THE DROUGHT IN THE ARGENTINE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7025, 13 January 1910, Page 3

THE DROUGHT IN THE ARGENTINE

A DISASTROUS SEASON. Mr Robert Whitworth. ox Market Weigh ton, who judged the hackneys a.i Uueuo-j Ayres, has been giving Ills im11 ■cssic:!;> of tho country to a Home paper. Ho thinks that tho Argentine dill become tbo eyeate.'.t beef-growing country in the world. A.t one time it wan generally agreed that tho country Would get in front of Australia and Xciv Zealand as a sheep-breeding area, but tho growers found more profit in aattle. While the number of sheep in recent years has steadily- declined, the number ol cattle has rapidly increased. Cattle cost, on an average, £0 per head to keep np to two and a half years, when they sell for about £l3 per head. Tho great future before tho trade is fully understood by the Americana, who aro seeking to collar tho trade. Hitherto the industry has been carried on in a very haphazard way, but the terrible drought this year will probably teach, the estaneia owners a severe lesson. Tho drought lasted seven months, the longest within memory, and cattlo died by tho millions, not of thirst, but of starvation. Some of the stockowners lost 75 per cent, of their animals, and in travelling across country- Mr Whi it.worth saw field after held, for hundreds of miles, strewn with dead cattle. To all expressions of sympathy they returned the same philosophic answer, “Oh, well, we will breed more!” And this loss, amounting in valuo to millions and millions of dollars, could have been largely prevented by a little foresight. Tim Argentine farmers cut their grain close to tho head, frequently with a machine- that reaps and threshes at tho same time. The ta.ll stalks they burn .as they stand and plough in, instead of cutting and stacking as emergency fodder. Only ono owner had kept" libs straw, and ho had a stack a hundred yards long, fifty feet thick, and as high as could be forked. Ho lost no cattlo.