THE ARGENTINE WELSH COLONY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 314, 17 May 1869, Page 3

THE ARGENTINE WELSH COLONY.

The following is from the Liverpool Mercury of Feb. 1G : — Letters huve recently been received from the Welsh calony in Ptungonia containing highly satisfactory accounts of the prospects of the colonists. Mr Lewis Jones, writing under date Fatagones, November 25, 1868, to the Rev. Michael D. Jones, 1:61 Iwaa Bala, North Wales, states — Here (Patagones) I received your letter dated June 6. I arrived here a week ago, and intend returning to the colony in about three or four days. The colony ia quite safe for you now. Every family has a good crop of wheat. Butter in abundance from the new cows ; one or two tons of it shall be shipped to Buenos Ayres, and the remainder •of the cargo will probably be whea f uuess some most unforeseen accident shouiu happen to the crops. I brought wiih me this time about £250 worth of Indian merchandise to sell for credit of the colonists. Mr D. Williams, of New York is here with me, and it is very likely the ship will return here again from the colony for a load of cattle for him. Our people are now rich and confident. Your company had better remain quiet till you hear from me from Buenos Ayres, but be ready to act immediately. We must have more immigrants — men with money only, and not poor people. Before you receive another letter from me, I daresay that my Mrs Jones will be about leaving Liverpool for the colony ; in that case you can send under her care anything you or other friends of the colonists may wish to send to their friends in the colony. One Amos Williams, writing to his brother-in-law, residing in Bangor, states — " I would very much like to see you coming here, for now I am in such a position as would enable me to give you assistance ; you should have a cow, milk, and horse. I haye ]

a good farm ready for you, and I can give you everything that is necessary to commence a living. I would be glad to do that to you oatof gratiUvie, because you have been :;s good aa a father to me. I tell you the truth. Things are getting on here at present much better than they used to do. I have splendid wheat, and every one else the same, and plenty of food and animals. I have i 3 cows and some horses and sheep. I would very much like to know how you are getting on in Bangor. I would dearly love to see all iry relatives coming here. It is an extraordinary healthy country. It is surprinug to think that the settlers have been here so long eujoying such good health, after all the hardships they had to go through, it ia much better to be here than whnre you are, because there is no " master " here; every one is his own master with us. Aft-.r I hive been out hunting a day or two, after the ostriches and the guanacoes, &c. I always return homeheavily laden with meat, feathers, and skins. There is no one here to aslc me where I have been, unless it be Ellen sometimes. Hunting is a capital sport here, and sometimes I try my hand with the net. There is neither rent nor taxes here, but every one is Jit liberty to do just as he pieas3s. It will not be the same for you to come h.-re now us it was when we came. Now there are houses and everything necessary to receive you I comfortably. We have now a ship sailing monthly between this colony* and I'jitagon^s. Before you come here write t<> the Rev M. D. Jones, Bod I»an, Bala, North Wales, and lenrn matters from him. MrW.lt. Jones, in a communication to the Key. M. D. Jones, of Bala, dated Patagonia, Nov. 8, 1869, st'ltes ns follows : — I have been thinking of writing to you many a time before this, but the state of affuirs here and our own minds were so unsettled that we did not know even our own I thoughts. We were in this country as if we had never in our lives before seen a yard of I laud, neither did we know what to make of it ; the conflicting accounts sent from this country prove that. It was a great pity we had not a good number of farmers wMi us. * * * The first thing I have to say is, that the intention of leaving this country has been entirely abandoned, and every one is now doing his best, and the consequence is that we are now doing as well aud live more comfortable than one farmer out of 20 in Merionethshire. We had not very good wheat last year, but you must remember it was within three months of the harvest time when it was sown, but as much as was sown in good plices yielded on its twel'th. Two months this season agßin baa been lost before we could get the seed for planting, but every one has sown in places where he can get water to it after it has gone late and the earth beginning to dry. There was no necessity for irrigation this nor the past year. We had plenty of rain, and I may venture to state that you never in your life saw more splendid wheat in Shropshire than what we havo here now — not with some of us only, but by the whole body of settlers in general. I shall now have enough food for three years, and seed ns well. The wheat is " seeding " now, and apparently yields from 15 to 20. You must remember, also, that this wheat has been sown in those patches of land entiielv devoid of vegetation, and which we previously considered to be nothing but sterile barren wastes. It has now been proved to satisfaction that wheat can be raised wherever we like in this valley if the weather be ever so dry, because the river runs on the south sUe of the valley and the land (or rather the bed) through which the river flows is two yards higher than the valley, so you see it is a very easy job to get a plentiful supply of water to the valley if the season happens to be a dry one. We have already cut canals to irrigate more land than we can ever in our lives possibly cultivate. I have had many letters from people asking many questions, and the great- 1 est question of all put to me is this — Would it be well for us to go to the colony or not ? This is hard to answer ; but I believe it is very much better with me. I feel myself now out of the danger of suffering want in this world, andj that, too, without " slavery " for it ; and I can say that for every one else here. Another question asked is —What does it cost to cultivate an acre of land here ? There is a great quantity of good corn land here that it is only necessary to sow on it at once, and then harrow it, and if it be necessary to plough, you can plough two acres in one day with two horses. We now get Glb3of butter weekly from the cows: the price of butter per Ibis Is 6d to 2s. It is hard to say whether this be a good place for sheep farming, but there are a few sheep in the colony, and you never saw finer ones in your life. I calculate each of them has from 31b3 to 3Jlbs of good wool, and there is room here for millions of them without their pressing one on the other. We expect a shipload of them here soon. I have not made lnlf as much money as some people here, because I choose to keep a good stock of food in store for my family in preference to selling it to the Indians, and then complain of want of food. Some of the immigrants who came here very poor have made a good deal of money in this manner; but I shall now have enough food to sell to the Indians without endangering my family, and, after all our grumbling and growling, I believe we shall, and indeed we are now, as htippy as it is possible for humanity to be in this world. We are very much in need of a blacksm'th, shoemakers, a cooper, tinman, and a medical man also, and in particular a mill and a miller. The great advantage for a farmer here is that there is no expense in this place to get in hay in summer. The animals can live out in the open air through the winter; and also there is no danger from a wet harvest, far we get no rain at harvest time, which takes place in January. I ploughed six acres last year after the harvest, and when the time to sow crrived the soil was as fine as if it had been "pounded;" there was not a lump of earth to be seen as large as a hen's egg. * * * * lam going to buy tea or twenty

