CHAPTER VI 

 THE PLAIN OF THE PAMPAS 



The limits of the prairie — The rains — The wind and the formation 

 of the clay of the Pampas — The wind and the contour — The 

 zones of colonization on the Pampas — Hunting wild cattle and 

 primitive breeding — The sheep-farms — The ranches — The region 

 of " colonies " — The region of lucerne, maize, and wheat — 

 The combination of agriculture and breeding — The economic 

 mechanism of colonization — The exchanges between the different 

 zones of the Pampas. 



The Pampean landscape is doubtless one of the most 

 uniform in the world. Its monotony is tiring to the 

 eye ; it is partly responsible for the mediocrity of 

 most of the descriptions of the Pampas. But this 

 uniformity is an advantage for the purpose of coloniza- 

 tion. Attention has often been drawn to the rapidity 

 with which plants and animals introduced by Europeans 

 spread in the Buenos Aires district, and, pushing 

 ahead of the breeders and farmers, colonized the Pampas. 

 In the second half of the nineteenth century, when 

 the whole extent of the plain beyond the ancient 

 Indian frontier was occupied, the development of it 

 was so much easier because it was possible to use 

 simpler and more uniform methods of exploitation. It 

 needed neither large capital nor long personal experience 

 on the part of the immigrant. Basques and Italians 

 who had only just landed could take an active part 

 in it almost without apprenticeship. The primitive 

 groups of population could advance from one zone 

 of the plain to another and take with them their own 

 methods of farming and breeding, their own form 

 of rural economy. 



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