As we have already seen, the area of the vineyards in existence at the end of 1907 was of 139,132,630 acres, their value being £18,400,000. As for their yield, it amounted to 1,121,523,300 lbs. of grapes, or more than 518,000 tons, with an estimated value of £3,680,000. There are, in the Argentine Republic, 3097 establishments devoted to the exploitation of the vineyards and the making of wine, disposing of a total capital of some £4,320,000. Their products amount to 66,762,000 gallons of wine, representing a value of £4,720,000. If we compare the production of the Argentine with that of the principal nations of the two Americas, we obtain, for the year 1907, the following table:—— Argentine Republic 556,096,000 pints Chili 475,200,000 ” United States 281,160,000 ” Brazil 56,320,000 ” Peru 17,248,000 ” Uruguay 16,192,000 ” Bolivia 5,576,000 ” Mexico 3,168,000 ” The Argentine wine industry, in which millions have been engaged, is, as we see, on the road of progress. It has to-day accomplished a rapid and a very considerable development, which might well, in the near future, eliminate the imported product from the market, at least in the case of wines for ordinary consumption. Like the sugar industry, the wine-growing industry has gone through its crisis. On the one hand the abuse made of credit in establishing warehouses, cellars, and costly plant, and on the other defective methods of manufacture which brought the product into discredit, produced a deep-rooted depression, from which the industry has hardly yet emerged. It cannot look to the future until it perfects its means of preparation, working out its brands with the aid of time and patience. This industry, says an eminent writer, gives work to more than 100,000 inhabitants, and represents, as a matter of national wealth, a value in vineyards and factories of some £19,000,000; it produces annually £4,840,000 worth of merchandise, contributes £6,950,000 to the general trade, and surpasses in importance, both in the capital employed and in its products, the sugar industry of the country, which in 1907 manufactured sugar only to the value of £2,772,000.[68] [Footnote 68: See _l’Industrie viti-vinicole de la République Argentine_, by Ricardo Palencia, an essay published in the _Recensement de l’agriculture et de l’élevage de la Nation_. Vol. I. Buenos Ayres.] _Tobacco._——For a long time the tobacco-plant has been cultivated in the Argentine; for we find, in various zones, conditions very favourable to its production; but its culture has by no means as yet acquired the importance of which it is capable, and is very far from satisfying the needs of national consumption.