• ARGENTINA • 93 



attempt agriculture is unwise, except to supply local needs, it is 

 to give hostages to fortune, for a sack of wheat cannot walk 

 itself to market, nor can it get out of the way of floods or 

 drought, as the farmers in Chubut and N. Santa Fe know to theii 

 cost. For these reasons, cattle are to be preferred when possible 

 to sheep, for while they give less profit, there is also less risk of 

 total loss, and there is no point in Argentina from which their 

 own legs will not carry them unaided to a good market. 



' ' To live, and let live ; to know how to combine healthy pleas- 

 ure and sound business ; to eschew politics and law-suits ; to deal 

 courteously and justly with all men— these are the lines that 

 have been followed by those of our countrymen who have won 

 for themselves to-day name and fortune in Argentina. There 

 is no real obstacle to deter those who would follow their example. 

 In the bustling marts, or on the wiiul-swept pampa, in the virgin 

 forest, or beneath the shadow of the great Cordillera, there is 

 room and to spare for all. And nowhere will Englishmen, be 

 he home-bred or colonial, meet with a heartier welcome than 

 from those of his countrymen whose footsteps have pointed a 

 path to the fertile shores of the River Plate. 



The Plate Coast Belt. 



"The sheep runs of Patagonia, the. alfalfa paddocks of the 

 central Pampas, the rich loams of the Mesopotamia — each zone 

 of Argentina has its advocates. Yet, whatever success may 

 have attended them in their own particular district, none will 

 deny, when pressed to a statement, that a league of camp near 

 Buenos Aires is worth two anywhere else. 



' ' Apart f 1 om its importance politically, the province of Buenos 

 Aires is, without doubt, the richest pastoral district of its 

 extent in the world. The soil consists of from 2 to 3 ft. of black 

 alluvial top-dressing, rendered friable by an admixture of sand 

 and lime, while below it comes a marl, fairly free' from clay, but 

 forming under certain conditions into a hard pan, locally known 

 as "losca." Running through this formation, and separated 

 by these beds of hard pan, are different strata of ■water, the first 

 of which is found at depths varying from 20 to 70 ft., the others 

 following at depths of perhaps only a few yards. As a rule, 

 well-water found near the Plate estuary is of good quality, 

 witness the numerous and flourishing breweries. As we travel 

 west into the Pampas, the influence of its vast volume gradually 

 lessens, till on the plains that stand midway between the Cor- 



