The improvements which of late years have been introduced into sheep-breeding and sheep-farming are very remarkable, and they are partly due to the efforts of immigrants from New Zealand who have introduced effective cures for foot-rot and other diseases. During the last ten years of the nineteenth century breeders pinned their faith almost entirely to Lincolns, and the importations were very large. Up to 1890 the majority of Argentine sheep were weak cross-breds, and such good blood as remained had been weakened by over-crossing. The hardy Lincoln brought health and energy to the enfeebled mass, and breeders made it their business to rear hardy sheep and obtain a good average without going to extremes in their preference for any particular stock. The breeding of sheep has been greatly benefited by the fact that the estancias have been largely in English hands[101] and the proprietors have thus introduced hardy English breeds and good methods. All over Argentina the intelligent selection of breeds is receiving great attention. It is now recognised that in an alfafa district a stock-master should keep cattle rather than flocks, and that such sheep as he has should be producers of mutton rather than wool. Again, in the southern districts where the grass is rich and tender, the Lincoln breed is unsuitable and crossings are favoured with the Romney Marsh, which counteracts the tendency towards coarseness, and gives silkiness, closeness, and, to some extent, fineness to the wool. Thus in Tierra del Fuego the hardy Romney Marsh, imported from the Falkland Islands, is being bred, and in this inhospitable climate the sheep keep fat all the year round, even when the snow lies a foot deep on the ground, for the sheep have learned to scrape the snow away with their hoofs and find the grass. [Illustration: AN ESTANCIERO'S HOUSE.]