March 1897.] 



FOREIGN OFFICE REPORTS. 



417 



Consul at Buenos Ayres, refers to the increasing importance of 

 Argentine wheat and maize in the food supply of Europe, and 

 transmits a review of the grain trade of the country, which has 

 been furnished to him by a well-known grain inspector of 

 Buenos Ayres. 



It seems that, notwithstanding a continuance of low prices 

 and the unfortunate spoiling of two very promising crops (1894 

 and 1895), with resulting distress among the poorer and more 

 improvident class of colonists of the province of Santa Fe, there 

 has been no real discouragement of wheat growing in the 

 Argentine Republic ; on the contrary, although the arrivals of 

 immigrants are only now becoming important, the acreage of 

 land under wheat has probably increased 30 to 40 per cent, 

 since the big crop year of 1893. 



The centre of wheat growing is said to be moving south- 

 wards, partly because locusts have become almost established in 

 the north of Santa Fe, but also because better lands for general 

 farming are now obtainable in the west of Buenos Ayres. It is 

 pointed out that the Italian colonists are not, properly speaking, 

 farmers, but really " croppers/' who grow wheat, linseed, or 

 maize " on shares " with the owners of the land, paying really 

 most exorbitant rentals and borrowing money at usurious rates 

 in hopes of the recurring good years, and it remains to be seen 

 what will be the food production of this fertile land when, 

 instead of being a migratory class, they settle down on their own 

 lands, and really cultivate and improve their holdings, for they 

 are still very rough in their farming methods, probably not 

 5 per cent, of wheat being sown with drills, and a very small 

 proportion of the land is even rolled. 



Two great lessons have, it appears, been taught to Argentine 

 landowners quite recently that are expected to have wide effect, 

 and may bring about agricultural changes of quick action, the 

 first being the fact that improved cattle sell well, whereas 

 common cattle do not, and the second that dairy farming with 

 pig feeding is profitable. 



In Santa Fe, maize is stated to be grown with poor success 

 on account of prevailing dryness of the climate, but farther 

 south cereals can be grown, as well as " alfalfa " or lucerne. So 

 also in the province of Buenos Ayres, it is observed, there are 

 large districts where maize only was grown, but a change is 

 coming gradually, and when a more mixed system of farming 

 is introduced the full work of the entire family may come into 

 play throughout the year, with a correspondingly reduced cost 

 of wheat growing, whereas now there is much idle time between 

 crops. 



The butter factories in the south have apparently already 

 found a market for regular supplies of cream, and curing establish- 

 ments will soon be started to prepare hog products for the large 

 market of Brazil, so that " chacareros," or small farmers, can turn 

 their attention to systematic pig-feeding when there is a good 

 maize crop. Unfortunately, very considerable droughts occur 

 from time to time, and maize is not by any means a safe crop, 



