TRADE WITH CHILE 205 



description shows that even in 1883 the breeders of 

 the San Luis province devoted themselves exclusively 

 to supplying the Chilean market. 1 Buyers from Chile 

 and the Andean provinces still visit Villa Mercedes, 

 and until a recent date they came to Villa Maria, in 

 the province of Cordoba. The Santa Fe ranches 

 found their customers, until the opening of the Cordoba 

 line (1870) amongst the troperos, who bought draught 

 oxen for their waggons. The loss of these customers 

 and the crisis that followed are one of the reasons why 

 agricultural colonization met with so little resistance 

 on the part of the breeders, and was able to take root 

 so easily at Santa Fe. In the San Cristobal depart- 

 ment the breeders who settled there after 1890 found 

 their first market in the obrajes of the neighbouring 

 forest. The opening of the railway to Tucuman 

 afterwards enabled them to send their cattle to the 

 provinces of the north-west. The Buenos Aires 

 buyers were late in this remote canton of the Pampean 

 plain. They did not arrive until 1911. 



The importance of the Pampean region itself as a 

 market of consumption grew in proportion to the increase 

 of its population. The extent to which it absorbs 

 the products of breeding and agriculture varies a good 

 deal. For some of them it is paramount. Horse- 

 breeding, for instance, which is still one of the great 

 industries of the Pampa, has never contributed to the 

 export trade. It is the same with regard to potatoes, 

 which are concentrated in two strictly limited districts, 

 round Rosario and north of the Sierra de Tandil. 

 Only a small part of the dry fodder is exported. As 

 regards cereals, a comparison of the statistics of produc- 

 tion with the statistics of export shows that the home 

 consumption is about one-third of the production. 

 It is almost nil for flax, and nearly fifty per cent, for 

 wheat. 



1 A. Jegou, " Informe sobre la provincia de San Luis," Ann. Soc. 

 Cientifica Argentina, xvi. 1883, pp. 140-152, 192-200, and 223-230. 



