The States of the River Plate (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the accredited sheep lands of the latter, are lower in price, more easily obtained, and are capable of being much improved by stocking. As moreover the maximum of improvement attainable, on the old system of management, and from the Saxon Merino cross, under such system, has been attained, the lands are found to bear a value fully up to that of the sheep and the yield of wool obtainable from it. The fleeces are very light, the wool short, fine, and deficient in strength, the result of slovenly breeding, management, and overstocking of the land. In view of these things I am convinced that the ' actual' position of sheep farming in the Eio de la Plata offers a brilliant opportunity to the pioneers of an improved system of management and breeding, with the object of producing a more robust animal, one of larger carcase, yielding much more meat and grease, a fleece double the weight, and wool as long again in staple, and at the same time more sound and elastic than the average of the present stock. The means to attain this end will be suggested in another part of this work. Sheep estancias are of various extents, ranging from half a square league to four and five or more square leagues. There are combined cattle and sheep estaucias of very much greater extent; many proprietors count from 20,000 to 100,000, and in some instances a still greater number, of sheep in their possessions. An establishment of this class consists of an estancia house of more or less pretensions in size, round about which may be seen generally plantations of paraiso, acacia, poplar, willow, mulberry, and some few sturdy ' ombu 'trees, and in some cases peach plantations, out-offices, sheds or ' galpones,' horse ' corrales' or pens, and sheep ' corrales.' These ' poblaciones'?habitations, with their foliag...