MATEKIAL CONDITION OF ARGENTINA. 467 



estimated at 13,500,000 gallons, or about as mucli as the foreign importation, but 

 not more than one-fifth of all the liquors consumed under the name of " wine." 

 From the grapes, as well as from sugar-cane, maize, and other produce, spirits of 

 various kinds are distilled. 



Corrientes yields a tobacco resembling the finer Paraguay varieties. The other 

 more important products of the fields and gardens are olives, bark, potatoes, 

 European fruits, and vegetables. Some of the fruits thrive well, and the apple 

 has even run wild, especially about the old Indian Missions in the "Manzanas" 

 region, on the slopes of the Andes, where the natives extract a chicha, or cider, 

 from tbe fruit. 



Land Tenure. 



Laud tenure is of various kinds. In some jjlaces the old system of great 

 domains still prevails, while medium or small holdings have been formed in the 

 eastern provinces under the influence of the foreign settlers. Such holdings 

 already existed in Tucuman, where, in 1882, the freeholders numbered as many 

 as 7,150, in a total population of not more than 120,000. In certain remote 

 districts of Buenos Ayres vast estates belong collectively to the scattered members 

 of a single family, who enjoy the right of settling and grazing their catde in any 

 unoccupied part of the common domain. But this communal system is no proof, 

 as might at first be supposed, of any hearty union between the different branches 

 of the family circle. It merely attests the great obstacles which the litigious 

 spirit of the associates throws in the way of a friendly distribution of the 

 patrimony. 



In the province of Jujuy traces still survive of the old encomiendas, another 

 name for Indian slavery. A few families of these Coyas serfs have succeeded 

 after sanguinary revolts in recovering their lands and their freedom ; but all are 

 not yet emancipated, and some of the great landowners may still claim to be 

 absolute masters of enormous estates comprising whole mountains and valleys 

 with all their inhabitants. Often the so-called political revolutions of the far 

 interior are nothing more than conflicts between these great estancieros, who arm 

 their vassals and retainers against each other. These landless serfs, who have no 

 hope of ever acquiring an acre of property, live in great misery, overburdened 

 with debts due to their paramount lords, and leading a dreary existence to which 

 the risks of a "civil war" may come as a welcome diversion. 



Even in the eastern provinces, notably that of Buenos Ayres, the greater part 

 of the soil is distributed in vast estâtes, so large as to be usually measured by 

 the "square league," that is, about 10 or 11 square miles. A single capitalist 

 acquired at a stroke a domain of 900,000 acres in the pampas at the upset price 

 of £440,000. 



But such vast estates were far too large to have any well-defined limits. The 

 flocks ranged to a certain distance fj'om their querencia, that is, the folds where 

 they were gathered for the night. But the shepherds paid little heed to the 

 exact boundaries of the conterminous runs, and even of ploughed lands. Thus 



