4 Introductory 



growing up to the base of the Cordillera, a grove of 

 low trees and shrubs. 



Man had had no hand In preparing the soil for this 

 grass and clover, man had neither sown them nor 

 cared for them in any way ; yet there they were, just 

 as good food for his cattle as if they had been grown 

 on the most orderly of human farms. Surely, then, 

 the lands of the Pampas had been 'farmed' most 

 successfully, by one means or another. For the 

 word ' farm ' is said to be derived from an Anglo- 

 Saxon verb which means 'to supply with food,' and 

 certainly, in this sense, the lands which man still 

 leaves to nature's labourers have every claim to be 

 considered as one vast farm ; for they grow, many 

 of them, the most luxuriant crops, and they feed more 

 live-stock than can be numbered. 



Man grows for himself and his live-stock a few 

 vegetables — about two hundred and fifty species — and 

 he has adopted, and partly domesticated, about two 

 hundred animals. But on the great natural farm 

 things are done on a very much grander scale. Here 

 the species of crops grown number not much less 

 than a hundred and forty thousand; and the different 

 species of live-stock amount to some millions. 



With so many animals to feed, and so many crops 

 to grow, nature's farm - labourers do not allow of 

 • deserts ' ; and wherever there is an unoccupied 

 surface, they hasten to take possession, and if possible 

 sow something upon it, if it be but a lichen. They 

 sow even the little heaps of dust which collect in 

 sheltered nooks, on the leads of the church-tower, on 

 walls, in the angles of masonry, and make them bear 

 at least a blade or two of grass, and often quite a crop 



