JERKED MEAT EATERS 115 



like a park, includes a number of these modern estancias, 

 in which lucerne is beginning to replace the grasses of the 

 natural vegetation. 



When one passes to the interior, the pastoral industry 

 at once assumes a more primitive character. The 

 quebracho concerns themselves go in for breeding, in 

 order to make use of their large estates, when the 

 timber has been removed but the works have not yet 

 been set up. They need a large number of cattle, both 

 for moving the timber and feeding their workers, and 

 they endeavour to meet their needs themselves. In 

 this district the forest is capable of feeding a far heavier 

 herd than is the more arid scrub of the eastern Chaco. 

 There are often a thousand head of cattle to 2,500 

 hectares. To the north and west of that part of the 

 forest where the big companies have taken over the whole 

 of the land, in the province of Chaco, a fairly large 

 number of estates has been created. Further still, on 

 either side of the Bermejo, cattle from Corrientes and 

 the Paraguay have been put on the public lands by 

 men with no rights. As their future is uncertain, they 

 cannot do any expensive work, such as making wells, 

 reservoirs, and enclosures. Sometimes they are com- 

 pelled by drought to fall back upon the river. 



Conditions are quite different in the forests of Misiones. 

 The damp forest of Misiones does not lend itself to 

 breeding. While the forest-workers on the west of the 

 Parana eat fresh meat, thanks to the proximity of the 

 breeders, in the yerbales and obrajes of Misiones, the use 

 of dried or " jerked " meat (came seca), which is brought 

 some distance, has remained the common practice, as 

 it is in most parts of tropical America. On the other 

 hand, there is now developing in Misiones an agricultural 

 colonization of an original kind, quite distinct from the 

 ordinary Argentinian type. This is because Misiones 

 is a province apart in Argentina. It really belongs, by 

 its geological structure and its climate, to the Brazilian 

 tableland. The colonies in Misiones are merely an 



