FARMING UNDER DIFFICULTIES 67 



price of cattle, and this in turn has raised the value 

 of land. When the value of the land rises, the methods 

 of working it are necessarily improved, there is greater 

 security, and thefts of cattle {citatrerismo) become 

 impossible. The farmers are not content merely to 

 enlarge their represas or dig deeper wells. They divide 

 the fields by fences — cheap iron wire stretched on 

 home-made posts, or hedges of spines like those which 

 protect the banados. Thus pasture can be reserved 

 untouched for the difficult months. 



This subdivision of the land by fences began in the 

 south, in the Ulapes district, in touch with the richer 

 districts of San Luis and Cordoba, In the Llanos 

 proper the practice has scarcely begun. At Ulapes 

 it is even done on the mercedes. Each comunero, 

 without opposition, encloses as much space as he can, 

 and leaves his cattle outside, on the common land, 

 as long as possible. He only brings them into his 

 enclosed land when the common pasture is exhausted. 

 This will bring about the end of the mercedes ; and, 

 indeed, communal ownership is not suited to modern 

 conditions. The latest sign of progress is the appear- 

 ance of lucerne fields. Lucerne can be grown on the 

 banados wherever anything else can be grown ; and 

 the creation of lucerne-farms will give the pastoral 

 industry a security and stability it never had before, 

 besides enabling the breeders to collect stores of dry 

 forage and exploit the full pastoral capacity of the 

 monte. 



