Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHANGING PRODUCTION ON
THE SANTA ISABEL ESTANCIA
NEAR ROSARIO, SANTA FE
S
ome years after my visit in 1888 the flood of Italian colonists,
spreading outward from Buenos Aires, had reached Santa Isabel
[an estate of 60 square miles]; and it had been through them that the
changes had been brought about.
The land was let out to them, ten square miles at a time, and what
they found as rough camp [countryside], they left as alfalfa pasture.
Better stock was introduced, the camp was subdivided by fences, more
care was taken in breeding; and so, in a very short time, the profits of
the estate rose by leaps and bounds. I will give some figures.
1888
1908
5,650 native longhorn.
Cattle
9,000 head of cattle of good breed,
chiefly Durham.
1,200 “native” sheep.
Sheep
10,000 head of sheep of Merino
breed.
425 horses, mostly “native.”
Horses
630 horses of the Cleveland breed.
Practically none.
Crops
The
estancia
drew from the
colonists on 20 square miles,
without any expense, one-quarter
of all the produce as rent. When
the colonists, after holding the land
for four years, were about to move
on, the
estancia
at its own cost
sowed alfalfa with the colonists'
last crop; that was all. The colonists
had ploughed and prepared the
land.
Source:
Larden, Walter.
Estancia Life: Agricultural, Economic, and Cultural
Aspects of Argentine Farming
(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1911), pp. 51-53.
1900. Argentina then supplied Great Britain with 30 percent of its fresh
mutton and 45 percent of its imports of live sheep and lambs.
Cattle raisers turned to grain farming with equal agility. Three fac-
tors made the cultivation of wheat profitable in this era: the extension
of railroads across the prairies, the arrival of immigrants to work as
