The Argentine Republic: Its Development and ProgressDenis, Pierre
History
The Argentine Republic: Its Development and Progress
Denis, Pierre
Agriculture -- Argentina; Argentina -- Description and travel; Argentina -- Economic conditions -- 1918-
When one passes to the interior, the pastoral industry at once assumes
a more primitive character. The _quebracho_ concerns themselves go in
for breeding, in order to make use of their large estates, when the
timber has been removed but the works have not yet been set up. They
need a large number of cattle, both for moving the timber and feeding
their workers, and they endeavour to meet their needs themselves. In
this district the forest is capable of feeding a far heavier herd than
is the more arid scrub of the eastern Chaco. There are often a thousand
head of cattle to 2,500 hectares. To the north and west of that part
of the forest where the big companies have taken over the whole of the
land, in the province of Chaco, a fairly large number of estates has
been created. Further still, on either side of the Bermejo, cattle
from Corrientes and the Paraguay have been put on the public lands
by men with no rights. As their future is uncertain, they cannot do
any expensive work, such as making wells, reservoirs, and enclosures.
Sometimes they are compelled by drought to fall back upon the river.
Conditions are quite different in the forests of Misiones. The damp
forest of Misiones does not lend itself to breeding. While the
forest-workers on the west of the Parana eat fresh meat, thanks to the
proximity of the breeders, in the _yerbales_ and _obrajes_ of Misiones,
the use of dried or "jerked" meat (_carne seca_), which is brought
some distance, has remained the common practice, as it is in most
parts of tropical America. On the other hand, there is now developing
in Misiones an agricultural colonization of an original kind, quite
distinct from the ordinary Argentinian type. This is because Misiones
is a province apart in Argentina. It really belongs, by its geological
structure and its climate, to the Brazilian tableland. The colonies
in Misiones are merely an extension into Argentine territory of the
great belt of colonies of southern Brazil, which stretches from the
neighbourhood of Santa Catalina and the Rio Grande do Sul to the River
Paraguay. The Brazilian type of colonization is based upon work with
the hoe, in clearings that have been made in the forest by the axe and
by fire. Ordinary farming would be impracticable between the large
stumps which the clearers have to leave in the ground, to rot there
slowly. It would, moreover, be useless, as the land, though rich in
humus, is light and aerated. The red soil, a decomposition-product
of the diabases which are at the root of all agricultural wealth
in southern Brazil, covers a great part of Misiones. The economic
inferiority of this agricultural colonization in the forest to the
Pampean type which has conquered the grassy plains of the Rio de la
Plata, is twofold. On the one hand, the surface that a man can develop
is very small. The plots of the Brazilian colonies are ten times
smaller than the average estate on the Pampa. On the other hand, it is
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