FIELD FOR CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 179 



steadily driving back to greater distances the cattle 

 estancias. 



The land in the province of Buenos Ayres being for the 

 most part better adapted for sheep-grazing than that in 

 other parts of the Eepublic, is rated at a higher value, at 

 least in those districts which are considered within the 

 sheep-farming radius, that is in those districts where the 

 depasturing of cattle has ' fined ' the grasses, and may be 

 stated to range between 2,500/. and 5,000/. per square 

 league. There are, however, some favoured tracts which 

 have been sold as high as 8,000/. and 10,000/. per league. 

 The price of public or ' state lands ' on the frontier, as 

 fixed by law, is 200,000^ (paper dollars), or about 1,600/., 

 and 400,000;^ for lands well within the frontier. There 

 is, however, an agitation on foot which will induce a 

 modification in the price of the frontier lands, as also in 

 the manner of disposing of them. 



Owing to the difficulties and cost of transit to and from 

 these lands, the more or less risk from Indian raids, and 

 the disadvantages incidental to virgin ' camps ' in the com- 

 paratively coarse and dense herbage which covers the 

 greater part of them, rendering them, for the time being, 

 less suited for sheep than those which have been ' fed 

 off' by cattle, the government price of 200,000^ is con- 

 sidered too high to induce parties to purchase and settle 

 on them in any number. 



In the Banda Oriental (or Uruguay) the sales of lands 

 have been equivalent to from 1,500/. to 3,500/. One or 

 two unusually good and favourably situated estancias have 

 been sold as high as 5,000/. per square league. The lands 

 of this Eepublic are sold by the ' suerte,' which is, more 

 or less, three-quarters of a league. 



The Banda Oriental ' campos ' will not, as a rule, carry 

 so many head of sheep per league as those of the Province 



n2 



