The Argentine in the Twentieth CenturyMartínez, Alberto B.
History
The Argentine in the Twentieth Century
Martínez, Alberto B.
Argentina -- Commerce; Argentina -- Economic conditions; Finance -- Argentina
That the reader may form some idea of the future in store, during
the economic development of the Argentine, for the cultivation and
exploitation of cotton, he need only refer to the following calculation
as to its results. The land in Chaco given over to cotton yields, in good
years, an average crop per acre of 1785 lb. of cotton “in the pod”——that
is, fibre and seed together. Selling the cotton at the very low price of
·96d. per lb.——and the present price of cotton runs to 1·16d., 1·44d.,
and 1·65d. per lb.——the minimum yield would be £7, 2s. per acre, even
with prices as low as we have indicated. As for working expenses, they do
not exceed £4, 5s. 6d. per acre, unless by some trifling sum, according
to locality; so that the average profit would be about £2, 16s. per acre.
This is the cost of production of an acre planted with cotton during the
first year. Later the expenses diminish by 25 per cent., so that the net
profit might reach £3, 11s. 3d. per acre.
One of the great obstacles in the way of the full development of this
industry is to be found in the lack of hands indispensable for the minute
and delicate operations connected with gathering the crop. It has even
happened, during the last few years, that in certain districts as much as
3s. 7d. per cwt. has been offered for selected cotton, and in others as
much as a third of the results of the harvest. But we may be sure that
when the native farmer and the foreign agriculturalist once awaken to the
extraordinary profits which cotton yields, its production will assume a
far larger scale.
As the growers have to deal with an industrial branch of agriculture in
process of establishment it has not yet been possible to draw from it all
the profit that is secured in other countries: cotton-seed, for example,
in the United States especially, is a considerable source of wealth,
but in the Argentine the growers have scarcely begun to utilise it by
the extraction of its oil. But there is a beginning: several mills have
lately been established for this purpose. The agronomic expert Macial has
justly remarked that we only require spinning-mills and looms for the
cycle of the cotton industry in Chaco to attain its completion.
_Rubber._——Another source of forestal wealth in the Argentine, and one
which is for the moment unexploited,——principally because of local
depopulation and a lack of means of transport——is the extraction of the
rubber contained in certain tropical plants.
Lately, for example, competent observers have discovered that the true
rubber-plant, the _Ficus elastica_, exists in abundance in the north-east
of the Republic, and in the Provinces of Salta and Jujuy, between 23°
and 26° of south latitude, and 62° and 66° of west longitude. It is this
tree which has given such value to the Brazilian territory of Acre and to
various other regions of Brazil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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