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 roundabout it, presents one of the most attractive sights in the whole country (Fig. 33). The higher terraces are stony, and when the land is improved the stones are left upon the ground to prevent excessive washing. The alfalfa seed is sown and the land irrigated, stones and all, after plowing. Irrigation is said to have its best effect when the alfalfa is closely cropped, and horses and finally sheep are pastured upon the meadows to accomplish this end. The stones are then cleared away and made into stone or stone-and-earth fences. Each crop requires three soakings by irrigation, and a field once well seeded will last from fifteen to twenty years without resowing.

I visited a large ranch owned by Sir John Murray and R. W. Cummings. The manager, Mr. H. F. Wakefield, showed me about the ranch, which is called Hacienda de la Compania Agricola. It is fifty miles long and twenty-five miles broad in its widest part, narrowing to five miles. It is devoted exclu- sively to the growing of alfalfa and the fattening of live stock. The baled alfalfa is exported to the nitrate establishments of the desert farther north and in 1913 sold for 6 pesos per bale of 150 pounds. There are three crops of alfalfa a year, and the total production of the ranch is 50,000 bales. This is the maxi- mum production in a good season, and there were then 350 cuadras under cultivation. The main canal which feeds the ranch is 21 kilometers long and cost 400,000 pesos Chilenos to build. (The canal feeding a large ranch on the opposite side of the valley cost 700,000 pesos.) It is two meters broad at the intake and when full will carry water 40 centimeters deep. Water rights were obtained from the government in 1903, and the ranch is permitted to irrigate three days a week to the full capacity of the canal.

Part of the business of the ranch is the raising of cattle. These are imported from the Argentine or brought from farther south in Chile. The cost of pasturing the cattle on the ranch runs from 12 to 16 pesos per month per head. When the stock is fattened the owners then ship it to the nitrate oficinas or to the markets of the coast ports.

The people who live in Chile at the edge of the desert are necessarily-on the lookout for fresh material advantages.