THE ARGENTINE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4605, 24 September 1923, Page 4

THE ARGENTINE.

VAST PRODUCING POSSIBILITIES. INDUSTRIES SURVEYED. (Report by Mr J. Fraser to the N.ZMeat Producers’ Board-) A New Zealander entering the Argentine for the first time is very impressed with its vastness and its mass production of primary products. Everything is done in a large way. Measurement of land is spoken of by the league, or square miles, and individual owners often turn off fat cattle in drafts of thousands. The amount, of what is produced in some districts is almost unbelievable. At one small railway station, Moldes, which I visited ig the Cordova district, over 100,000 tons is railed away on an average season. Wheat from last season’s crop is still being carted in to the. rail, waggoners being so engaged since last January. All the country is not productive—quite a large amount is of little value,, whilst quite good country is valueless owing to a bad water supply, the water in many cases being too brackish or sour. Farming in the Argentine has its train of troubles and pests in the way of droughts, severe frosts, and hailstorms, locusts, foot and mouth disease, scab, etc. The average land in the Buenos Aires province appears to be heavier than the land further inland —say, in the Cordova district—which is probably owing to it being settled earlier. A great, deal of it is in native grass, and grazed by cattle and sheep, which would also tend to make it heavier, whilst a great deal of the land in the Cordova district is ploughed up each year and sown in wheat and linseed. Continual cropping naturally tends to lighten it, which is evidenced by the large number of “ sand dunes ” to be seen. From Buenos Aires I travelled by rail nearly 500 miles, due west. This s.tretch of . rail is probably the straightest in the world—not a bend, the country absolutely flat, alfalfa (lucerne) growing everywhere, the soil being of a sandy composition, varying in density. There was not a stone to be seen, in fact, right up to the foothills you cannot find even a small pebble. This being the middle of winter one sees the country at its worst, but one couTd imagine what the grpwth of alfalfa must be like in the summer when, in some places it reaches a height of over two feet. A successful crop of lucerne depends mainly on the wealther when sowing. By cutting, and by judicious grazing of cattle, it will last as long as twelve years probably, but when grazed by sheep it will not last even half this time. Sheep, grazing lower to the ground than cattle, eat the crown of the plant. Alfalfa appears to be very sensitive to the frost, and from what 1 saw had been cut down considerably by it. Not much alfalfa is grown in the provinceo of Buenos Aires ; for some reason it does not, thrive there, nearly so well as further inland, say in the provinces of Cordova, Santa Fe, San-Luis, etc. The water being too near the surface in the Buenos Aires provnice may be the reason why it is not so successfully grown there, whereas in the Cordova province, etc., the roolt,s in some parts go down several feet before reaching water. This seems to be a condition suitable for its culture. Great efforts are at present being made by the Argentine Department of Agriculture to increase their dairy exports, and, from a conversation ~ had with the Minister of Agriculture, etc. (Dr. De Breton), he appeared to be very interested in our dairying industry. Their present methods of dairying ai\> still very primitive, very little attention being given to breeding suitable cows. On some farms the cows are only milked once daily, and the calves are turned out with the milking cows at night. The native of the Latin mixture does not take kindly to the tedious work attending dairying, but the present beef ct'isis is causing him to hustle more. This, combined with th e continual stream of* immigrants from such desiring nations as Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, etc., has increased the exports considerably, as will be seen from the following figures :— Butter Shipments.—l9lo, 2876 tons ; 1911, 1395 ; 1912, 3676 ; 1913, 3784 ; 1914, 3481 ; 1915, 4622 ; 1916, 5670 : 1917, 9830; 1918, 18,570 ; 1919, 19,520 ; 1920, 19,464 ; 1921, 27,189 : 1922, 25,044. An extraordinary thing about the Argentine is the small amount of milk or butter that is consumed by its inhabitants. The majority of the population do not have butter on their dining table. Efforts are now being made to increase the consumption of butter in place of the olive and other vegetable oils which are imported yearly, and which must run into thousands of pounds. This is one of the strange things about this country. Even on some camps (stations) where there are thousands of cows, yet you never see milk or butter on the table. Light wine is drunk at every mealr-even the poorest half-brt-d has his wine. All the wines are very light, and one never sees a drunken man. Very little butter is to be seen, even in the leading hotels, and what I did try had no flavour whatever compared with our New Zealand product. Many dairy farmers make ensilage of alfalfa in a very simple way. It is placed in a green state into a low stack, the foundation of which is sunk about eighteen inches into the ground to prevent i,t slipping, and is heaped up to a height of about ten feet, and the top and sides are covered with soil to a depth of about one and a half feet so as to exclude all air. I saw one stack opened which had been down two years, and although it had rather a strong smell I noted the cows enjoyed it. Very little alfalfa i-s grown in Uruguay, the phiysical condition of the country not being suitable to its culture, There is some very good grazing country in Uruguay r being mostly undulating, with a subsoil consisting mainly of stone and gravel formation. Hereford cattle-

