[Illustration: MARSHES (ESTEROS OR CANADAS) OF THE EASTERN CHACO. _On the Tartagal line (province of Santa Fe). It is by means of these marshes, which form in the forest, that this part of the plain is drained._ Photograph by the Author. PLATE V. To face p. 58.] The cattle live in the scrub during the summer, when the rains have brought out the grasses. In winter they go up to the moist forest, with perennial vegetation, which covers the flanks of the range.[30] The comparative abundance of water lessens the labour of the breeders and, at the same time, the discipline of the herds. When the time comes, the whole ranch is mobilized for the purpose of collecting the adult cattle and making a convoy of them. Horsemen, with the double leather apron which hangs at the saddle-bow to protect them from the branches, ride up the range with their dogs and plunge into the scrub. The savage beasts are rounded up and held at bay. The procession is formed, and sets out, either by the rugged paths across the forest and mountain or along the easier tracks over the plain to Embarcacion or Lumbreras, where they reach the railway. If buyers from the sugar-refineries at Jujuy do not take them, the cattle are put into trucks and sent to the Salta market, where there are sales all the year round. At Salta the beasts are fattened on the lucerne-farms before crossing the Cordillera. There is hardly any tillage, either because the winter drought makes the result dubious or because the breeders are not good at agricultural work. [30] On Aconcagua also the moist forest serves as winter pasture for the cattle from the ranches.