CHAPTER XII

LIVE STOCK

The “History of Belgrano”—The first horses on the River Plate—The _Goes’_ cattle—The first goats and sheep—Early export trade—The first freezing establishment—Amazing pastoral and agricultural changes—The “discovery” of alfalfa—Sheep—Fine stock—Horses—Pigs and poultry—Tired land—Tabular statistics—Favourite breeds—Comparative absence of disease—British prohibition of import of animals on the hoof—Drought—Water supplies of Uruguay and Argentina—A windmill which was not erected—Fencing—Anglo-Saxon enterprise—The Argentine Rural Society; its herd and flock books—The agricultural and live stock show—Trees—The coming colonist and mixed farming—Tabular statistics—The meat trade: its history from the seventeenth to the present century—Market classification—Predominance of U.S. interests in cold storage industry—Influence of cold storage companies on fine breeding—Tabular statistics 249