100 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



valley had originally before we adopted the system of putting in ditches 

 and tile drains. It is a little more rolling than that. There is a rail- 

 road extending out of Buenos Aires that runs fifty-four miles without 

 a curve. That is one country that appeals to the cattle man and it 

 appeals to the farmer who loves a rich soil. You cannot help being im- 

 pressed with the richness and resources of such a country. The Argen- 

 tine is not all of that character, however, but all that along the La Plata 

 river is of that kind. The valleys there are wider than anything you see 

 in this country. We were particularly impressed as we went up the bay 

 at the extent and magnitude of that river. We arrived in the city of 

 Buenos Aires about noon. When we came on deck that morning we all 

 noticed that the water was muddy, yet there was no land in sight at 

 that time, and the remark was frequently heard that we had never before 

 seen the ocean so muddy. One of the officers replied, "Why, we have 

 been in the river since midnight, it is 150 miles wide here." The width of 

 the level land adjoining the river is in that proportion also, for it extends 

 back for hundreds of miles on either side. Then as you go farther south 

 you find more rolling land, more like our rolling blue-grass pasture of 

 Iowa, and this central section is principally a grazing country. They say 

 it is the cattle man's country; that the cattlemen own the country; that 

 the cattlemen possess the wealth of that country; that they elect the 

 legislatures and make the laws, and to a large extent that is true. 



The city of Buenos Aires and the wealth of that city is largely in the 

 hands of the cattlemen, and great fortunes have been made from 

 sheep and cattle and lands. They have no great enterprise except the 

 cattle business; they have not developed their mines and their lumber; 

 they have not developed anything yet except their agriculture, so that 

 it is primarily, and until recently has been, almost exclusively a grazing 

 country. The pioneers went into that country and developed stock — 

 it was an open country at that time— and then began to fence it and 

 make great pastures. Later they brought in American engineers to put 

 up great reservoirs which they called "watering tanks" which they 

 draw upon when they want to water their stock. The cattle are kept 

 out in this open pasture the year round, the calves are dropped there, 

 they are fattened on those pastures and remain right there until they go 

 to market. 



Yesterday some Argentine gentlemen were at Ames. They were 

 asking about our methods of finishing cattle for market; how much we 

 would feed to get a thousand-pound steer ready to go to market; what 

 we would feed to put him in shape before we were ready to call him in 

 marketable condition. I told them fifteen pounds of shelled corn a day, 

 a couple of pounds of oil meal, perhaps twenty-five or thirty pounds of 

 silage, and from three to five pounds of clover and alfalfa hay. When 

 I got through Mr. Dugan said: "That is very interesting, but we feed 

 them nothing", and that is absolutely true. They simply stay out in 

 the pastures where they were born 'and fed nothing except what was found 

 in those pastures. When they go to market they go in prime condition. 

 You may wonder what kind of cattle they produce under such conditions. 



