90 THE WOh'LD'S MEAT FCTURE 



will grow till the district becomes a reserve from which the 

 alfalfa camps of North Santa Fe will draw their supply of 

 horned stock for fatting. The present beginnings of this trade 

 are responsible for the scourge of ticks and tick fever which 

 infests the Santa Fe farms. The Chaco shares with Corrientes 

 the bad eminence of being the natural home of this pest, and 

 neglect of this and similar dangers to the pastoral wealth of the 

 Republic constitute one of the gravest charges against its rulers. 



"Let us turn our eyes elsewhere — to the foothills of the Andes 

 that lie west of the pampas of Buenos Aires. The moisture- 

 bearing winds, which bring verdure by a thousand rushing 

 streams to the valleys of the Patagonian and pre-Cordillera, are 

 here diverted by the increasing height and solidity of the great 

 divide. North of Lake Nahuel Huapi, the eastern slopes present 

 for over 600 miles a barren and almost rainless tract. It is true 

 that the soil is fertile under irrigation, but the patches which 

 have so far been reclaimed, with the help of the hill-streams, 

 stand out as small oases in a barren wilderness of sand, scrub, 

 and rock. 



"This is the wine district of Argentina, and in the year 1900 

 it produced 125,076,954 litres. The industry is chiefly centred 

 in the town of Mendoza, lying opposite Valparaiso, in Chili, with 

 the Uspallata pass holding open the gate between them. 



"In the broken country that lies directly north of Mendoza 

 are located the best paying mines as yet discovered in the 

 Republic. Gold is in most cases too thinly scattered in the 

 hard rock to admit of profitable working, but there is plenty 

 of copper, silver, and lead. Mining ventures in Argentina have 

 so far met mth poor fortune owing to the difficulties of transport 

 and the situation of the lodes in places where there is neither 

 water nor fuel within reach. Moreover, there is a general 

 impression in Buenos Aires that a league of alfalfa and a herd 

 of good dairy cows is better than any gold mine. They are 

 right. For mining magnates there are few or none: but 

 estancieros prosper in the land, and multiply exceedingly. 



"All along where these foothills merge into the great central 

 pampas an increased rainfall permits the gro^^-th of coarse grass. 

 "Well water here is too far below the surface for even an alfalfa 

 root to reach it, and the scanty herbage only affords grazing for 

 a limited number of poor native stock. Fencing is a heavy item 

 on the scattered barren ranges, nor is there much inducement for 

 the farmer to settle on them, when the fertile lowlands lie so 