cows as soon as the ship can bring them here. I shall have some wheat to sell in order to pay for them. I have taken another farm beside ray own, co I have now 200 acres of corn land; and I have also taken three miles square (■* square league) of land on the sea coast, upon the customary terras of stocking it with animals in about four years i fling I can easily do if I am alive and well. * * * * Before concluding I will s.iy a word about our climate. Throughout the year we have it a little drier than you. Our winter is warmer than yours; but it is no warmer with us in summer than it is with you. Cad van Gwynedd, writing under date ' Diunvben, Gyrarovania, Patagonia, Oct. 31, 1868," to his brother-in-law, residing in Liv, rpoo!, states as follows : — A ship reach .-"d the Camwy on the 25th of thh month. She is to he at the service of the colony. She sails for Paiagcties soon, an 1 will return here with a load of horses and cows. I have seven acres of land under wheat, and oue acre of barley; bat the seed was sown in August, and ought by rights to have been in the ground by the end oE April. We have all been very busy cutting small irrigation canals, and we have been exceedingly lucky in that attempt, for all our wheat has had plenty of water now — soir.e portions, I fear, too much, but it is possible the heat of the sun may revive it, hs on the whole it was proportionate. It now looks uncommonly well. So you see we have goort prospects of an abundant harvest; but I fen a great qnantUy of the wlie it will be lost for want of reapers, beo mse a good do 1 , of it has been sown. The valleys around nere w-.mld maintain many thousands of people, if they only came here with a little capital to start themselves, for this country is undoubtedly a very good one for raising grain, potatoes, and other vegetables, and also for rearing cattle, sheep, and horses by thousands * * * It was very cold and wet, almost continuous rain, during the months of June, July, and August, so that if we had sown .our wheat about the end of April it wouH have been much better for us. It is the belief of every one bere now that wheat will grow everywhere throughout the country, if we have as much rain in future as we have had this year, without the necessity of irrigating from the river ; and the genera 1 impression here now is that we mny have more rain in future years, though it i* also probable we may have some dry ones as well. To another friend in this town, the same writer states as follows : — There has been great uneasiness in the breasts of some people here to remove the colony from this country. One of their complaints was that th<j country was too dry, no rain 1 The fact is, we could not possibly have had better weather for our good as colonists than the weather we had. If the year when we landed here had been as wet and cold as the last two years, I do verily believe r.oue of us would be alive now ; and I have a tendency to believe it was the providence of God to keep us alive. I am positive, if we had sown our wheat the last two years in the months of April or May, we would have bad good crops without the necessity of irrigation; instead of that we sowed our wheat in the month of August, thereby losing three months' continuous rain and snow. You will naturally ask, why did we not sow in April or May ? But the truth is we had not the seed by us in time for that prrpose ; but I trust now that circumstances will permit of our sowing in good time. We have had a good deal of snow this year ; it was quite deep on the earth, and continued so for a length of time. The whole of the Chupat (or (jamwy) Valley is suitable for agricultural purposes, and by taking the upper and the lower valley there is sufficient space for 1000 farms of 300 acres each, together with 7200 acres for town lands. Every one is now convinced tha' wheat and everything else will grow here, if we only get water to it from the liver; but we are now further convinced that, if we but only siw in time, everything will grow well without water from the river. About 371 farms could also be measuredout between and at the bottom of the hills on both sides of this valley, giving to each farm a frontage of 758 yards facing the valley. It is a great misconception to suppose that there is nothing but sand here, excepting small patches in the valiey. I know of no sand at all in this country, excepting at Borth Madryn, and a very few sandhills at the bottom of this val'.ey, just the same as you will see in England and Wales. It has never been said by any one here that railroads cannot be maile in thicountry because of the sand or dust storms." None of us ever saw such a storun, unless it was the great "snowstorm " which we had last July, and which lasted a whole day and night ; so it is nothing but downright falsehood for any one to say that railroads cannot be made here because of the sand or dust storms. I have stated in previous letters that emigrants coming here should bring flour with them to last them twelve months ; but the aspect of things is so changed now, so much wheat is sown and grows so well, that its appearance leads us to suppose that there will be more than twice enough for us to eat, as well as for seed; and we flatter ourselves that we shall have as much again next year, and by then every one of us will have enough butter and cheese, &c, to sell, po that we may have enough money to pay wages to any one who may come here to work for us; so you Lee we shall have plenty of food to sell to new settlers, and in five years' time we shall also have plenty of cattle and horses to sell to them. It is expected that the news containing the result of the harvests and general statistics ;»bout the colony will arrive in this country per the Brazil mail due next April.