324 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



larger tracts constituting a single wheat field ; a reference to one of 

 these will serve as a sample of the rest. In the year 1891 Mr. Jose 

 Guazzone, of Azul, offered to sell on the Bolsa at Buenos Aires the 

 produce of 80,000 acres which comprised his wheat farm. 



But sooner or later a day will come to these regions when cereal 

 growing can no longer be practised on the same gigantic scale : the 

 huge farms that form epics in agricultural industry must cease, and 

 the exhausted soil must be given an opportunity to regain its lost 

 fertility. This means that a new stage of development becomes 

 imperative, and extensive farming, in the broadest interpretation of 

 the word, must give place to high farming on extensive lines, with all 

 the problems associated with the selection of cultivated grasses and 

 artificial fertilizers. In the United States and Canada agricultural 

 investigators of the first rank are busying themselves to solve this, 

 intricate problem, which in those countries bristles with difficulties : 

 meanwhile, by adopting a system of alternately cropping and 

 summer-fallowing it is sought to prolong the wheat-yielding capabili- 

 ties of the soil. On the other hand, in Argentina the farmer is 

 confronted with no difficulty whatever ; right away he steps from 

 the first stage of development to the climax, without curtailing his 

 income by the smallest fraction, and there is no pause during the 

 transition. The explanation is to be found in the circumstance that 

 alfalfa, the greatest forage plant, and the greatest soil renovator 

 the world has even known, flourishes with the maximum of luxuriance 

 on every farm in the country that has previously produced cereals. 



At the present time the area laid down under alfalfa exceeds 

 6,500,000 acres, many individual farmers possessing more than 

 15,000 acres sown with the plant. The full significance of these 

 vast expanses, carpeted with bright green herbage of the highest 

 nutritive value, baffles the comprehension of the ordinary observer ; 

 it can, however, be accurately gauged by a perusal of the statistical 

 abstracts periodically published by the Minister for Agriculture, _ who 

 has described alfalfa as " the backbone of the country's prosperity." 

 These pamphlets tell us that a hectare (2.47 acres) of land, which, 

 under indigenous grasses, would support from J- to f head of breeding 

 cattle, will, when laid down under alfalfa, maintain from 3 to 5 

 head of store cattle, or from 2 to 3 steers for fattening purposes. 

 The cost of preparing the ground, seed, and sowing of alfalfa is 

 given at 14/7 to 16/2 per English acre, where no cereal crop has 

 been taken off, a system largely obtaining in Cordoba and the sub- 

 Anadean provinces for reasons that will be explained later on, but 

 unnecessary within the cereal belt, where the actual expense incurred 

 may be reckoned by the value of the seed. The life of the plant is 

 given at seven to eight years in the least favourable soils, a term 

 sufficiently long in which to communicate to the land those nitro- 

 genous substances essential to the growth of cereals; and under 

 conditions more conducive to longevity no decay is yet apparent. 



The question now arises, what constitutes the most desirable 

 environment for the production of alfalfa? As I have already 

 pointed out, all soils suitable for the cultivation of wheat are found 



