SMALL FARMERS 193 



This originality is not so much in virtue of its crops (hard 

 wheat and flax) as on account of the age of colonization 

 and the division of property. Most of the colonists 

 are owners, and estates of 50 to 200 hectares are the 

 rule. The houses are comfortable ; they are surrounded 

 by orchards and kitchen-gardens. Moreover, the rural 

 economy has been complicated, and it has assumed a 

 familiar aspect for the European observer, owing to 

 the introduction of cattle-rearing on a small scale by 

 the farmers. The number of horned cattle doubled 

 between 1908 and 1914 in the Castellanos department, 

 and increased by a third in Las Colonias. The area 

 of lucerne has extended in proportion. The farms have 

 been multiplied on the low lands (caftadas), unsuitable 

 for wheat, which the older colonists had disdained ; 

 but they are now regarded as the best bits of land. 

 The recent rise in the value of land in the region of 

 the colonies is connected, not with an increase of 

 agricultural production, but a development of breeding. 

 A few co-operative diary societies have been established. 

 In general, however, breeding is solely for the meat- 

 market. The cattle-trade goes on very different lines 

 from those of the large estates and ranches. It has 

 remained in the hands of small dealers (Jews of Moises- 

 ville). 



Agricultural colonization in the Buenos Aires 

 province was at first entirely independent of the Santa 

 Fe colonization. The crops of the adjoining region 

 of Buenos Aires never disappeared altogether. In 

 the period to which Daireaux's description of the 

 economic life of the Pampa refers (1880-89), the farmers 

 disputed with the breeders a belt some ten leagues 

 broad round the capital. But sheep-breeding left 

 no place for agriculture in the next belt, which enclosed 

 the first on every side, and extended almost as far as 

 the Salado. Agricultural colonization had found free 

 land only beyond the sheep-farm area, 170 miles west 

 of Buenos Aires, round Chivilcoy, Chacabuco, and 



13 



