184 STATES OF THE RIVEK PLATE. 



the herbage or pasture is strong and somewhat coarse, is 

 undoubted. A direct profitable return will be obtained 

 from the cattle, and by a judicious disposition in grazing 

 them, they will eat down the coarser herbage, and bring 

 the land into better state for sheep. 



Tliis constitutes a by no means unimportant economy 

 in the management of lands which, from their present 

 conditions as strong grass-producing, and being a little 

 outside of the present sheep-walk radius, can be pur- 

 chased at half the ]irice of lands of finer herbage, and 

 which have merely had the advantage of having been so 

 depastured as to bring them into that better condition. 



It will have been observed that I treat the cattle- 

 breeding as subordinate to the breeding of sheep. In 

 the first place, there is not yet introduced the practice of 

 improving the cattle, and there is not yet determined, in 

 practice, a course of treatment which will bring into play 

 the most important item of cattle products, viz. the beef. 

 The land that is in good state will maintain, on a given 

 area, a very much greater value in sheep than in native 

 cattle, under the ordinary course of treatment. Sheep, 

 too, make an annual return in wool, in addition to the 

 increase ; also, to the generality of Europeans, the sheep- 

 industry is more congenial. Working among semi-wild 

 cattle is a speciality of the horseman of the plain, and 

 the management of a cattle estabhshment requires some 

 experience in the country and a knowledge of the 

 language. 



Where small capitals are employed, and the parties are 

 new in the country, this branch of rural industry is not, 

 at present, a desirable undertaking. Where larger capi- 

 tals are invested, efficient managers are obtainable ; and 

 in the more distant and cruder lands of Buenos 

 Ayres, and on estancias in the Banda Oriental, Entre 



