THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. 611 



and from the estancia bouse, a number of smaller houses, called puestos, 

 with their appropriate surroundings of corral, monte, &c.,' where a peon 

 with his family resides and has charge of a portion of the cattle. By 

 means of these sub-establishments the animals are more evenly distrib- 

 uted over the grounds for grazing purposes and do not crowd each other, 

 but they are always in daily communication with the major-domo. 



NUMBER OF ANIMALS AN ESTANCIA WILL MAINTAIN. 



The number of animals which can be supported on a square league 

 of land varies a great deal, and depends upon the quality and quantity 

 of the grass. Where the pasturage is heavy and' nourishing, that 

 amount of land will very readily sustain 3,000 horned cattle, and even 

 more, together with all the working cattle, horses, mares, and sheep in- 

 tended for the use of the estabMshment. On a " bad camp," * however, 

 where the grazing is limited, owing to salivas, saladas, and other causes, 

 whereby the vegetation is not luxuriant, the number of animals must be 

 correspondingly reduced ; and even then, in times of drought, it fre- 

 quently happens that the' cattle die of starvation, unless they are 

 promptly removed to a better pasture. It is generally assumed in the 

 province of Buenos Ayres that 9,000 square yards are" required to sus- 

 tain a bullock thie year round, but this only refers to those estancios 

 which have an abundance of both grass and water. Otherwise the esti- 

 taate at the present day is too large. 



HOW THE STOCK IS HEEDED. 



The stock of an estancia of course depends upon its extent, but often 

 numbers 10,000 and even 15,000 head, divided into herds of 2,000 or 

 3,000 each, each herd being gathered up every night in its own rodeo, 

 an open space where each animal regularly chooses its own place to lie 

 down. Here they remain until morning, when they again set off to 

 graze. In seasons of drought cattle sometimes stray great distances in 

 search of water, but unless they calve on their new pastures they will 

 return to their former range. Sometimes where there is scarcity of 

 water, the cattle are watered by a talde sinfondo, a hide bucket, which 

 is worked by a man on horseback in a very primitive fashion, the bucket 

 being pulled up over a wheel and thus emptied of its contents into a 

 long trough. In this manner one person can water 2,000 cattle per 

 day. 



To one who sees for the first time a cattle estancia, the facilities with 

 which large herds are managed is a source of continual wonder. The 

 animals need no immediate personal supervision whatever, saving at 

 most a daily gallop by a peon around the boundaries of the land; and 

 in order to bring thepa to their rodeos all that is necessary is for a peon 

 to set out on horseback, cracking his whij) and shouting at the pitch of 

 his voice, and the cattle at once stop their day's feeding and troop ofl' 

 to their appointed place — and all this in an open plain where fences are 

 almost unknown, t The gauchos evidently understand the natures of 



* "Camp," used in ordinary conversation by everybody in the Argentine Republic, 

 is a contraction of the Spanish word oampo and means "the country." 



+ "The operation of counting the cattle on an estaneia would be thought difficult, 

 where there are ten or fifteen thousand head together, but it is managed on the princi- 

 ple that the cattle invariably divide themselves into little troops of from forty to one 

 hundred. Each troop is recognized by a few peculiarly marked cattle and its num- 

 ber is known ; so that one being lost out of ten thousand, it is perceived by its a.bsenoe 

 from the tropellaa. During a stormy night the cattle all iningle together, but the 

 next morning the tropellas separate as before, so that eaeh animal must know its fellow 

 out often thousand others." (Darwin, page 145.) 



