WHEAT AND FLAX 199 



Aires facilitated the development of the intermediate 

 region (Pringles-Laprida) . From Bahia Blanca it spread 

 to the west and north-west along the Toay line, and 

 southward as far as Colorado on the coast. In the 

 whole area of the Central Pampa it is still possible 

 to distinguish two strata of immigrants, of different 

 dates, one superimposed upon the other : the sheep- 

 breeders and the farmers. Round Toay the contrast 

 between the two elements of the population is even 

 more striking, because the first pastoral colonization, 

 which dates from 1890, was to a great extent the work 

 of Creole puntanos (from the San Luis province). The 

 actual agricultural colonies, on the other hand, include 

 recent European immigrants and colonists from other 

 parts of the provinces of Buenos Aires and Entre 

 Rios. 



The yield of the wheat grows less and less as one 

 goes westward. The harvest may be injured either 

 by late frost or drought, or, especially, by hot winds 

 which scorch the plants and blight the half-realized 

 hopes of the farmers in the weeks just before the harvest. 

 But the relative poorness of the return is compensated 

 by the extent of the farms and the cheapness of labour. 

 The harvest is often done with machines that peel and 

 pack the wheat, and the workers are not compelled, 

 as they are at Santa Fe, to wait for the threshing machine. 

 The aridity does not permit flax-growing, but oats can 

 be grown, especially between the Sierra de la Ventana 

 and the Sierra de Tandil ; and it is good to sow oats 

 when the land has been impoverished by consecutive 

 crops of wheat. Exports of oats through Bahia Blanca 

 began in 1906. 



The displacement of breeding by farming is less 

 thorough than in the maize belt. Oats, sown about 

 the beginning of autumn, serve for fodder. The 

 animals are kept in the fields during the winter, and 

 the oats are cut and put into the mill, without being 

 threshed, as a reserve fodder. Moreover, the wheat 



