Agricultural colonization in turn will react upon the forestry industry in developing the cultivation of _mate_. Large plantations of _ilex_ have already been established above Posadas. Already they enter the common life. They are scattered either over the estates of the national colonies or over the larger estates of the richer colonists; for planting demands a considerable expenditure. Some of them belong to dealers who also work natural _yerbales_ elsewhere. They are, if possible, set up in the forest, or at least on the fringe of it, in order to have a good supply of wood to dry the leaves. Thus the primitive industry of collecting _mate_ is undergoing transformation while the natural growths are disappearing. CHAPTER V PATAGONIA AND SHEEP-REARING The arid tableland and the region of glacial lakes--The first settlements on the Patagonian coast and the indigenous population--Extensive breeding--The use of pasture on the lands of the Rio Negro--Transhumation. The northern limit of the Patagonian region passes to the north of the Colorado, in the latitude of the Cerro Payen and of the ridge which leads from Malarue to the Rio Grande in the sub-Andean zone (36 deg. S. lat)., and to the Sierra de Lihuel Calel in the southern part of the Pampa province. South of this line, from the Andes to the Atlantic, on the territory of the Neuquen, the Rio Negro, the Chubut, and the Santa Cruz, is the region of the sheep farms, their refuge since more profitable branches of farming have driven the sheep from the Pampa. The extensive breeding practised on these poor lands is not profitable enough to justify much expenditure, and is therefore all the more controlled by the physical conditions. It is true that cattle-breeding was once undertaken in the Spanish settlements of the lower Negro, and still exists in western Patagonia at the foot of the Andes, but one never finds there the particular combination of cattle-breeding and sheep-breeding which is characteristic of the Pampean region, in which the main function of the cattle is to improve the pasture and make it ready for sheep.