THE MARKETS OF THE PAMPA 203 



what they needed of the merchants, and entrusted 

 them with the sale of their crops. The migration of 

 the Santa Fe colonists was partly due to, and sustained 

 by, a corresponding migration of merchants who had 

 acquired wealth in the older colonies, and who thus 

 got ^a larger body of customers. The merchant who 

 organizes colonization often acts as the intermediary 

 between the owner and the colonist, guaranteeing the 

 owner a fixed rent for his land and receiving so much 

 per cent, of his harvest from the farmer. This system 

 is very widespread in the corn belt, but it is found 

 all over the plain of the Pampas. It tends to disappear 

 when the colony is older and deeper-rooted, as the 

 colonist gradually earns his independence ; he buys 

 his lease, his equipment, and his furniture, and controls 

 the sale of his own crops. In the districts where he 

 has not become owner, the leases are generally varia- 

 tions of two types : farming leases, where the colonist 

 has capital enough for working, and renting leases, 

 where the capital is provided by the owner or the 

 middleman. 



Lastly, colonization can make no progress unless 

 it finds markets on which it can put its produce. Up 

 to the present western Europe has been the chief market 

 for the wool, leather, meat, and cereals of the Pampean 

 region ; tropical America absorbs part of the output 

 of the saladeros, flour, and dry fodder ; and North 

 America has recently begun to compete with Europe for 

 wool, leather, and frozen meat. The facility with 

 which the products of the Pampa have found their 

 way into the world's markets, as is seen in the comparative 

 stability of the returns, explains the continuous advance 

 of colonization and the short duration of the crises 

 which have disturbed it. 



The home market, however, has had an importance 

 in connection with colonization that must not be over- 

 looked. When wheat-growing spread at Santa Fe 

 the crop was at first devoted to supplying Buenos 



