly and vigorously. It is greatly
to be desired that it should be more widely cultivated, and that its
wider cultivation should go hand in hand with the development of the
sericultural industry, which in some countries constitutes one of the
principal sources of wealth.
The mulberry also furnishes an excellent wood, and its leaves may be used
to feed cattle as well as silkworms. Instead of planting trees which
are of no industrial use, the mulberry should be given the place of
preference.
Yerba Maté.—The “yerba maté,” or maté shrub, is met with in the woods
of Misionès, where it grows in irregular clumps of varying extent. It has
been known since the time of the Jesuits, who were the first to plant and
cultivate it, as is proved by the plantations which to this day exist in
the territory of the Argentine Missions (Misionès). With the leaf of this
plant infusions are made, as with tea, coffee, cocoa, etc. The matheine
contained in the leaves is possessed of properties at once tonic and
stimulating.
The infusion of “yerba maté” is usually made in a receptacle shaped like
a pear with an orifice at the smaller
end;[70]
it is imbibed by means of
a silver tube having at one end a bulb pierced with holes, which performs
the office of a strainer, and is known as the bombilla. This method of
preparation and of use is now tending to disappear; and maté is now often
prepared in the same way as coffee, the result being a very refreshing
drink, very valuable in the country districts for the refreshment of
travellers. Statistics prove that the consumption of maté is continually
increasing; and as the national production is insufficient, recourse is
had
to importation from Brazil and Paraguay. The amount of these imports
for 1907 was as follows:—
| |
Pounds. |
Value. |
| Maté imported from Brazil |
100,189,162 |
£1,000,364 |
| Maté imported from Paraguay |
6,654,276 |
61,182 |
| |
—————— |
—————— |
| Total of imported maté |
106,843,438 |
£1,061,546 |
| |
————— |
————— |
| Importation in 1906 |
£970,154. |
We have no information respecting the national production of maté, but we
have every reason to suppose that it does not exceed 11,000,000 lb.; that
is, between a ninth and a tenth of the quantity consumed. There is thus a
vast field of development for this branch of agriculture, especially in
the Territory of Misionès, which offers all the conditions favourable to
the culture of the
plant.[71]
Encouraged by these figures, and by the desire to replace the forests of
ilex, destroyed by improvident exploitation, attempts have been made to
develop the culture of maté; and the first results appear to augur well
for the future of this undertaking.
M. Thays, Director of the Parks and Promenades of Buenos Ayres, to whom
we owe the floral and arboreal embellishment of the Argentine metropolis,
was the first to overcome the obstacles to the artificial culture of the
maté shrubs from the seed.
The development of the plant is fairly rapid; the plucking of the leaves
may be commenced at the end of six years, and sometimes earlier: the
treatment necessary for its cultivation is very much that demanded by
ordinary orchard trees. Its longevity is great, and so far it is not
known to be subject to any disease.
The cultivation of maté may spread beyond the Territory of Misionès, into
the favourable soil of Corrientès, Chaco, and Formosa; possibly into
other parts of the northern and central regions; and it may give way to a
more intensive culture. M. Thays has obtained specimens of maté from seed
in the Botanical Garden of Buenos Ayres, where he has grown it in the
open air.
Cotton.—Of the various territories of the Argentine, none lend
themselves so well as Chaco, Formosa, and Misionès to the cultivation of
the cotton-plant; not only by reason of their climatic conditions, but
also on account of the composition of their soil.
The cotton-plant is indigenous to the islands and sea-coasts of the
Tropics, and its geographical limits of cultivation, on either side of
the Equator, run to 40° of latitude in the north, and in the south to
about 30°, but never as far south as 35° or 40°, in spite of the probable
suitability of those latitudes.
The plant hardly suffers from the greatest heats of a tropical summer,
while very cold weather interrupts its organic functions. It requires a
hot, moist atmosphere for its development, but the moisture must not be
excessive, or the plant will grow too rapidly.
It is doubtless thanks to these natural conditions that cotton-planting
attained to a certain degree of development in the Territories of Chaco,
Formosa, and Misionès as soon as the tillers of the soil became aware of
its profitable nature.
The cultivation of this valuable textile is not, however, new to
this country. It was grown long ago, chiefly in Misionès, during the
administration of the Jesuit Fathers, who made from it cloth for their
own use, and also for purposes of trade. But with the expulsion of
the members of the celebrated Company of Jesus, and the resulting
depopulation of the countryside, decadence overcame this branch of
agriculture, and finally an almost total extinction, until to the people
of the country it was no more than a memory.
