The Amazing Argentine

provides one quarter. Each person in the Republic, after providing enough

his area is cultivated. The population is growing rapidly; it is now over seven millions, and is being in

t the province of Buenos Aires has a population of two and a half millions, yo

French; then come the British, numbering 25,000; Germans 18,000; Swiss 15,000; Austrians 13,000, and so on, decreasingly. North Americans are few, though within recent years much United States capital has quietly taken hold of certain industr

is honoured on every occasion. You are poetically reminded it is of the blue of the sky. When the Argentines were in revolution against Spain in 1810, and needed a banner to flaunt against the red and orange of the

re are sturdy old fellows, who can hardly write their names, who scarcely know the extent of their wealt

. W. Boote & Co

P OF G

as in this Republic. In 1885 you could buy land in the centre of Buenos Aires at 2s. 6d. a square yard. Now you must pay ￡200 a yard. A suburban plot of 60 by 20 yards, which you could have got twelve years ago for ￡5, will cost ￡150. Fine camp land-the "cam

bulously wealthy. The careful Briton who came out when railways were beginning to speed through the country, and acted shrewdly, got land for next to nothing which will bring a better price per acre than land in the

hased at home. I went to the agricultural show in September, 1913. All the judges had been brought out from England, partly because good judging was needed, but chiefly, I fear, because the Argentines cannot trust each other to give unbiassed decisions. The show was finer housed than any royal show in England, and the quality of the exhibits

latial. Though some estancias are far inland, and distant from a railway line, life is far more enjoyable than might be thought. The rich estanciero, however, spends little of his time on his land. He is too often an absentee landlord. He has tasted the joys of Europe; besides, his wife and daughters are inclined to prefer Buenos Aires to life in the camp, however healthy. The place is usually run by a manager. Then there are sub-managers, often young Englishmen who

o nearly 50 million acres. Of Argentine cereals the United Kingdom imported 1,654,000 tons. There are 30 million cattle in the Republic and 80 million sheep. The breeding of sheep is not what it was, because the Argentine finds he can get a be

to Congress that steps be taken to check the creation of a trust. Also it is hoped that England may take action. But the authorities in both countries decline to do anything. The Chicago firms have a long purse and are damaging their rivals at both ends, first by paying Argentine cattle breeders unprecedented prices for beasts, and then by selling the meat below cost price in the Smithfield market. Of course, in reply to what is happening, one hears the statement, "Why grumble, when the Argentine cattle dealer gets a high price for his beasts, the London consumer gets cheap meat, and the Chicago firms pay the difference?" That is true. But it does not ne

ndantly on land that is little good for other purposes. Areas at which the agriculturist was inclined to shrug his shoulders as barren prosper under alfalfa, the best of feeding stuffs, and several crops can be got in a year. Two acres will carry a beast. Alfalfa grown for fodder gives a hundred per cent. profit. Alfalfa, whilst drawing nitrogen from the ground, attracts nitrogen from t

e is the danger of drought and the dread of locusts. Further, so much of the cereal growing being in the hands of "colonists," too often anything but expert farmers, the yield is by no means what it would be if

ocean liners, with the Union Jack dangling over their stern, being loaded with many sides of beef, visit the grain elevators at the ports of Bahia Blanca and Rosario pouring str

reezing was definitely established. To-day ￡11,000,000 is invested in "freezing works." And millions of cattle and sheep are slaughtered for foreign consumption. There seems to be something of a race at presen

capital invested. People do not go to Argentina for the beauty of the scenery. They go for money-making. Often when I came across some evidence of Latin sluggishness, saw wh