"One way a band select from forage drives A herd of beeves, fair oxen and fair kine, From a fat meadow ground; or fleecy flock, Ewes and their bleating lambs over the plain." It is these, created by skill and enterprise and drawing the vigour and virtue from our English counties, that have made Argentina a great country. FOOTNOTES: [96] When the term _dollar_ is used, it invariably means the gold dollar at five to the English £1. [97] "Stables and stalls are replacing the old-fashioned 'corral.' The wealthy proprietor arrives at his estancia from the railway station in a carriage; the old rustic homestead is converted into a veritable country-house, sometimes into a mansion, with park and garden. There are estancias a hundred leagues from Buenos Aires which we once knew as plains deserted and in the hands of the Indians, and where now carriages, equipped in English fashion, pass over the plain and people dine in the evening in sumptuous establishments. The European stock-raisers have made the gaucho retreat to the vast tracts situated on the confines of the desert" (Martinez et Lewandowski, "L'Argentine," p. 132). [98] The statement of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," that Argentina had a hundred million sheep in 1866 is quite incredible. Mulhall estimates, no doubt accurately, the number in 1870 at forty-one millions. [99] In 1569 Don Juan Ortiz de Zarate arranged for the importation of four thousand merinos to the River Plate. In 1660 Buenos Aires shipped its first cargo of wool--about a ton. When we condemn Spanish restrictiveness we must remember the enlightened efforts of various Viceroys to improve the industry of wool and hides. [100] "In some respects we are so backward that our wool cannot compete in the great markets of the world, so far as regards the quality, with any other country which is a great producer. The bad habit of our breeders to separate their sheep into large flocks--sometimes above five thousand heads--is the principal obstacle to the improvement of our wool, because large flocks do not admit of the necessary attentions" (Napp, "The Argentine Republic," p. 303). [101] "Of every twenty estancias in the South fifteen belong to Englishmen" (Bernandez, "The Argentine Estancia," p. 45). [102] "The Argentine Estancia," p. 52. [103] For some of my information I am indebted to an article in the _Lancet_ of October 24, 1908. [104] The following table shows the progress of the Company:-- Acreage of Farms. Stock of Cattle. 1868 28,494 12,000 1878 37,961 19,036 1888 126,984 36,685 1898 254,133 66,435 1908 1,302,386 224,406 1910 1,527,720 274,500