114 EXPLOITATION OF THE FORESTS 



to them, as the felling of a few trees does not in the least 

 lower the value of the pasture. The forestry has not 

 entailed any change in the ownership of the land or in 

 the breeding methods. The obrajes are merely passing 

 guests whose traces are quickly obliterated. 



In the eastern Chaco, however, the wood-cutters are 

 real pioneers. It is they who have made the conquest 

 of the forest, often in direct touch with the Indians, 

 and the ownership of the land fell to them. They have 

 themselves played an essential part in the actual 

 development of breeding. 



Leaving the river and travelling toward the forest 

 on the west, one first crosses a narrow belt of estates 

 which form an almost unbroken line from San Javier 

 to Resistencia. These are old colonies, mostly founded 

 about 1870, at the same time as the first colonies in 

 the centre of Santa Fe. They had the advantage of 

 being within reach of the river-route, the network of 

 railways that serves the colonies of Sante Fe not being 

 constructed until after 1880. They have not shown 

 the same capacity for extension as the colonies on the 

 prairie, but they are firmly rooted, on high and well- 

 drained land, very different from the clays of the Chaco, 

 where the alluvial beds of the Parana alternate with 

 stuff that seems to come from the left bank. They 

 grow flax, earth-nuts, sugar cane, and cotton. Behind 

 this slight agricultural fa9ade are the large estates of 

 the factories. In the division of the land the industrial 

 firms sought the districts which were richest in quebracho. 

 Buyers of land who had no industrial plans — foreign 

 capitalists and Portenos — and who obtained large 

 concessions in little-known regions, sold back to the 

 factories the plots where there was plenty of wood, 

 after they had taken stock of their property. They 

 converted the remainder into estancias (ranches). The 

 district to the north of the Central Norte Railway, from 

 San Cristobal to Tostado, where the forest, which will 

 presently yield to the plain, breaks into patches and looks 



