DAIRYING IN ARGENTINA.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12904, 15 February 1906, Page 3

DAIRYING IN ARGENTINA.

Fifteea vcnrs ago the traveKcr in Argentina would arrive at an cs!anc;a where tiie mobs of cattle numbered ■ t.'ica-saa.i.--. to find! that he hud 13 drink tea wilfcou: uiiik.; and'mark as a token of hiir.o:;r it the guest a tin of Danish salt butter hi the table. Tie dairy supply of the grcal citv of Buenos Aires was in "the hands of Basques, who miiked their cows in -unclean yards, and rode off in the morning astride a jangling pannier of tin cans, tiie cream churning into butter as the horse trotted through the lanes of the suburbs. Thus they cantered into*town to dispense their wares from door to door, and their sole competitor ,was the- pedestrian eow-berd, who drove bis kine thtough the busiest streets, and.in answer <o the hail of the housewife, supplied milk *• fresh from the cow." The process of churning by equitation demanded the «roughest of trots, and the cowboy of Argentina, describes the rude gait associated with • this interesting function as a "trote lechero," a milkman's trot.

Men who are still young have seen a horse-hide -vessel containing cream secured to a rough -.sled and dragged at break-netek speed over Pampa. When the wild chase ended and the hide vessel was opened, butter was revealed.

, A few jears ago a leading estonciera took -up the trade of the dairy supply of Buenos Aires. He erected buildings on his estate and equipped them with separators, refrigerators, and all the most modern appliances of dairy science; introduced milking herds, of which the Dutch Holsteis> and the Shorthorn were the predominant breeds; opened numerous suppJy stores in the city, whose cool, white-tiled rooms speedily became popular with the man in the street; and in a year the Basque witha his clattering cans and the street cow had faded into the past.