THE TIMBER WORKERS 101 



harvest at Tucuman and the harvest in the south only 

 last a few months. They emigrate from the banados to 

 Tucuman in May ; to Cordoba and Santa Fe in October, 

 November and December ; but to the forests of the 

 Chaco all the year round. 



Apart from the banados of the Dulce and the Salado, 

 the province of Corrientes contains the main reservoir 

 from which the timber industry drew its manual workers. 

 Just as at Santiago del Estero, one finds at Corrientes 

 also the opposition between agricultural and breeding 

 districts which is so common in the older colonized 

 regions of South America. The esta?icieros (ranchers), 

 who are breeders, are the masters of Corrientes, but the 

 line of low hills of sand and red clay, punctuated by 

 lagoons, which crosses the north-western corner of the 

 province, is not subject to their domination. There the 

 land is subdivided ; there are once more fields. Tobacco 

 was an article of export for this fraction of Corrientes, 

 especially after the political isolation of Paraguay, 

 the chief producer of tobacco in the nineteenth century. 

 During the whole of the first half of the nineteenth 

 century the tobacco-buyers travelled all over Corrientes 

 after the harvest, in January and February. The fertile 

 soil, moreover, with a mild climate in which tropical 

 plants flourish as well as those of the temperate zone, 

 provides the elements of a local comfort which is com- 

 plete in itself. Here again agricultural colonization has 

 created a relatively dense nucleus of population, capable 

 of great increase. Although the administrative divisions 

 do not exactly correspond with the natural divisions, 

 the unequal distribution of the population in Corrientes 

 is made plain by the figures given in the census of 1895. 

 The density rises in the agricultural areas to eight 

 inhabitants per square kilometre, in the department 

 of Bellavista ; ten at San Cosma ; fourteen at Lomas ; 

 thirty at San Roque. It is only between one and two 

 in the purely pastoral departments (Concepcion and 

 Mercedes) . 



