402 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



of the fact that they have never tasted grain. If they did not have, ideal 

 grazing conditions and favorable climatic and other conditions as well, 

 they could not produce such live stock as they do produce. 



It Beems to me that the two outstanding features of their success as a 

 cattle-producing country are, first, the importance of good blood and the 

 improvement of their herds and the general breeding up of the live 

 stock, and, second, the importance of good pastures and ideal grazing 

 conditions, whether they be fenced or maintained out in the open. I 

 have never seen a country that possesses so much good pasture land as 

 they have there, and apparently the most successful of those men have 

 learned the secret of maintaining that pasturage in good condition the 

 year around; and that is the real foundation of the beef and mutton- 

 producing industry in that country. 



Formerly the richer and better lands around Buenos Aires and the 

 central part were occupied by sheep, and many of the great fortunes 

 have been made by the sheep men; but lately the sheep have given way 

 and gone farther south to a colder region, and to thinner and less valu- 

 able land, but land that is v.ell adapted to the production of mutton; so 

 that there has been a gradual shifting. 



They have not yet gotten into the hog business. You scarcely see 

 as many hogs in riding a week in that country as you will see in riding 

 across Iowa in half a day; in fact, they have only about one-fourth as 

 many hogs in the whole Argentine Republic as we have in the state of 

 Iowa. It seems strange, too, in view of the conditions which I have 

 described there — very mild climate, an abundance of alfalfa, and good 

 grazing conditions, and the readiness with which they produce corn at 

 a low cost, as well as other farm grains, that they have not gotten 

 into pork production. I think the reason is that the beef and mutton 

 business was established first and it has been so profitable and so sat- 

 isfactory that the men have not taken time to get into the hog business. 

 Then another reason is that they have not had, until recently, good 

 marketing facilities. The modern packing plant has not been estab- 

 lished in South America very long. It is not very many years since 

 they were killing those cattle for their hides and the tallow, and per- 

 haps they were utilizing some of the beef by drying it into what they 

 called shark or jerked beef, cutting it up Into pieces somewhat as we 

 do when we prepare it for the drying process, and hanging it out in the 

 open air on a long series of rail fences, or something quite similar, and 

 leaving it there until it becomes dried, so that it can be shipped and 

 used for food. It is treated with some process to keep the flies from 

 damaging it. But when the packing houses came in there, they created 

 a market, or helped to create one, for the finished products, so that they 

 are going out now in the same form that the products go out from our 

 packing houses. And in that connection it is of interest to know that 

 practically all of the large packing concerns are owned by the American 

 packers. There was a good deal of prejudice against them when they 

 went in there. The cattle men contended that they would probably 

 be under a monopoly. The facts were that they had already had a mo- 



