A special organisation has been formed under the name of the “Commission of Agricultural Defence,” in order to coordinate and direct the work of protection from the devastations of the locust, and considerable sums are devoted to this object every year. Regiments, mobilised along the line of passage, sweep the agglomerated masses of insects, in dense ridges, towards the ditches full of quicklime in which they are buried. Hundreds of tons of locusts perish thus, but unhappily the plague seems neither cured nor diminished.[17] [Footnote 17: See _Le Correspondent_ of the 10th of February, 1905, containing an article by M. Emile Daireaux.] RIVERS The economic progress of the Argentine Republic is intimately connected with the development of its means of communication, its traffic-ways. The railways and the ports have been the chief factors of the country’s prosperity, as by facilitating the outlet of agricultural products, they have allowed the soil to attain its whole value.[18] It is therefore pertinent to state, in some detail, how the Argentine is equipped from this point of view, and the part played by such equipment in the commercial development of the country. [Footnote 18: Perhaps it need hardly be explained that the meaning of this statement is that the rent of agricultural land reaches its par value when it is absolutely accessible——say, beside a port. With high ocean freights and low railway freights any land upon a railroad would be almost equally accessible economically——that is, it would reach almost its whole value.——[TRANS.]] By the truly providential nature of its soil, the Argentine is not only marvellously fertile, but is also a country largely opened up by waterways, and offering exceptional facilities from the point of view of international exchange. One of the most notable peculiarities of this country is that its rivers, which are, as it were, inland seas, accessible to vessels of the highest tonnage, and, penetrating the very heart of the most fertile regions, place it directly in communication with the exterior. What is still more notable is that these rivers flow with an almost constant current over level beds, between perpendicular banks, so that the river-banks form a series of natural ports, with wharves of indefinite length. Nature has well prepared the way for the handiwork of man. The hydrographic system of the Argentine Republic falls into three main groups: (1) the rivers tributary to the basin of the Rio de la Plata; (2) the rivers which terminate their course in lakes or pools, or lose themselves in forming marshes or salt swamps, and are finally absorbed by the porous soil of the Pampa; (3) the rivers which empty themselves into the ocean.