Finally, in 1894, cotton was sown as an experiment in the Territory of
Formosa; a few grains of the “Louisiana” and “Sea-Island” types, brought
from the United States.
The results were excellent, and encouraged the sowing of larger areas.
There are now, in the various colonies founded in Chaco, which grow
practically nothing but cotton, some 13,600 acres under cotton. It may
to-day be asserted, says an official report, that Chaco is in the van
of the Republic in the production of cotton; by reason of the area
under cultivation, the quantity of cotton picked at
each
harvest, and
the importance of its trade with the Buenos Ayres
market.[72]
In the
short space of two years, from March 1902 to March 1904, the exports
from Barranqueras, the port of this region, amounted to 850,564 lb. of
cotton and 286,831 lb. of cotton-seed. From this we may well augur,
as the above-mentioned report asserts, that Chaco will become a great
cotton-producing country, on condition that various refractory factors
are eliminated.
That the reader may form some idea of the future in store, during
the economic development of the Argentine, for the cultivation and
exploitation of cotton, he need only refer to the following calculation
as to its results. The land in Chaco given over to cotton yields, in good
years, an average crop per acre of 1785 lb. of cotton “in the pod”—that
is, fibre and seed together. Selling the cotton at the very low price of
·96d. per lb.—and the present price of cotton runs to 1·16d., 1·44d.,
and 1·65d. per lb.—the minimum yield would be £7, 2s. per acre, even
with prices as low as we have indicated. As for working expenses, they do
not exceed £4, 5s. 6d. per acre, unless by some trifling sum, according
to locality; so that the average profit would be about £2, 16s. per acre.
This is the cost of production of an acre planted with cotton during the
first year. Later the expenses diminish by 25 per cent., so that the net
profit might reach £3, 11s. 3d. per acre.
One of the great obstacles in the way of the full development of this
industry is to be found in the lack of hands indispensable for the minute
and delicate operations connected with gathering the crop. It has even
happened, during the last few years, that in certain districts as much as
3s. 7d. per cwt. has been offered for selected cotton, and in others as
much as a third of the results of the harvest. But we may be sure that
when the native farmer and the foreign agriculturalist once awaken to the
extraordinary profits which cotton yields, its production will assume a
far larger scale.
As the growers have to deal with an industrial branch of agriculture in
process of establishment it has not yet been possible to draw from it all
the profit that is secured in other countries: cotton-seed, for example,
in the United States especially, is a considerable source of wealth,
but in the Argentine the growers have scarcely begun to utilise it by
the extraction of its oil. But there is a beginning: several mills have
lately been established for this purpose. The agronomic expert Macial has
justly remarked that we only require spinning-mills and looms for the
cycle of the cotton industry in Chaco to attain its completion.
Rubber.—Another source of forestal wealth in the Argentine, and one
which is for the moment unexploited,—principally because of local
depopulation and a lack of means of transport—is the extraction of the
rubber contained in certain tropical plants.
Lately, for example, competent observers have discovered that the true
rubber-plant, the Ficus elastica, exists in abundance in the north-east
of the Republic, and in the Provinces of Salta and Jujuy, between 23°
and 26° of south latitude, and 62° and 66° of west longitude. It is this
tree which has given such value to the Brazilian territory of Acre and to
various other regions of Brazil.
Various plants yield rubber: one species, of a family known as
“lecherones,” grows in the darkest and dampest parts of the forest;
others, called “heveas” in Brazil, are much thinner in the stem; and
finally there is a third kind, the “liane” or rubber vine.
The first variety, that of the “lecherones,” gives a yield of 171⁄2 to
22 lbs. of gum per annum; there are forest lands containing as many as
50,000 plants to the square league—over 5000 to the square mile—while
the poorest districts produce 2000 to the league. Considering the present
high prices of rubber, we may obtain some idea of the great wealth of
this region. The method of exploitation is easy and simple; the country
is indubitably healthy, and with labourers paid at the rate of 3s. 7d. to
15s. 9d. a day a considerable profit would remain.
To-day men of initiative are busily seeking to
exploit
this new source
of forestal wealth, which ought in time to become another centre of
attraction to men and to capital.
Arboriculture.—There is another kind of culture which is destined in
the future, although at present it has only the smallest importance,
to become an industry of considerable moment; the culture, namely,
of orchard trees, of which we must mention the rapid progress. Given
the immense area of Argentine territory, endowed with the most varied
climates, from the snows of Tierra del Fuego to the semi-tropical heat of
Corrientès and Jujuy; from the temperate warmth of the coast to the more
relaxing temperatures of the mountains of Córdoba or the Andean frontier,
and containing land at all altitudes above the level of the sea, it is
not to be wondered at that all the fruit-bearing trees of the world can
live and flourish in the Republic.
