A Trip to Tucuman 271 



were fully forty or more feet in height. At the ground 

 they appeared to be from two to three feet in diameter, 

 and then rapidly branching, sent up huge candelabra- 

 like tops, which were covered with large starry flowers, 

 some white, some yellow, some crimson. There were 

 evidently a number of species. These growths were 

 in many places being cut down and burned up to make 

 way for the planting of alfalfa. I saw the Italian 

 laborers at work in the clearings, and here, there, 

 everywhere, columns of smoke could be seen ascending 

 from the midst of the forest just as I used to see them 

 when I was a child in the Middle West of our own 

 country. What would not the people of Ohio, Indiana, 

 and Kentucky now give if they could only recall to the 

 land the growths of trees which once covered it? The 

 sight of these giants of their race being hacked down and 

 destroyed impelled me on my return to Buenos Aires 

 to suggest to Sefior Ramos Mejia, the Minister of 

 Public Works, that there ought to be steps taken to 

 make a reservation of a large tract of this interesting 

 region, easily accessible from the railway, so that future 

 generations of Argentines might know what the land 

 was like when the fathers first invaded it. He admitted 

 the desirability of such a step, but said, The General 

 Government possesses no claim to the lands within the 

 limits of the organized Provinces. We have followed 

 the example of your country. The United States of 

 North America cannot set up 'forest reservations' in 

 Pennsylvania. If such reservations are made it must 

 be by the Province. ' Thus the matter rests. I hope, 

 however, that the Provinces, if not the General Govern- 

 ment of Argentina, may not fail in the near future to 

 take steps to preserve at least some small portions of the 

 primaeval forests in their native wildness. 



