ARGENTINA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 138, 10 July 1909, Page 6

ARGENTINA.

IMPRESSIONS OF MR. 11. S. j ABRAHAM. AX IXTEKESTIXU COUNTRY. THE NEW ZEAUAXDEII CAPTIVATED WITH IT. Mr. R. fi. Abraham has written the following interesting letter on the Argentine to Mr. ,1. M. Johnston, of Palmerston:— "We spent the inside of a week at one of the large csUneias, about 320 miles from Buenos Ayrcs. You leave about 8..10 p.m., get a good dinner and a comfortable sleeping berth on the train, and get in about 8 o'clock in the morning. The railways are built on a very broad gauge, 4.18, I think, and the trains run smoothly nnd comfortably. The country is most uninteresting, a bare flat plain for 1(100 miles on end till you come to the Andes, not a hillock of any sort, very few plantations, ami only the occasional low-set estancia buildings to relieve the eve AX ARGENTINE "FARM. "The people we stayed with were most kind, nnd could not do enough for us, and I saw a good deal of 'camp life' as they call it. Ho was manager of one of the numerous Drabble testancins of about four leagues of country, equal to 24,000 acres, of magnificent alfalfa land He bad a noble stud of shire horses, hundreds of them, as' pure as you could make them, nnd has just Imported a stallion from England, for which thev paid 1500 guineas. About 5000 practically purebred Shorthorn cattle, 1000 ostriches, 13.000 to 14.000 sheep, horses pedigree mules ad lib. Their net returns average from ,€15,000 to £20,000 pe r annum, nnd he gets a fourth share [as manager, so he makes a pretty good thing of it. and has now nearly completed breaking-in and rtncking"an estancia of three leagues of his awn to which, of course, he will retire in „ year or two nnd live comfortably on his £IO,OOO to £12.900 a year. Mind you, I am speaiking of a man who roughed it in the early days when profits were small, and who has a thorough knowledge of (he country, gunehas, and is a first-class judge of stock A MAGNIFICENT FUTURE "Howeyer, the, result of my'visit ttorgwag to convince mo that tMra

i« a magnificent future for thJi coustry. ;* It is going to become one of the largest ' wheat-producing centres, and certainly the largest meat-raiser for export par* ' pones of the world, whilst fje alfalfa is fast making it the ideal country for .« pastoral pursuits. They hare had ' a ' drought of some duration oyer nearly the whole of the country, which hei seriously affected the lighter-lands, tat in the alfalfa districts it appeared to mc that the whole country- was rolling in feed, and every beast on the pipe* was as fat as it could stick. .Fancy how 1800 Shorthorn steers', all' dehorned, ranging from 7501b to 0001b, made »y mouth wnter, and not a beast over ■ three years, mostly two and a-half.

A COUNTRY OP FOOTUNES. "The country I was on wei now worth from £7 to £8 po r acre; in New Zetland it would bring 220 to £25, of course, in smaller ureas. Ten years ago it could have been bought for £4 made, or about C2 in its natural state. Twenty years ago you' could hare ' bought any amount of equal land for a song, so you may imawaewhat fortunes have been made out of land. And what is to stay this land from going to £ls or £2O per acre, If they choose , to introduce dairying? It must and will come, and though the ordinary Argcntino or Englishman who has lived ' there for years will tell you that the land is far beyond its value, I do not agree with them, and would invest tomorrow if my interests were not all in New Zealand. 1 will undertake to ay .that if I bad settled in the Argentina instend of Now Zealand thirty yean ego, and had put the same work in that 1 have done there, I should now have been worth £500,000, whether it had been land or business.

A LIFE OF LUXURY. "Life on the estancias appears to b* very comfortable, even luxurious. The managers do not overwork thenudm, have any amount of peons to do anything they want. Good shooting, pert- < ridges, martinis, and hares. One shooting party I went with shot very badly. but got about five hundred in the after* noon. They are not particular when they shoot there, and I counted myself ' ' lucky to come off with a whole skin. "They had fine quality hackneys on tins' estate, and the ponies I rode were ideal polo ponies, beautifully brokaft ' and mouthed. ~\ NO WOOL &4LES.

"I hud not much time in Bucnoi Ayrcs. However, I went over the largest freezing company works, in which they liave nothing to teach, us, except that tiiey run it at much lesi cost in the way of wages. The produce market I afcootfl lliink the largest building of its kind in til* world. Since July thev haw re- ' coived and disposed of 111590,887 kilo* of wooli a kilo being equal to B«tt> in our weights, about half the wool prodncn of Argentina, No wool is sold by auction, nil privately to buyem, eithet in the .city or direct from iaierie*, . England, and foreign countries. Tkey pay, I think, about 40 cents (Bdl per ' bale of 400 kilos to ;the Market Com- ' pnny (an English concern) and s per rent, to the broker t6 whom they hara consigned their wool. 5 It was a splea. didly-run concern, with railways riAt through, restaurants,! and every convenience, i » "»• , <snt STOCK MARKETS. . Of course I went to the cattle msr. kets. They yard frbm 3000 to (000 every day, lately SOOOjto 8000, onrioc to, the drought. Each fihn leases iUown portion of the publiclard, which i» m, >y the municipal authorities and com* braes under the a»m»" net M the ntbU* abattoirs, where thf- MBing i, «£«,. ally done m the ope f streets-* beatttr ' idea. The buyer* „«end the sale oi horseback, and ride up the aßeywim ', dividing the pens. TJ» best cattleyart. ■< ed arc worth 80 orßo dollars of Is M iTV*" 4 the J" I '** «ttle are »« i bought in pr.vately from the estaaciaft : and arc now worth about £lO IdM •' not sec the sheep market, which is fo another direction. I did not like the ■ sheep I saw-coarse, long-lewed brut*. -tat at the same time Zd ?° cks -, Aethers in the market broSht ' from 17s to 10s if good eaouAlor .' freezing, lambs 10s to lis. ;

ARGENTINA SHOWS I went over the Buenos km» 'A* and P Association's grounds, Ud wir pinch disappointed. The ground ana*. ■ of, huildings. The stallion bouses m ' srorgeous, but where the peopleWto! ' don't know I believe P rWil ' •how is held at Mar d'll Hato «££!» imiLfS "• "W'S™"* exhibition, no ■ ft: *%% '«0 pedigree tLK

A LAND OF PROMISE. ' ';' f ; cl fopU X only fZ "y'Zu ' .1 I am. Their laws are not nearlv «« harassing as- ours." I y w •