The curve of sugar-production is just as irregular as that of wine-production is regular. From one year to another the output may vary by as much as 100 per cent., and the changes cannot be predicted: 147,000 tons in 1912, 335,000 tons in 1914, 150,000 tons in 1915. The reason is that the sugar output depends upon the season. Canes which have been touched by frost go sour and ferment in the ground. They have to be milled quickly, and the harvest must not be prolonged. Even in good years the costly equipment of the works is active during only three months (July to September, but at Jujuy, July to October). This irregularity of production, which makes protection inevitable, also complicates it infinitely in practice. Sometimes the harvest is not large enough to meet home demands, and imports have to be permitted. Sometimes production is far beyond the home demand, and the sugar-manufacturers have to export the surplus so as to prevent a slump in prices on the overloaded home market. In order to meet these very different situations, the protecting tariff has had to be repeatedly modified and complicated. But it is impossible for us to give the history of it in detail here. The duties on foreign sugar were fixed, in successive instalments, between 1883 and 1891; and special protective measures were taken in the interest of the refiners in 1888. Over-production appeared for the first time in 1895. Export at a loss, to relieve the home market, was at first organized by an association of the producers themselves (in 1896). But in 1897 the Government developed it by putting a premium on export. The export period lasted from 1897 to 1904. The law of 1912, which gives its latest form to the Protectionist regime, gives the Government the right to suspend for a time the duties on imports and allow foreign sugar to come in. As at Mendoza, the provincial Government intervenes as well as the national. The alternation of bad and exceptionally good harvests leads to the appearance of all sorts of unforeseen laws, modifying the bases of taxation, regulating production in the works, and restricting the acreage of cultivation.[43] Thus Tucuman has lived in an atmosphere of storm and uncertainty and unceasing discussion, of discouragement and insecurity; the price of its geographical position at the extreme limit of the area in which cane can be grown. [43] Especially during the crisis of 1902-3. CHAPTER IV THE EXPLOITATION OF THE FORESTS Manual labour on the _obrajes_--The land of the _banados_ and the agricultural cantons of Corrientes--The timber-yards of the Chaco and the tannic-acid works of the Parana--The exploitation of the _mate_--The forestry industry and colonization.