When discussing the general outlook in a year (1914) of depression in the land market, the American Year Book) for 1915 published the following: °As a general rule, land values in the Ar gentine are below those current in other coun tries less favorably situated as regards fertility, climatic conditions and accessibility to mar kets, and that being so, it would be only a matter of time when prices would revert to their old level. Every year the land is becom ing more and more closely settled and its productive power increased and the country is in the happy position of having a practi cally unlimited market for its staple com modities.° If we desire to found our opinions in regard to the permanence of the agricultural pros perity of a large country even in part upon the statistics of production (a procedure always attended by risk of error), we must at least examine the figures that relate to long periods of time and to years in which fairly normal conditions prevailed, rather than to a single year, or to two or three recent years alone, in which the conditions may have been excep tional. With this rule in mind we may now revert to the Canadian-Argentine comparison, and may mention the suggestive and somewhat propagandist statistics prepared by Senor La hitte, chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Sta tistics and Rural Economy for the Ministry of Agriculture of the Argentine Republic, which show that the increase in land farmed in Can ada between 1871 and 1891 was 75 per cent; the increase in the area devoted exclusively to the cultivation of cereals in Argentina between 1895 and 1909 was 284 per cent. Such figures arrest attention, especially because the inhabit ants of the two countries compared are about equal in number. The increase in the number of hectares (one hectare =2.47 acres) of culti vated land in Argentina since the first year of independence is shown as follows: From 1810 to 1888, only 2,300,000 hectares; from 1888 to 1910, nearly 17,000,000 hectares. Exported products of stock farming alone were valued at only $3,300,000 in 1822 and at $71,075,955 in 1888, but in 1915 their value was $218,780,485. From statistics prepared in the year 1914 (De partment of Agriculture, Argentine Republic; Ricardo Pillardo, Director-General, Commerce and Industry) we extract the returns of the four principal products of the arable regions, showing that Argentina exported as follows: In 1904 Wheat • 566,947,891 gold Maize 44,391,196 gold Linseed 28,359,923 gold Oats 541,973 gold In 1913 Wheat 5102,631,143 gold Maize 112,292,394 gold Linseed 49,910,201 gold Oats 20,447,278 gold Summarized, the value of exports of these fourproducts increased during that decade from $140,240,983 gold in 1904 to $285,281,016 gold in 1913. In 1916 there were 16,088,963 acres under wheat, 3,207,411 acres under lin seed and 2,525,402 acres under oats. The of ficial estimate, published 17 Dec. 1916, places the wheat yield for 1916 at 77,393,258 bushels, linseed 5,280,071 bushels and oats at 33,610,157 bushels. Exports of linseed from 1 Jan. to 7 Dec. 1916 amounted to 619,210 tons, of which the United States took 209,337 tons.
Another comparison was suggested to the writer in the course of studies he made in the province of Buenos Aires and in the Para guay-Parana-La Plata regions between Asun ciOn and the city of Buenos Aires, namely, the comparison with the pastoral industry of Aus tralia, that country which rivals Argentina in flocks and herds, as clearly appears from the fact that Australia at the close of 1904 pos sessed 65,822,918 sheep, 7,868,520 cattle, 1,595, 256 horses, etc.; and, thanks to the character
istic Australian rapidity of increase at the end of 1911 the number of sheep in the common wealth was • of cattle 11,828,954, and of horses 2,279,027. In regard to this matter the writer was glad to avail himself of the tes timony of those who have engaged in this in dustry on a large scale in both countries; and there seems to be no doubt that, tested by such practical experience, the conditions in southern and central Argentina are found to be unsur passed.
Unquestionably the main support, and a very substantial one, of Argentina s leadership in varied or mixed agriculture is her possession of good, fertile soils, in flat or nearly level areas of vast extent, grass-grown and not cov ered with forests that have to be cleared away, easy of access, lying open and ready for the plough in regions so temperate, as a rule, that agricultural work can proceed almost without interruption throughout the entire year and cattle can he kept always in the open and at pasture. Invasions of locusts occur and in the past have proved to be exceedingly destruc tive; but preventive measures can in the long run so reduce the injury from this source that it will become a negligible quantity. Irrigation is required in many sections, though it is true that in the rich alluvial central basin of the valley of the Rio de la Plata the annual rain fall averages 30 inches; hut it is demonstrable that irrigation constitutes a better and much safer reliance for the farmer than mere rain fall in every region not mountainous and not occupying an exceptional position with respect to permanent air and water currents. From Rio Negro to Misiones, in the sub-tropical northeast, and to Jujuy and Catamarca, in the Andean Northwest, soils of excellent' uality and great or sufficient depth have been known, or cultivated successfully without knowledge, for many years; and, as we have seen, we are at liberty to entertain a favorable opinion in re gard to soils in the Argentine Patagonian ter ritories.