“Lower to the right, on the softer soil by the banks of a stream, which descended babbling to the sea, through beds of rushes and buttercups, was a pasture; here, standing in the branches of the bank, were the Shire horses; they formed animated groups, and placidly watched our movements; they were the most magnificent examples to be found out of Lincolnshire. Further down still, on drier soil, was a troop of mares, of an English-Creole cross, with their foals. These animals were for draught, and the excellence of their breeding is proved by the registers of the Argentine Rural Society, which record the prizes awarded to the _Estancia Chapadmatal_. “In a higher part of the estate, in a quarter reached through long avenues of poplars, which lead thither from the house, and where the ground is covered with forests of eucalyptus or willows, are the bulls and cows. The Argentine stock-breeder does not consider expense when it is a matter of importing good English cattle for breeding purposes. The chief estancia has a series of breeding bulls, which are led before the visitor, each by his special keeper, with the same pomp and ceremony as the stallions which precede them in the brilliant review. It is not only near the capital and the principal centres of population that we find these model estancias, which afford their owners every European comfort. They are to be found also in the extreme south of the country, in the solitudes of Patagonia, near the 50th degree of south latitude.”[55] [Footnote 55: _Cf. Annales de la Sociedad Rural Argentina_, No. 4, 30th April 1902, p. 159.] “From the River Coyle, from Puerto Gallegos and Magellan Straits, to a point near Last Hope,” says an Argentine traveller, Mr George J. M’Lean, who visited these regions a few years ago, “the country is fairly peopled, and one comes across estancias, such as _El Condor_, the property of Messrs Wood & Waldron, an establishment of 337,500 acres, with a wire-fenced enclosure containing 160,000 sheep, equipped with forty steam shearers, with hydraulic presses, and sheep-dips warmed by steam calorifier. It is a common thing to find estancias, many of which are fenced with wire, feeding 40,000, 60,000 or 70,000 sheep. The most important are united by telephone, by which means they communicate not only with each other, but with Puerto Gallegos or Punta Arenas. I have spoken down these over a distance of 300 miles. In the Chilian portion of Tierra del Fuego, there is a telephone connecting Cape Dungeness with Punta Arenas, and also to the channels of Last Hope.” In the Territory of Santa Cruz is the _Estancia San Julian_, belonging to the San Julian Sheep Company. This “estancia” has an area of 296,000 acres——462·5 square miles——and contains 70,000 sheep, with an annual yield of 90 per cent. of lambs, or 63,000.