190 THE PLAIN OF THE PAMPAS 



the results of recent Censuses we find that the number 

 has risen rapidly since 1895 in the whole of the eastern 

 area, north of the Sierra de Tandil. The increase is 

 particularly conspicuous north of the Rio Salado, in 

 the dairy district. (Mean density in 1915, 40 to 60 

 horned cattle per square kilometre.) In the south- 

 west region (wheat belt) the density has always been 

 low (12 per square kilometre), and it shows no tendency 

 to increase. In the north and western region of Buenos 

 Aires (lucerne belt) there has been a rapid increase, 

 especially between 1895 and 1908 (creation of the lucerne 

 farms), and it has not been interrupted since (density 

 50 to the square kilometre). There is the same increase 

 in the whole area of the lucerne farms in the Cordoba, 

 Santa Fe, and San Luis provinces, where the herds 

 doubled beween 1895 and 1908. Only two regions 

 have suffered a reduction : the agricultural area of 

 the centre (Chacabuco, Chivilcoy), where there has 

 been a decrease since 1895, and the maize district (north 

 of Buenos Aires), where cattle-rearing did not diminish 

 until after 1908. 



Agriculture had begun to develop by the end of the 

 eighteenth century in the district round Buenos Aires. 

 D'Azara admits the enormous preponderance of breeding, 

 but mentions that the right bank of the Parana exported 

 flour to the left bank, which was exclusively pastoral. 

 Barrero also observes that between the belt of orchards 

 and lucerne fields, about a league in width, which sur- 

 rounded Buenos Aires, and the area of the ranches, 

 which did not begin for six or eight leagues, there was 

 an agricultural belt, the district of the chacras de pan 

 llevar. The main crop was wheat, and the tillage was 

 chiefly done in the rich soils at the bottom of the valleys, 

 which are called canadas in the local dialect (canada 

 de Moron, Canada du Rio Lujan, etc.). 



It was, however, not at Buenos Aires, but in the 

 Santa Fe province, that modern agricultural coloniza- 



