IN FOREIGN FIELDS 971 



For many years past the proprietors of the great 

 estancias have been buying Shorthorns in Great 

 Britain, not only with great freedom but with a de- 

 gree of enterprise unparalleled in the history of the 

 British export business. The policy seems to have 

 been to procure the best absolutely regardless of 

 cost. For a long series of years buyers for the Ar- 

 gentine have been taking out the very tops of British 

 herds. 



It seems probable that the main reason why the 

 Hereford has not as yet acquired such a dominating 

 influence in Argentine cattle-ranching as in the 

 United States is due to the fact that conditions 

 throughout much of the interior of Argentine are not 

 as forbidding as in the case of our own Rocky 

 Mountain regions. This is simply another way of 

 saying that the necessity for resorting to the pe- 

 culiar qualities for which the Hereford is specially 

 noted do not exist in Argentina to the same extent 

 as with us. Where climatic conditions are favorable, 

 and where food is abundant, it is not commonly 

 claimed that the Hereford has any outstanding ad- 

 vantage over the Shorthorns. It is where the facing 

 of grief has to be met that the Hereford practically 

 gets away from all competition. 



Foundations of Argentine Improvement. — In Vol- 

 ume 35 of the "Anales de la Sociedad Argentina" it 

 is stated on the authority of Dr. Zeballos, a former 

 Minister of Argentina to the United States whose 

 acquaintance the author of this volume had the 