In the northern region, and especially in Corrientès, Tucuman, Salta,
La Rioja, Catamarca, Jujuy, Formosa, Chaco, and Misionès, there are
to-day groves of oranges, mandarins, lemons and limes of various kinds,
figs, and pomegranates. At Tucuman and Salta “chirimoyos” and “paltas”
are cultivated. Almonds, olives, Barbary figs, ananas or bread-fruit,
bananas and “guayabos” may also be grown in this region; but unhappily
the fruit-growing industry is at a standstill, on account of the lack
of labour which is so great a difficulty in all departments of the
industrial and economic life of the Argentine.
In the central region we also find the mandarin or tangerine (in the
north of Entre Rios and Santa Fé), lemons (in Entre Rios, Santa Fé,
and Buenos Ayres), the grape-vine, especially in Mendoza and San Juan,
and also in La Rioja, Salta, Catamarca, Córdoba, Santa Fé, Entre Rios,
and Buenos Ayres. Peaches, prunes, apricots, cherries, apples, pears,
quinces, medlars, and figs are grown in all these districts, and chiefly
in the Province of Buenos Ayres, and the islands of the delta of the
Parana. In the same region we also find almonds, walnuts, hazel-nuts, and
chestnuts, but grown on a small scale only. There is a fair production of
lemons; and the olive grows well under favourable conditions.
In the southern region there is no fruit grown, except on a few estates
in the Rio Negro and in the valley of Chubut. Yet peaches, apricots,
prunes, cherries, apples, and pears will flourish in certain localities;
while walnuts, filberts and chestnuts might be grown on an enormous
scale on the Andean slopes, where the rains are more frequent and the
atmosphere more humid.
Up to the present time, on account of the large profits made by those
engaged in agriculture and stock-raising, and above all on account of the
insufficiency of the population, which is the prime cause of which we
have already spoken, the industry of fruit-farming has been practically
ignored, and what little has been undertaken has followed no definite
plan, such as the careful selection of stocks and slips and saplings, the
preparation of the soil, and the efficient protection of the trees. But
in spite of all, very satisfactory results have been obtained, which have
revealed the fertility of the soil and the excellence of the climate.
But quite lately we have seen a remarkable development in this branch of
agriculture, which seems to promise a fruit-growing industry comparable
to that of other and more advanced countries than the Argentine. To-day,
according to
Girola,[73]
more care is expended upon the planting and
cultivation of the trees, as the growers have acquired the conviction
that it is better to produce quality rather than quantity, and that
fruit-growing demands, like other departments of agriculture, the careful
selection of varieties at the time of planting; as well as incessant
improvement by means of careful grafting, and the application of special
procedures to the elimination of noxious insects, and the prevention of
parasitic or other maladies.
This being the case, it follows that the fruit-farmer is gradually
acquiring rational methods, which will soon attest to their beneficent
influence by transforming the old orchard-plantations, which were with
reason described as forests
of
fruit-trees, into gardens of carefully
cultivated plants, yielding crops very greatly improved in the matter of
quality and the beauty of the fruit. On the other hand, the sellers of
fruit-trees have at the same time been learning more as to the qualities
of different varieties, and how best to select them, in order to place on
the market those which will secure the largest profits to the grower, and
to propagate the most popular species.
The cultivation of fruit-trees is far from occupying its proper rank
among Argentine industries. It is distributed in an irregular fashion;
some kinds of fruit-trees abound in certain districts and are rare
or unknown in others; and it is impossible for growers in the latter
districts to obtain them at profitable rates, on account of the
difficulty and scanty means of transport.
As for the fruit trade, it has hitherto been very limited, and confined
almost exclusively to the sale of fresh fruit, as with the exception
of the factory of the “Tiger Packing Company” and a few others, which
prepare canned peaches, etc., in syrup, all growers of fruit for public
consumption offer it for sale only in the fresh state.
Yet amid the feverish activity which characterises the present situation
in the Argentine, the fruit trade receives a greater impulse each year;
not only in the matter of home consumption, which has been popularised
by the aid of such companies as the “Co-operative Fruticola,” which
endeavours to supply the consumer with articles of the first quality at
reasonable prices, but also in the matter of export to large foreign
cities. The export of fresh fruit should soon form an important branch of
commerce in the Argentine, as it does already in the United States and in
other countries.
