44 BULLETIN 1400, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
several generations the colonists lived almost exclusively on a meat 
diet, there being insufficient wheat grown in the country for bread. 9 
About the time Argentina overturned the local Spanish Govern- 
ment at Buenos Aires, 1810, Juan Manuel de Rosas, who later 
became dictator (1832-1852) first^ began to grow wheat on a large 
scale in the Province of Buenos Aires. Although natural conditions 
were exceptionally favorable, the population was small, the areas 
were vast, fencing material, transportation, and markets were 
lacking, the Spaniards appeared to have a hereditary preference for 
livestock, and the Indians were hostile, so that Argentina did not 
produce sufficient wheat for its own consumption until about 1876. 
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century there was some 
development in the north and northwestern Provinces in the pro- 
duction of cotton, rice, tobacco, wine grapes, sugar cane, and other 
crops, but these infant industries received a severe check after certain 
restrictions on importations from foreign countries were removed in 
1778, and conditions were not propitious for their further develop- 
Fig. 11. — Harvesting wheat with a combined header and thresher in southern Cordoba, Argentina, 
January, 1924 
ment during the unsettled times from 1810 to 1880. Railroad 
construction began in a small way in 1857, but proceeded slowly 
until in 1884 there were 11 lines in operation with a total length of 
1,400 miles. The railroads opened up the interior to settlement 
and gave an outlet for agricultural products. During the period 
from 1874 to 1884 the area in wheat increased from 271,000 acres 
to 1,717,000 acres, or about 533 per cent. During the same period 
the total area in all crops increased from 825,000 acres to 4,260,000 
acres, or about 416 per cent. Exports of wheat first exceeded 100,000 
bushels in 1882, when the total net exports were 108,560 bushels. 
Agricultural development has been most rapid in the region within 
a radius of 350 to 400 miles of the city of Buenos Aires, which is 
the humid portion of the Pampa comprised in the Provinces of Buenos 
Aires, Entre Rios, Sante Fe, Cordoba, and the Territory of La Pampa. 
In this region more than 90 per cent of the total crops and livestock 
of the Republic are produced. It is within this region also that the 
e Azara, Felix de. Viajes por America meridional. Madrid, Calpe, 1923. t. 1-2. Viajes clasicos Lopez, 
V. F. Manual de la historia Argentina. Buenos Aires, Administration general Vaccaro; 1920. La 
cultura Argentina Tornquist, Ernesto & cia, limitada, Buenos Aires. The economic development of 
the Argentine Republic in the last 50 years. Buenos Aires, 1919. 
