No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 291 



vegetables, and fresh meat from the animals they guarded. Every 

 man who worked on the farm was emi)loyed about stock in one 

 way or another, and every immigrant farm hand found that the 

 only work in which he could engage was the care of stock. 



At this time the population of the Pampas, a territory nearly half 

 as large as the United States, was less than 5,000,000 people, over 

 a quarter of whom lived in the cities and larger towns, and had no 

 connection with farm life. Thus, when it was demonstrated that 

 livestock could be profitably improved, that the cereals would yield 

 excellent returns, and that dairying might be advantageously de- 

 veloped, there were less than 4,000,000 persons, a large proportion 

 of whom were children under fifteen years of age, to do all the farm 

 work undertaken, no matter what its nature. This population, 

 sparse as it was, was considerably in excess of the actual needs 

 of ranching under the method then followed. Families were large, 

 fifteen children in any not exciting special comment, so the women 

 and girls, Avho were generall}' expert with spindle, loom, and needle, 

 made the family clothes, and sewed and embroidered as a means of 

 aiding in supplying the necessities of life. 



On the discovery that the cereals could be grown, great numbers 

 of men and boys were taken from the saddle to follow the plow, 

 women and girls were also made to do all kinds of Avork in connec- 

 tion with the cultivated crops, and farm immigrants, with the ex- 

 ception of those skilled in handling stock, found employment as 

 tillers of the soil rather than as hands on the ranch. This change 

 in vocation was made with marvelous rapidity, for by 1900 every 

 woman and girl that could be pressed into service, and every hand 

 that could be taken from the care of cattle and sheep, was engaged 

 in producing wheat, corn and flax. ^Meanwhile, hundreds of thou- 

 sands of miles of wire fence were built, not only making it possible 

 to care for stock in accordance with the better methods demanded 

 by the improvement in breeds, and with the minimum of "help," 

 but also, for the first time in Pampas practice, enabling the herds- 

 men to group animals in suitable classes or grades, instead of hav- 

 ing all ages and conditions on each ranch in one great herd. 



As long as men could be readily transferred from the pasture to 

 the grain field the increase in the production and export of Pampas 

 cereals could be and Avas exceedingly rapid, but as soon as the limit 

 of this transferred labor was reached, just so soon was the phe- 

 nominal gains in crops and exports brought to an end. Extra- 

 ordinary efforts were made b.y many land owners to maintain the 

 rate of development by the further use of the wire fence, by the 

 greater use of American labor-saving implements and machines, 

 and especially by constantly increasing the Avages of the tillers of 

 the soil. Wages rose in little more than a decade until they were 

 on a pa*r with the pay given in our oAvn country for the same classes 

 of work, and the demands of harA^est hands quadrupled, and even 

 quintupled, in the last seA'en or eight years of the period of develop- 

 ment, in the efiorts of husbandmen to secure the help necessary to 

 garner their huge fields of ripening grain, Avhich, in some cases, 

 exceeded 30,000 acres each. 



The increase in Avages, together Avith other increased expenses, 

 raised very materially the cost of production, so that this, in con- 

 nection with the frequent losses caused by drought and grasshopper, 



