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businessmen made long-term arrangements in the stable medium of
gold, which they designated in units of “gold pesos.”)
Naturally, rising land values motivated owners of estancias to add
improvements to their properties. Estancieros constructed wood cor-
rals, ranchos for workers, sheds for storage and animals, oxcarts, resi-
dences for owners and majordomos, perhaps even a pulpería (country
store), as well as digging ditches to protect fields of wheat and alfalfa,
and planting orchards of fruit trees. Tenancy also became a more com-
mon arrangement between owner and producer.
As land became more intensively utilized, the scarcity of labor
encouraged owners to maximize profits by renting out parcels of their
estancias to a family who would cultivate the land themselves. Renting
the land relieved the owner of having to raise crops or care for milk
cows with expensive hired help. Foreigners were preferred as renters,
just as they were desired as pulperos (shopkeepers). The owner could
depend on them for stability, because the military drafts applied only to
native-born males. Prejudice toward the uncouth, independent gaucho
also played a role. As in colonial times, European immigrants moved
into a middle-level social status denied to native-born mestizos and
mulattoes. Inasmuch as farming earned the renter an income above
subsistence, immigrants enjoyed the opportunity of eventually buying
their own parcels, despite land's rising cost.
Argentina's cattle business in the 19th century necessitated production
on large landed estates because traditional ranching techniques placed
a ceiling on the efficiency of land use. But as production became more
intensive, when land was converted from cattle to sheep and from sheep
to crops, the rural estate decreased in size while increasing in efficiency.
Landowners sold off portions of large estates or divided them among
their children. This process of fractionalization of the originally large
estancias continued throughout the early 19th century on the Pampas.
The boom in foreign trade made investment in cattle estancias quite
profitable for Argentine businessmen. Old merchant families, eased out
of export commerce by foreign traders, converted their assets to land and
cattle. For example, in the 1820s, the Anchorena merchant clan shifted
capital from overseas commerce to ranching, eventually creating the larg-
est of all the cattle operations; by 1864, the Anchorenas owned more than
2.3 million acres of ranch land on the rich Pampas. Wealthy landowners
lived in Buenos Aires, leaving daily ranch management in the hands of
resident majordomos. In the port city, estancieros dealt directly with mer-
chants who collected goods for export and with slaughterhouse owners
who sought timely delivery of fattened steers. They were not disinterested
 
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