827. The gentleman and the job.— What is it that makes a man a gentleman? The Spanish settlers brought a wrong idea about that across the ocean with them, and Argentina, like the other countries settled by the Spaniards, suffers because of it. In the United States and Canada the people themselves built the rail roads, managed the compa nies, and ran the industries. Because the Argentinians think that a gentleman ought not to work, the rail roads and the trolley lines, the gas works and the elec tric light plants, and the biggest business enterprises are owned by the British, French, German, Dutch, and American companies that built them, Most of the skilled men, managers, and workmen, are northern Euro peans, or Americans. But Argentina is be ginning to get over her foolish idea about what makes a gentleman. She is beginning to be proud of being a modern nation.
828. The estate and the family.—In Kan sas, Oklahoma, and other parts of the United States, and also in Canada, the land was given away to the early settlers in farms of 160 acres each, which the government wisely thought was enough to make a good home for a family. Our government wants every man to own the farm he cultivates and the house in which he lives, because it makes him a better citizen.
The kings of Spain liked to favor their friends by giving them land in the colonies. Sometimes a friend of the king would receive a grant of thousands and thousands of acres, as much as a whole county in the United States. The Argentine politicians have also given land away to their friends in much the same way as the kings did. The man who owns one of these huge estates (estancias) does not want to live on it nor does he work for the good of theneighborhood. He wants to live in some big city, and visit Madrid and Paris. In every Spanish speaking country there are big estates of this kind. Even California, New Mexico, and Texas have them. Why? In the splendid grain and grass lands of Argentina and Uru guay, many of these vast estates are owned by people who live in Buenos Aires or Monte video, and who may not see their lands from one year's end to the next. Sometimes it takes the agent two or three days to drive over the estate and visit the various work men's camps. Some of the agents are now planning to travel about over their ranches in airplanes.
In the grain districts, the land is rented to tenants, most of whom are Italians, who live in shacks, and who rent the land for a year or two and then move on to some other place. This custom is very bad for the country, because no settler stays long enough to help make a good neighborhood, and no one keeps up the schools or the roads. The roads are
so bad that wagons often have wheels ten or twelve feet high in order that they may not stick in the mud. (Fig. 590.) Fifteen or twenty horses may have to be hitched to one wagon to haul the grain to market.
829. The meat industry. —Since meat has gone up in price, the people of the Argentine no longer waste their good grass in raising bony cattle, from which they sell only hides and tallow. Instead, they raise fine herds of the best Eng lish breeds of big, fat sheep and cattle. (Figs.594,586.) Alfalfa, the best of all forage plants, grOws in Ar gentina as well as it does in any part of the world ; so northeastern Argentina and Uruguay have now be come one of the great meat producing regions of the world. Instead of being boiled down for tallow, the _ cattle are sent to modern meat-packing houses built and operated by men from Chicago, and owned by European and North American capitalists. (Figs. 582, 583.) Most of the meat animals go to the pack ing houses and freezing plants of Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Santa Fe, Argentina; to Paysandu, Uruguay; and even to Pelotas and other places in southern Brazil, for the meat industry has recently sprung up in this part of the temperate agricultural region also. Argentine meat had begun to come to New York before the World War; but during the war all of the meat was sent to Europe. Since the war we have been importing mil lions of pounds a year.
A Spanish company recently built meat freezing plants in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, cold-storage warehouses in Bilbao and other towns in Spain, and refrigerator ships to carry frozen meat to Europe. There are many such steamship lines from Plata ports to the ports of northwest Europe.
830. Forests.—As in our own country we have a great natural forest from Oklahoma to the Atlantic, except where man has cut it down, so in South America a great forest stretches from thb coast of southern Brazil to the river Parana, and beyond. Near the Parana River are many factories making tanning ex tract from the hard wood of the que bracho tree. Per haps the leather of your shoes was tan ned with this ma terial, which is used by American tan ners. Most of this forest region is still unsettled, and in southern Brazil are many thousand square miles of splendid pines, much like those of our own southern states. These forests are a continuation of the forest mentioned in Section 821, and are the only important pine forests of the southern hemisphere. Some day, when railroads and sawmills have been built, these forests will give rise to a great industry. Lumber export to other parts of South America has already begun.