604 CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



ever has ever been paid to the improvemeut of the breed, and the 

 horned cattle which to-day feed upon the natural pasturage of the pam- 

 pas are the descendants of those with which the country was originally 

 stocked. 



INTRODUCTION OP HORNED CATTLE INTO THE RIVER PLATE. 



This occurred about the year 1550. According to the American ar- 

 chives in Seville,* Don Pedro de Mendoza was the first who introduced 

 horned cattle into the regions of the Plate. He brought for the colony 

 which he founded sixteen cows, two bulls, thirty -two horses and mares, 

 twenty goats, forty sheep, and eighteen dogs. It is further related, ac- 

 cording to details given by Euy Diaz de Guzman, that Ayola and Mar- 

 tinez de irala, the chiefs of the expedition, took several of these animals 

 with them to the interior, and that others were lost in the wastes which 

 are found in the delta of the Parana Eiver near the present village of 

 San Fernando. A little later, 1553, two brothers named G-oea, who 

 came in company with Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaoa, from Brazil, 

 brought their cattle, consisting of eight cows and a bull, with them to 

 Asuncion, Paraguay, where the new acquisition was received with 

 great enthusiasm. 



Prom these two sources have descended the horned cattle which in in- 

 numerable herds now form the stock of the Argentine plaiun. From 

 that time to the present day the increase has been spontaneous, the 

 mild climate and succulent grasses of the pampas being all the con<li- 

 tiona required for their rapid multiplication and diffusion. But thus 

 left to themselves, they have been permitted to degenerate by continu- 

 ous breeding-in, without any effort ever having been made to improve 

 their original good qualities, until now, after a lapse of three hundred 

 years, they are without any of the characteristics which would make 

 them a desirable acquisition to cattle-breeders, unless perhaps it be the 

 quality of their hides, which the rough life they have encountered have 

 made stronger and tougher than most hides which find their way to 

 the markets of the world. In other respects, however, they have little 

 to recommend them in countries where stock-breeding has had any de- 

 velopment. 



"WILD CATTLE OP THE PAMPAS. 



The cattle of this country came originally from the south of Spain, 

 and are said to exhibit still the characteristics of the breed of that lo- 

 cality, the range between the 22° and 42° of south latitude, in this 

 country not having exercised much influence upon them. Indeed 

 they are as robust on the plains of Oran, the borders of the Vermijo, 

 and in the subtropical forests of Misiones as they are on the pampas 

 of Buenos Ayres. Their size, however, depends very considerably on 

 their pasturage. It is sm'aller on the dry and arid plains of Catamarca 

 and Santiago del Estero, and larger on the luxuriant grasses of Buenos 

 Ayres and Banda Oriental. It was not until the beginning of the seven- 

 teenth century that their diffusion over the pampas of Buenos Ayres 

 began to attract attention. The Indians, who inhabited those plains, 

 and who up to the time of the conquest had no domestic animal, soon 

 learned the value of the horse, and used it fearlessly in their chase of 

 the deer, the ostrich, and the guanacho, but they paid little attention 

 to the new cattle, which were increasing so rapidly around them. In- 

 deed it appears that while they used the flesh of horses, whether domes- 

 tic or wild, for their ordinary food, they had no relish for beef, and it is 

 only since a comparatively recent period that the Pehuenches and other 



