THE SUGAR DISTRICT 71 



of the sub-Andean chain of the Lumbrera to the arid 

 valley of Cachi. On both sides of Aconcagua there are 

 less than fifty-five miles between the sugar-cane fields 

 won from the forest and the oasis of Andalgala, or that of 

 Santa Maria, which are right in the desert zone. Accord- 

 ing as one approaches Aconcagua from the east or the 

 west, one finds, from base to summit, either the suc- 

 cessive stages of vegetation of the humid Andes from 

 forest to grain-sown prairie (paramo or pajonal) or 

 those which are characteristic of the arid Andes, from 

 the spiny scrub of the valleys to the fields of resinous 

 tola of the Puna. The contrast of climates is repeated 

 in the character of the soils. Aconcagua contains in 

 itself the entire Andes in miniature. At the foot of the 

 narrow zone of Alpine crests, in the few square miles 

 of the elevated valleys of Tafi and Pucara, there is 

 a small agricultural and pastoral world, in a temperate 

 climate, that has nothing quite like it elsewhere, 

 narrowly confined between the forest and the desert. 1 

 The sugar district of Tucuman is not, properly 

 speaking, an oasis ; that is to say, it is not an irrigated 

 canton in the midst of a desert, but a moist patch in 

 the heart of a less favoured region. The traveller 

 who comes from the Chaco finds that the dust dis- 

 appears from the moister air as he approaches Tucuman. 

 The rainfall approaches 974 millimetres at Tucuman. 

 Irrigation is a valuable aid to the farmer, but it is 

 not indispensable. Maize is generally raised without 

 watering, and part even of the sugar-cane crop is raised 

 on land that is not irrigated. It is not the relatively 

 heavy rainfall that has led to the development of the 

 sugar-cane estates at Tucuman, but the evenness of 

 the temperature, together with the atmospheric moisture 



* The higher valleys of Aconcagua offer inexhaustible interest to 

 the visitor. At Sancho (Pucara valley) there is a group of Italian 

 colonists who grow maize and wheat : a unique fact, I believe, in the 

 whole of this part of Argentina. The Tafi valley is mainly pastoral, 

 the pastures of the valley being used in summer and the forest for 

 winter pasture. 



