[Footnote 40: _Cf. L’agriculture et l’élevage dans la République Argentine, d’après le recensement de la première quinzaine d’octobre 1888_, by F. Latzina, printed by P. Mouillot, Paris, 1889.]
In an introductory chapter the Director of this census says: “It is only eleven years since the products of Argentine agriculture have been greater than the country’s needs. For example, the quantities of wheat exported before 1878 were so small as to be negligible. Now we see that in eleven years we have reached a point at which we export 8,800,000 bushels of wheat (1887), 255,000 bushels of flour (1888), 14,470,000 bushels of maize (1887), and 3,248,000 bushels of linseed (1887). Those who will look into these figures will perhaps agree that they represent a great progress for so short a time.”
The area of agricultural land in cultivation, according to the census of 1888, amounted for the whole Republic to 5,984,790 acres, of which 2,014,000 acres, or about 33 per cent. were under wheat; 1,979,830 acres, or 33 per cent., under maize; 963,320 acres, or 16 per cent., under lucerne; 299,050 acres, or 5 per cent., under linseed; 71,420 acres, or 1·2 per cent., under barley; 97,660 acres, or .9 per cent., under vines; 52,020 acres, or ·8 per cent., under sugar-cane, and the rest under crops of no great importance.
This point of departure being established, let us pass over the follies of and the damage caused by the frantic speculations of 1888 and 1889, as well as the financial failures of 1890, and let us call a halt at the year 1895, in which the country, still under the effect of a terrible catastrophe only lately undergone, had recovered itself and resumed work with a fresh ardour: the only proper remedy to heal its wounds, and to set it once more on the paths of progress. This inventory of the progress realised by the Argentine during seven years of misfortune is all the more interesting in that the second national census was taken at this time, thus precisely marking the economic, democratic, and political progress of the country. We find that in 1895——limiting our inquiry to the four principal cultures——the progress realised during these seven years was as follows:——
Products. 1888 1895 Increase in Seven Years. Acres Cultivated. Acres Cultivated. Absolute. Per cent. Wheat 2,014,130 5,062,717 3,048,587 151 Linseed 299,050 946,690 647,640 219 Maize 1,979,910 3,073,130 1,093,220 55 Lucerne 963,300 1,729,000 766,700 79 ————————— —————————— ————————— ——— Totals 5,256,390 10,811,537 5,555,147 105