It need hardly be said that the Liebig Company’s organisation has by no means overlooked the needs of the large number of work-people engaged at their factories, and the settlements both at Colon and Frey Bentos provide accommodation far superior to any to be found in any of the villages in the country-side. The houses and plots of ground allotted to the workers at Frey Bentos form quite a rural settlement, whilst Colon, a more recent and very inviting colony, is a town built upon approved modern lines. The houses, which are all kept painted white, are built in squares, their backs looking on to a large courtyard. This keeps all the fronts free from the unsightly domestic pots and pans and other paraphernalia usually to be seen crowding the fronts of village houses and shacks. Stores, schools, and a doctor’s shop are provided, and each household has its own plot of ground for the growing of vegetables and flowers, and is also provided with the very necessary baths which the architects and builders of the peons’ houses (generally the owners themselves) invariably forget. Large recreation rooms and club houses are provided, and the company give an annual feast to their workers, a feast unlimited as to beef and wine, and followed by dancing and singing to the accompaniment of an instrumental band also provided by the employers. There is also available land for those of the workers who care to go in for cattle-raising and farming on their own account; indeed, everything is done to induce and encourage them in such effort, and there is an attractiveness about these colonies which keeps them well populated. A more varied and pleasing life is held out here than that offered by a residence on the great distant melancholy camps, where social intercourse is necessarily restricted, and where the monotony of existence is only broken by the arrival of some chance visitor from a neighbouring camp or an occasional excursion to one of the “pulperias” for a glass of “boliche” and a gossip with similarly situated companions. In addition to being big consumers of cattle, the Liebig Company are themselves land-holders and stock-raisers on a large scale, their farms or estancias in Uruguay, Corrientes, and Missiones being typical of each of the states, although all managed from headquarters at the two factories. In the Republic of Uruguay they own six estancias and rent two, comprising in all 252,871 acres, whilst in the Argentine province of Corrientes they control 329,941 acres, and in Paraguay 118,584 acres, making a total of about 700,000 acres, upon which close upon 200,000 head of cattle are maintained. [Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF FREY BENTOS.]