The great obstacle in the way of the agricultural development of the Argentine arises essentially from the faulty property system; from the fact that enormous tracts of land are held by a few men; from the establishment, in short, of the most odious system of _latifundia_ ever known. This trouble arises from the lack of foresight with which the State has parted with enormous tracts of land, which have passed into the hands of speculators or large land-owners, who have left them untouched, while waiting for the value of their holdings to rise. In the national territories, according to the deputy Joachim Castellanos, who is busily lighting the system of _latifundia_, there are belts of land, now private property, which are divided in the following proportions: 2,470,000 acres into holdings of from 25 to 99,000 acres each; 7,400,000 acres into holdings of from 99,000 to 198,000 acres each; and 7,934,000 acres into properties of 190,000 or 200,000, and over. This means that there are 17,280,000 acres of useful and cultivable land, in the hands of unenterprising capitalists remaining, unproductive, used to increase neither the population nor the production of the country.[39] [Footnote 39: Speech delivered on 21st September 1903.] The principal author of this deep-rooted evil is incontestably the Argentine State, which has squandered its rich inheritance, by allowing it to pass into the hands of speculators, instead of dividing it equitably among the new colonists. The subdivision of these great tracts of land, now concentrated in the hands of a few large proprietors, is, to-day, one of the necessary conditions of the development of the country, and it is with reason that influential voices are raising themselves, in Parliament and in the Press, to proclaim this economic truth. The great “estancias” of 180 square miles in area, covered by immense herds of cattle, must finally, says M. F. Segni, author of an _Investigacion agricola_, be divided into small concerns of from 4000 to 12,000 acres, which would, with fewer animals but a better system, yield a greater profit both to the owner and to the country. The old system of large ranching must gradually give way to an intensive system, when stock-raising, combined with agriculture, will employ a larger population, attract more capital, and realise better results.