The cost of the breakfast table might be reduced considerably if more trouble were taken with what one might describe as the by-products of agriculture. The people are invariably out for the big deal in cattle or corn. Insufficient attention is paid to dairy-farming, poultry rearing, gardening, fruit-growing, and the production of those little comforts that are now part and parcel of agriculture in England and France. The cultivator's first and, in the majority of cases, only thought is the land and its direct yield. With the same opportunities many an English small-holder would make a quick fortune in Argentina. In this oversight the Argentine has gone the way of most new countries. The question of "agricultural smalls," however, as I have shown, is now being considered in conjunction with the increased cost of living. Labour is so scarce in some parts that the introduction of Chinese or Japanese colonists has been suggested. Such a step, however, would arouse as fierce a criticism as did the introduction of Chinese coolies on the South African Rand mines. They were tried in Chili, and are by no means liked. The lumber trade of Posados still requires thousands of workers. The natives cannot be kept at work to any extent, and to meet the demand Russians, Poles, and Finns have been brought over in thousands. Timber for railway sleepers is the principal product. Each year some two million logs are sent down the Parana River to be used in railway construction at home and abroad. The lessons of the great coal strike in England during 1912 were quickly grasped by the Government of Argentina. Like other countries depending upon Great Britain for coal supplies, Argentina had to consider the disastrous consequences of any disorganisation of her transport service. Substitutes for coal fuel had to be counted. The crisis of this period proved a blessing in disguise. Government attention was directed towards the discovery of oil in widely separated districts of the Republic. A law has now been passed reserving to the Government 12,500 acres of the petroleum zone of Comodora Rivadavia, and prohibiting the issue of any mining or proprietary rights. To displace coal, Argentina would require 2,000,000 tons of oil fuel and about 150 wells. A start has been made in the south, where fresh wells are being sunk at Comodora Rivadavia. Five wells produced 18,000 tons of petroleum in a year of experiment. In 1913 it rose to 28,000 tons. When the Argentine can turn its attention from the sources of wealth now being tapped, who knows what will follow the enterprise in oil? But nothing has been found which would warrant a "boom" in Argentine oil.