AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF SOUTH AMERICA 
63 
at the ports being handled in jute sacks. On the farm the grain is 
sacked directly from the field or thresher (fig. 14), hauled in sacks to 
the shipping station (fig. 15), the sacks are piled in the sheet-iron 
warehouses at the railway stations to the limit of their capacity, and 
the surplus is then stacked outside; the sacked grain is hauled on 
flat cars under cover of tarpaulins (fig. 16), to the warehouses at the 
ports, again stacked in the warehouses in sacks, and most of it is 
loaded in ships while still in sacks. 
This method of handling grain involves great expense annually for 
bags, much manual labor, and loss of time. There has been much 
discussion concerning the relative merits of handling grain through 
elevators and the present method of handling it in bags, but so far 
no individual or company has felt justified in undertaking to erect 
lines of country elevators. One of the principal arguments heard 
against the building of elevators is that cereal production is not yet 
stabilized in Argentina and that grain production in particular locali- 
Fig. 16.— Wheat in sacks awaiting shipment at a railway station in Argentina 
ties fluctuates so greatly from year to year that an elevator needed 
one year might not be needed another year. 
The warehousing facilities at shipping points are inadequate in 
years of abundant production, although an Argentine statute requires 
that the railway companies shall provide adequate warehouses at all 
their shipping stations. In a year of heavy production it is not 
uncommon to see all the warehouses at shipping stations full and 
half as much more in sacks piled high outside, sometimes without 
the protection of large tarpaulins. 
transportation 
Rivers and Railways 
Prior to 1857 when the first section of railway was constructed, 
the only means of transportation in Argentina was by wagon and 
horseback in the interior and by water on the Plata and Uruguay 