In the matter of a fresh-fruit trade with foreign countries the
Argentine is particularly favoured by circumstances; for on account of
her geographical position she is able to profit by the inversion of the
seasons with regard to Europe; that is, by placing summer fruits on the
European markets in the middle of the northern winter. Another advantage
which the Argentine will enjoy on these markets is the fact that she has
to reckon with no formidable competitors; for those countries that might
dispute her place, such
as
South Africa, which is situated in much the
same latitude, or Chili, which grows a variety of good fruit, have not
the abundant fertility of the Republic; or if they run her close in this
respect, as is the case with Chili, they are separated from Europe by a
greater distance, which considerably increases the price of
transport.[74]
Profiting by the admirable physical advantages of the country, once this
trade has obtained the indispensable assistance of rapid and convenient
steamers, with special holds or refrigerating chambers for the storage
of large quantities of fresh fruit, we are certain that it will not have
long to wait for profitable results.
Several years ago one of the authors of this book sent to Messrs
Garcia, Jacobs & Company, of London, as a commercial sample, a batch
of peaches preserved by chilling, and according to the testimony of
these merchants the peaches of Buenos Ayres may well be the subject of
a successful business, provided that fruit of the superior varieties be
produced. Entering into detail, Messrs Garcia & Jacobs added that the
best qualities sent had sold satisfactorily; they ended by stating that
consignments reaching London in the months of March, April, and May
should yield considerable profits.
After this experiment many others were made by various persons, until
finally, thinking the moment had come for establishing the fruit trade
on a solid and lasting basis, the Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company
determined to fit their steamers with special “chilled” chambers or holds
for the transport of fresh fruit.
The first consignments have not been completely satisfactory, as in this
trade, which is now being undertaken on a very large scale, every one
has a great deal to learn; from the producer, who plants the varieties
of fruits which he thinks most suitable for export, the farm labourer,
who gathers the fruit, and the man who packs it in special cases, down to
the steamship company, which has to confide the care of the refrigerating
plant and the holds to a competent technician, whose duty it is to
maintain a
constant
temperature, appropriate to each species of fruit.
But even under these still imperfect conditions the progress achieved has
been very remarkable, and justifies our assertion that a large export
trade in fresh fruit is perfectly practicable.
The exhibitions of fruit which the Government of the Republic organises
annually, with much practical good sense, have greatly helped to
attract attention to the fruit-growing industry, and at the same time
to stimulate competition and improvement. These exhibitions have been
a veritable revelation to everybody, for very few people suspected
that the Argentine produced so great a variety of the best species of
fruit-bearing trees; or that she could rival other countries in the
matter of production.
The fresh-fruit trade is not, in the Argentine, as it is in the United
States, favoured by the existence of refrigerator cars, placed at the
disposal of the producers by the railway companies, and capable of
transporting enormous quantities of fruit from one end of the country to
the other. But this innovation, like so many others demanded by industry
and commerce, will come in time, when the population has increased, and
new markets will be permanently opened to the producer. At the present
time such fruits as are intended for home consumption, like those
selected for exportation, have not far to travel before reaching their
destination, as they are usually grown near Buenos Ayres; particularly
the peach, which is the fruit most in demand on account of its superior
quality.
Although the entire Argentine territory lends itself admirably to the
production of fruit, there are particular districts which by nature are
especially fitted for the plantation of fruit-trees. Among such districts
we may cite the islands which form the delta of the Parana, which are
covered with an extremely rich soil and magnificent growths, and are
irrigated during certain seasons of the year by the waters of the river,
which deposit on them a richly nutritious silt, like that which the
famous waters of the Nile leave upon its Egyptian banks. There flourish a
great variety of fruit-trees, from peach and apricot, pear and apple, fig
and quince, down to the “diospiro kaki,” and many other species.
Another region which has commenced to attract
attention
by reason of its
magnificent fruits is that of the Rio Colorado; it will one day be as
famous for its peaches and apricots as California is to-day. At a short
distance from Buenos Ayres is another favoured district, producing in
especial magnificent peaches; it is that of the village of Dolores, in
the Province of Buenos Ayres, whose exquisite fruits figure on the best
tables of London and other European capitals.
As we see from these data, fruit-farming is making rapid progress in the
Argentine: it may succeed in time in capturing not only the home markets,
but also the most important foreign markets.
As for the preparation of fresh fruit in syrup, as well as the
manufacture of dried fruits, both of them industries well developed
in the United States, they still exist in the Argentine only in a
rudimentary condition; but in view of the rapid progress achieved each
year in the Argentine, in this as in other industries, we may hope that
they will soon develop and establish themselves securely.
