290 ANNUAL UEl'ORT OF TllIO Off. Doc. 



there are from live to seven cuttings a year, averaging from eight 

 to twelve tons of hay annually per acre. If Clark of Connecticut, 

 with his wonderful knack in growing grass and clover, were in the 

 best part of Argeulina he would soon get from thirty to forty tons 

 of alfalfa hay to the acre, for he would have all the advantage of 

 marvelously helpful climate and soil. 



Hardly a third of a century ago still another American, a civil 

 engineer who went out to the Pam])as to engage in railway construc- 

 tion, saw an unprecedented opening for dairying. Cows swarmed 

 over the plains .yet he could get neither milk for the kitchen nor 

 cream for his cotfee. The butter set before him was all imported in 

 sealed tins from Europe, and, with the exception of a very unappe- 

 tizing domestic make, all the cheese was the product of dairies on 

 the far side of the Atlantic. Not a dairy could the engineer "get 

 on track of anywhere on the continent, so he saved his salary and 

 bided his time to buy a ranch. Having no practical knowledge of 

 dairying when linally in possession of his property he selected Jer- 

 seys for his herd, probably the poorest choice that could have been 

 made for the district in which his ranch is situated. But despite this 

 handicap money tlowed in from the first milking, leading in a few 

 years to a fortune of several hundred thousand dollars, and also lead- 

 ing in less than two decades to a national dairy industry, exporting 

 millions of pounds of butter and cheese annually. 



These Pampas developments in the improvement of livestock, in the 

 production of cereals, and in the conversion of beef cows to dairy pur- 

 poses, are the foundation of the reports of the wonderful productivity 

 of South American soil and climate, and of the prediction that in 

 another decade the farmers of South America will dominate the 

 markets of the world. If the continent had maintained the gains 

 shown in the exports of farm products from 1SS5 to 1900, there can 

 be no doubt that before 1020 it would have driven the United States, 

 Canada, Australia, and India out of all European markets, with 

 an equal certainty that our own domestic market would have been 

 flooded with its great crops. But a close study of the conditions 

 under Avhich the development of Pampas agriculture took place shows 

 that these conditions were unusually abnormal, making the gains 

 in the exports of farm products during the period in question equally 

 abnormal. The culmination of this spectacular development was 

 i-eached in the lirst years of the present century, from which time 

 there have been only slight gains in the exports of the surplus of the 

 soil from the La Plata countries. Moreover, there is no likelihood 

 that there will ever again be any very considerable gain in the 

 yearly rate of increase in crop production. 



Prior to about 1870 the farmers of the Pampas were all ranch- 

 men, as the husbandmen of most other parts of the continent were 

 and still are. Then, there was a vast public domain, looked upon 

 as being almost worthless, free to the stock of whomsoever cared 

 to go beyond the frontier of settlement for pasture. Only the land 

 along the coast and great rivers was thought to be worth buying up 

 for ranch pur])oses until after the construction of railroads, when 

 settlers slowly followed these new means of trans|)ortation. Ranches 

 were unfenced, the great flocks and herds being cared for by mounted 

 men and boys who were hired for a few dollars each per year in 

 addition to a hut, a plot of ground on which to raise the common 