are very popular here, as they have the reputation of standing drought. At the freezing works I visited in Uruguay there was nothing remarkable about the cattle being killed. Being the off season, they naturally would not be of the primest quality. The majority of the best cattle were Herefords, and the poorer cattle appeared to have a strain of the ‘ oi!1 native” cattle showing in the light red-yellow colour. Great cat'e i,s given to the grading of beef. The primest is chilled, and the next grade frozen; the third grade is canned, and a lower grade sstiil is boned out in sides, and the whole side is hung out in the sun a,nd dried. This dried beef is called charque, and is exported to Cuba, West Indies, Brazil, etc. Great care must be exercised in the handling and drying of charque beef, as great losses have been made through defective treatment. The system adopted by the companies in Uruguay is the same as practised by the natives many years ago, and only natives intimate with the process are • employed. On no account must the meat get moist whilst being dried, and the remarkable ability of the natives in forecasting the weather each day is of immense value in the preparation. As the weather from now (June) onwards is not suitable for drying the meat after it has been taken out of pickle, it is stored in big heaps with plenty of salt applied, and covers placed on top to preclude any air from coming in contact with the meat. When the drier months come it will be taken out and sun dried in the usual way. After it is dried it, is baled up in bags like hides, each bag containing the meat from one animal. A great quantity of this meat is shipped from Uruguay—last year alone about 300,000 cattle were so treated. The large saleyards outside Monte Video ar,e quite unique in. their way, being devoid of pens or fences. Each estancho, or owner, stands alongside his mob of cattle, looking vrey picturesque with his native robe hanging over his shoulders, and his elaborate saddle and bridle. One is particularly struck with the quietness of the cattle. A lot of the buying is by the live weight: the whole mob is weighed together in a special yard. A Government official weighs them, and .a representative of the Freezing Company stands by to watch the interest of his company; also the owner. A certificate of the weight is handed to the two parties interested, a«id the Government official retains one.

The quality of the sheep and lambs which I saw treated in' the Unuguayian Works was much below ours. There is a grass growing in Uruguay, called “arrow grass,” which plays havoc with lambs during the seeding month (December). The seed is taken up by the long wool of the lambs, and the pointed end of the seed perforates the skin of ,the lamb and, having fine small barbs near the point of the arrow, when it enters the skin it continues its course and enters the body of the lamb, damaging the caitase and pel 1 , to such an extent that they are valueless. Shearing lambs before December is the best remedy. Sheep, being all shorn before December, do not suffer. Practically the whole bf the exports from Uruguay is meat and the different by-products of cattle and sheep. It is practically all pastonal country, only part of the flat country being given over to agriculture. The railway gauge of the ’Argentine railways is one of the broadest in the world, and consequently cattle and sheep trucks are very wide. They open at the ends instead of at th? sides, enabling cattle and sheep to be easily loaded and unloaded, and also saves a vast amount of bruising. Each truck has buffers at the end. After the cattle or sheep have been unloaded the trucks are cleaned out and the inside whitewashed and disinfected.