Photograph by Nevin O. Winter 

 THRESHING ON THE PAMPAS WITH AN AMERICAN ENGINE AND AN ENGLISH 



SEPARATOR 



The people of Argentina annually raise for export forty dollars' worth of foodstuffs 

 per capita. The highest prices ever paid for breeding stock has been paid by the Argentines, 

 with the result that they have the finest draft horses, the best of beef cattle, and the highest 

 type of sheep. Argentina is becoming one of the world's great granaries. 



the hollows of the plain that a very large 

 proportion of the rainfall sinks into it, 

 now pumps the supply back to the herds, 

 which otherwise might perish stamping 

 the dust just above the subterranean 

 waters. 



Man meets Nature and conquers her, 

 the more effectually the more intelli- 

 gently he goes about it. Common sense 

 impels the ranchero to erect windmills, or 

 in seasons of drought to drive his cattle 

 to districts of more abundant rainfall. 

 The Argentine is also raising fodder 

 crops, and as the cattle industry becomes 

 organized on the sound economic basis of 

 the greatest good for the greatest num- 

 ber, instead of the system of "Sauve qui 

 pent," the herds of the pampa will no 

 longer know the famines that in earlier 

 times depopulated the plain. 



The soil and the climate of the pampas 

 give the Argentine Republic its high rank 

 among the wheat and corn growing coun- 

 tries of the world. The soil is an ancient 

 alluvium, the fine sediment carried by old 

 rivers far out from the mountains, like 

 the deposit now being made by the Para- 



guay and its tributaries, an island delta 

 far in the interior of the continent. The 

 sediment was very fine, and mingled with 

 it is a large proportion of fine volcanic 

 dust, blown from the volcanoes of the 

 Andes. 



It covers about 200,000 square miles in 

 the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, 

 Cordova, and San Luis. Like the re- 

 nowned loess soils of China, it is exceed- 

 ingly fertile and, being very porous, ab- 

 sorbs the rain waters, which rise again 

 by evaporation and supply the surface 

 soil constantly with plant food. 



WHEAT REGULATED PROSPERITY 



In former days it mattered nothing to 

 the world at large and comparatively little 

 to the Argentine himself whether the sea- 

 son was a favorable one for wheat or not ; 

 but now, when millions beyond her con- 

 fines look to Argentina for bread and 

 when Argentine prosperity is regulated 

 by the wheat she sells, it matters much. 



The time will come, probably, when 

 plentiful rains or drought will matter less 

 than now ; for at present agriculture in 



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