Agricultural colonization in the Buenos Aires province was at first entirely independent of the Santa Fe colonization. The crops of the adjoining region of Buenos Aires never disappeared altogether. In the period to which Daireaux's description of the economic life of the Pampa refers (1880-89), the farmers disputed with the breeders a belt some ten leagues broad round the capital. But sheep-breeding left no place for agriculture in the next belt, which enclosed the first on every side, and extended almost as far as the Salado. Agricultural colonization had found free land only beyond the sheep-farm area, 170 miles west of Buenos Aires, round Chivilcoy, Chacabuco, and Bragado. As early as 1872 the Chivilcoy district produced 130,000 hectolitres of wheat; or nearly half the total production of the Buenos Aires province. In 1889 it formed a comparatively dense agricultural patch, the cultivated area being devoted half to wheat and half to maize. Wheat. Maize. Chivilcoy 307 kms. 399 kms. Chacabuco 155 " 164 " Bragado 147 " 261 " At that date the whole west and south of the Buenos Aires province was exclusively pastoral. There were only two isolated nuclei of agricultural colonization. The first was round Olavarria, on the old Indian frontier, where Russo-German colonies had been established in 1878. The second was in the Suarez department, at the extreme north of the Sierra de la Ventana, where a group of French colonists settled five years later, at Pigue.[99] The opening of the line from Buenos Aires to Bahia Blanca ought, one would think, to have prepared the way for agricultural colonization in this section. However, the 1895 Census shows a check to these first attempts at tillage in the south. It fell by one half at Suarez, and by three-fourths at Olavarria. The Pigue colonists have succeeded in keeping to their lands, but those of Olavarria have abandoned them, and most of them have emigrated to the Entre Rios province. [99] Wheat-area in 1889 in the Olavarria department, 319 square kilometres; in the Suarez department, 118 square kilometres. [Illustration: THE PAMPEAN PLAIN. BUENA ESPERANZA (SAN LUIS PROVINCE). _The first_ chanares. Photograph by the Author.] [Illustration: THE PAMPEAN PLAIN. JUNIN (150 MILES WEST OF BUENOS AIRES, 330 FEET ELEVATION). _The clays. A line of dead dunes crosses the Junin district, following the course of the Salado. They are indicated by light, sandy soil, very different from the clays of the north of Buenos Aires province._ Photograph by the Author. PLATE XVII. To face p. 194.]