Wheat, as all the agricultural world knows, absorbs the nitrogen from the soil on which it is grown; while alfalfa, on the other hand, absorbs nitrogen from the air and deposits it in the soil. These two crops are therefore, as was found out long ago in North America, naturally complementary. And a course of alfalfa prepares ground for the replanting of wheat in a way unequalled by the most expensive artificial fertilizers. The time will therefore doubtless come when Argentine farmers will plough up such of their alfalfa as may be on suitable ground and plant wheat thereon; and, contrariwise, will plough up their wheat and give the ground two or three years of alfalfa before putting wheat on it again. But this is still, to the vast majority of Argentine farmers, an absurdly impracticable counsel of perfection. Since, does one think, he asks, that he is going to spoil his alfalfa fields, soon after seeing them pass through the critical stage of their tap-roots reaching water, and break his ploughs into the bargain by cutting those thick, tough roots up again? Not he. Alfalfa it is now and alfalfa it is going to remain; to yield him four or even more cuttings annually. Only time and ever-growing land values will force this kind of reasoning out of his mind. He, in the more distant parts of the country at all events, is still in the stage of mentality when what were good enough methods for his forefathers are good enough for him. Nature has been kind to him. He has always reaped much benefit from little labour or capital outlay; and this state of things suits his nature so well that he is altogether disinclined to vary it by following theories which do not appeal to him, be they preached never so wisely by the ambulant Agricultural Instructors employed by the Government to travel about the country and teach improved methods to its rural inhabitants. The deaf ear which even the very well-to-do among what may be called the peasant proprietors, the little-educated rural classes, that is to say, turn to the teachings of modern science is due to the fact that these people have long been too much spoilt by nature’s gifts of highly fertile soil and favourable climate to perceive any very pressing need to bestir themselves to unaccustomed expenditure of energy or money. Thus, as is told elsewhere in these pages, thousands of head of cattle and sheep die each time a drought occurs simply because their owners will not go to the trouble and expense of boring for water (seldom far from the surface) and putting up windmills to draw it.