258 Advantages in Agricultural Production. 
at the beginning of 1890. A more recent report has made the 
number about 20,000,000 for 1892 or 1893, but has been 
questioned. There is never any certainty about Argentine 
statistics, and it is said that the pastoral industry there has not 
increased since tillage took up the running. A well-known 
Victorian pastoralist, who visited Argentina in 1891, having 
heard such favourable accounts of the country that he thought 
of selling out in Victoria and emigrating to the other country, 
was altogether disappointed. He was told that cattle did not 
pay, but were kept only to eat off the rank grass for sheep. 
This proved to him, he said, that Argentina was not a sheep 
country, and if cattle would not pay in it, he decided that he 
had better stay in Australia. Although his visit was made in 
summer, when the country was “ a sea of grass,” he never saw 
what would be considered in Australia a fat bullock or a fat 
sheep. The natural grasses of the country, he said, were of 
two kinds, hard and soft, and equally useless. They had to be 
got rid of by over-stocking, after which they were replaced by 
better grasses. Probably this account is greatly exaggerated, 
though many other visitors to the country have preferred 
Australia or New Zealand for pastoral farming. But Argentina 
has the great advantage over those countries of comparative 
nearness to Europe. Nor should the magnificence of the growth 
of alfalfa, or lucerne, in Argentina be ignored. Hitherto, it 
must be admitted that the country has not produced any con- 
siderable quantity of beef or mutton of good quality. 
The Production of Sheep. 
The writer just mentioned objected to the wetness of the 
soil in Argentina for sheep, which, he says, are much subject 
to foot-rot and lungworm in consequence. He remarked upon 
the absence of signs of wealth having been made by pastor- 
alists in Argentina. In the suburbs of Buenos Ayres, he 
said, there are no mansions denoting incomes of 5,000?. to 
10,000?. a year, as there are in Australia ; nor do you hear in 
England of many men who have returned from the River Plate 
with fortunes made out of stock. The statistics regarding 
sheep in Argentina are conflicting. In 1880 there were about 
Gl,000,000,lt is stated, and in 1893, 72,000,000 according to 
one account, and 85,000,000 according to another. The latter 
number is given by Mr. Gibson, who has written a highly 
laudatory book 1 on the country as one for sheep farming. He 
predicts that there will be 150,000,000 sheep there in 1900. 
1 Reviewed in this volume of the Journal, Part I., p. 162 , — Ed. 
