The Realm of Alfalfa. 329 



is composed, is perfectly suitable for the trade when run for a short 

 time on the alfalfa fields : and this is particularly necessary during 

 the winter months, when the wild grasses are hard and indigestible. 

 As regards live and frozen wethers, every practical farmer knows that 

 it is much more diflficult to breed and finish a good steer than a pass- 

 able wether, but here again the quality of the mutton has its influence 

 on prices ; furthermore, it must be borne in mind that the grade and 

 quantity of wool yielded is an item of supreme importance, and it is 

 gratifying to know that a short time ago the State Department of 

 Statistics announced that under normal conditions the yield of wool 

 per sheep had increased from 3I to 52- pounds since 1880. 



Now I have told you a little about the most important centres of 

 the great pastoral industry, whose ramifications have spread and 

 have made meat almost a drug in our home markets ; but these by 

 no means exhaust the potentialities of Argentina, whose resources are 

 only commencing their course of development. Scattered over the 

 northern provinces there are numerous extensive, well-watered valleys 

 awaiting a population to carry on the cultivation of the land ; added 

 to these there is the riparian province of Entre Rios, with its gently 

 undulating plains capable of yielding almost any product, and in 

 which, before many years elapse, alfalfa is destined to reign supreme. 

 While south of a line drawn westward from Bahia Blanca, in the 

 great arid desert of Patagonia, with its pebbly soil and innumerable 

 unwholesome " salitrales " (saltpans), presenting a remarkable con- 

 trast to the calcareo-argillaceous deposit which constitutes the essen- 

 tial feature of the whole Pampean formation, there is no possibility 

 that alfalfa can ever be cultivated, excepting in a few favourable 

 patches^ 



We often hear it said now-a-days that the nineteenth century 

 belonged to the United States, and that the twentieth century 

 belongs to Canada. I hope and trust for the honour of the British 

 Empire and the Anglo-Saxon race the prognostication will be verified, 

 but I am constrained to think that in this great race Canada is 

 carrying too much weight. Argentina for the most part enjoys a 

 climate of surpassing fructuousness, the rainfall is abundant and 

 comes at the right seasons, vegetation is growing all the year round, 

 and the husbandman can work in the field three hundred and sixty- 

 five days out of the year. In the quasipolar atmosphere of the 

 " Great North West " the productive forces of nature lie dormant 

 for more than six months out of the twelve, and the farmer, be he 

 ever so industrious, must hibernate in much the same condition. But 

 I rejoice to think that Canada has a rival in every respect worthy to 

 compete with a people, whose grand old traditions and assiduous 

 struggle against nature, have made them at once, the most sterlingly 

 honest and lovable people it has ever been my fortune to meet, and 

 I have travelled considerably. 



In giving expression to these thoughts, I am not unaware that 

 other persons may think I am indulging in a poet's dream, in an 

 illusion that vanishes before the light ; yet those familiar with what 



