PATAGONIA 



In describing the plains of Patagonia recently one writer says : 

 '" Shut your eyes and think of yourself with a good nag between 

 your legs going at an easy canter over the soft and grassy 

 pampa. Above you a turquoise sky and a brilliant sun, below 

 you blue lakes, soft turf and sparkling streams, on the lakes 

 and rivers black-headed swans and pink3 r -winged flamingoes, 

 g- r ese. and ducks galore, and now and then a jacksnipe. Small 

 toxeb play about you like kittens, and ostriches leg it away a 

 hundred yards ahead of you, their long necks stretched out, 

 and their wings highly lifted to help them out of the danger 

 zone. The life and place so enchanted me that a year later I 

 becanu- the owner of much camp, 16 leagues, and many sheep. 

 In the middle of my pioperty is a lake five miles by two miles 

 across."" The farm is now earning 50 per cent dividends ; and 

 this is a true picture of Patagonia. There is one British com- 

 pany there owning six million acres of land, upon which there 

 ars 1.500.000 sheep, and which regularly imports studs from 

 Australia and New Zealand, or they did until shipping facili- 

 ties failed them. In Tierra del Fuego the company owns also 

 2,260,000 acres of good sheep country. The manager of this 

 is a Xew Zealander. like so many men in Patagonia. 

 Chile can be depended upon for frozen mutton in increasing 

 quantities, but beef cannot be looked for in any but limited 

 amounts. 



The following account of the development of meat freezing 

 in Patagonia I have quoted from a paper entitled " Sheep 

 Freezing in Patagonia," read recently by Mr. R. J. Cracknell 

 before the Cold Storage and Ice Association : — 



"The sheep-freezing industry in Patagonia was started by 

 the erection in 1903-4 of freezing works at Rio Seco, on the 

 shore of the Magellan Straits, about eight miles from Punta 

 Arenas, by the South American Export Syndicate. 



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