Page:Isaiah Bowman - Desert Trails of Atacama (1924).pdf/205

 Córdoba northward in spots and patches past Tucuman to Ledesma and well toward the Bermejo River and in time will probably extend in like belts and patches along the foot of the Andes all the way to Santa Cruz de la Sierra in castern Bolivia and even beyond. There is a similar belt in the se- cluded valleys of castern Peru at relatively low elevations where “playa” lands along the valley floors can be irrigated from the mountain streams.

The mountains of northwestern Argentina together with the high border valleys constitute a type of country totally different from that of the pampas border. In a narrow zone one may pass in a few days from warm valleys at 4000 feet to Andean ranges at 16,000 feet, through the belt of irrigation to the belt of woodland, the belt of grasses, and finally to bar- ren mountain slopes and rock slides. The distinctive products of the high valleys and mountain pastures include skins, wool, blankets, wood. These come down in long pack trains to the bordering towns at almost all seasons of the year. | saw them in June above Molinos on the trail down the Escoipe ravine (Fig. 59). They were loaded with skins chiefly and with habas, a vegetable which is about twice as large as a bean and shaped somewhat like it and which was selling in Salta at $1.80 per 10 kilos (22 Ibs.). It is shipped to Buenos Aires annually in large quantities. Goatskins formed part of the mule cargo. They brought $1.50 per kilo. From forty-five to eighty thou- sand and more kilos a year are shipped out of the single valley of Calchaqui. From the whole province of Salta it is estimated that 300,000 pesos in value of goatskins are exported. They constitute the item first in value in the whole province. Next come corn, potatoes, habas, and peas.

Many families once poor landowners with large but low- value estates in the mountain valleys of northwestern Argen- tina are now rich city dwellers. This is a phenomenon com- mon enough in the eastern agricultural provinces of Argentina, but it is of recent development in the mountain provinces and in some cases is due to quite different stimuli: the railroad, the