The Gaucho Has A Strange Method Of Fighting These Fires.
Several
mares are killed and opened, and they, by means of lassos, are
dragged over the burning grass.
The immensity of the pampas is so great that one may travel many
miles without sighting a single tree or human habitation. The weary
traveller finds his only shade from the sun's pitiless rays under the
broad brim of his sombrero. At times, with ears forward and extended
nostrils, the horse gazes intently at the rippling blue waters of the
mirage, that most tantalizingly deceptive phenomenon of nature. May
it never be the lot of my reader to be misled by the illusive mirage
as I have been. How could I mistake vapor for clear, gurgling water?
Yet, how many times was I here deceived! Visions of great lakes and
broad rivers rose up before me, lapping emerald green shores, where I
could cool my parched tongue and lave in their crystal depths; yet
to-day those waters are as far off as ever, and exist only in my
hopes of Paradise. Not until I stand by the "River of Life" shall I
behold the reality.
The inhabitant of these treeless, trackless solitudes, which, with
their waving grass, remind one of the bosom of the ocean, develops a
keen sight Where the stranger, after intently gazing, descries
nothing, he will not only inform him that animals are in sight, but
will, moreover, tell him what they are. I am blest with a very clear
vision, but even when, after standing on my horse's back, I have made
out nothing, the Gaucho could tell me that over there was a drove of
cattle, a herd of deer, a troop of horses, or a house.
It is estimated that there are two hundred and forty millions of
acres of wheat land in the Argentine, and of late years the prairie
has developed into one of the largest wheat-producing countries in
the world, and yet only one per cent, of its cultivable area is so
far occupied.
The Gaucho is no farmer, and all his land is given up to cattle
grazing, so chacras are worked generally by foreign settlers. The
province of Entre Rios has been settled largely by Swiss and Italian
farmers from the Piedmont Hills. Baron Hirsch has also planted a
colony of Russian Jews there, and provided them with farm implements.
Wheat, corn, and linseed are the principal crops, but sweet potatoes,
tobacco, and fruit trees do well in this virgin ground, fertilized by
the dead animals of centuries. The soil is rich, and two or three
crops can often be harvested in a year.
No other part of the world has in recent years suffered from such a
plague of locusts as the agricultural districts of Argentina. They
come from the north in clouds that sometimes darken the sun. Some of
the swarms have been estimated to be sixty miles long and from twelve
to fifteen miles wide. Fields which in the morning stand high with
waving corn, are by evening only comparable to ploughed or burnt
lands. Even the roots are eaten up.
In 1907 the Argentine Government organized a bureau for the
destruction of locusts, and in 1908 $4,500,000 was placed by Congress
at the disposal of this commission. An organized service, embracing
thousands of men, is in readiness at any moment to send a force to
any place where danger is reported. Railway trains have been
repeatedly stopped, and literally many tons of them have had to be
taken off the track. A fine of $100 is imposed upon any settler
failing to report the presence of locust swarms or hopper eggs on his
land. Various means are adopted by the land-owner to save what he can
from the voracious insects. Men, women and children mount their
horses and drive flocks of sheep to and fro over the ground to kill
them. A squatter with whom I stayed got his laborers to gallop a
troop of mares furiously around his garden to keep them from settling
there. All, however, seemed useless. About midsummer the locust lays
its eggs under an inch or two of soil. Each female will drop from
thirty to fifty eggs, all at the same time, in a mass resembling a
head of wheat. As many as 50,000 eggs have been counted in a space
less than three and a half feet square.
During my sojourn in Entre Rios, the province where this insect seems
to come in greatest numbers, a law was passed that every man over the
age of fourteen years, whether native or foreigner, rich or poor, was
compelled to dig out and carry to Government depots, four pounds
weight of locusts' eggs. It was supposed that this energetic measure
would lessen their numbers. Many tons were collected and burnt, but,
I assure the reader, no appreciable difference whatever was made in
their legions. The young jumpers came, eating all before them, and
their numbers seemed infinite. Men dug trenches, kindled fires, and
burned millions of them. Ditches two yards wide and deep and two
hundred feet long were completely filled up by these living waves.
But all efforts were unavailing - the earth remained covered. A
Waldensian acquaintance suffered for several years from this fearful
plague. Some seasons he was not even able to get back so much as the
seed he planted. If the locusts passed him, it so happened that the
pampero wind blew with such terrific force that we have looked in
vain even for the straw. The latter was actually torn up by the roots
and whirled away, none knew whither. At other times large hailstones,
for which the country is noted, have destroyed everything, or tens of
thousands of green paroquets have done their destructive work. When a
five-months' drought was parching everything, I have heard him
reverently pray that God would spare him wheat sufficient to feed his
family.
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