Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/858

838 call them—have an extreme fear of man; it is dangerous to approach them on foot. They are prone to abandon their calves, and give them insufficient food. On the other hand, the cattle in small herds, or manses, breed much better and more rapidly. In Parana, many estanciers have, besides the droves of bravo cattle, four or five hundred head of manse cattle, which are kept to be milked; the latter live in the same campo, equally free with the others, but nearer the buildings. Nothing can be more surprising than to observe the differences in the aspect and in the productiveness of the two classes, whose conditions differ only in their having a greater or less familiarity with man. Ultimately, when these regions shall have become more populous and divided into smaller estates, the manse cattle will predominate, and systematic breeding will take the place of the present free-range practice; but at present the fact must be recognized that the rearing on a grand scale of the half-wild stock is the only system that gives returns; this method is, however, I am assured, competent to produce a stock equal to some of the better-managed races of Europe. The natural physical conditions under the operation of which the production of cattle must be maintained and promoted in these regions, are liable to considerable variation, even within the limited territory which I have visited.

The operation of the differences as a whole is revealed in the variations in the annual sales in the several regions. In Parana the proportion of animals sold is excessively small, being only about one twentieth of the total number of cattle for each year, but it is regular; while it rises to from one tenth to one eighth in Rio Grande and Montevideo, and to a still higher figure farther south, but is very irregular, falling sometimes below that which rules in Parana. That even the larger proportion of sales is smaller than that which obtains in Europe, is easily explained by reference to the differences in the prevailing conditions; but why such differences should exist between two regions of South America where the same system of raising is practiced, is an interesting subject of inquiry. The animals grow quite slowly in Parana, and are hardly ready to send to market till they are four or six years old, and are well developed and shapely; in the southern districts they are as a whole smaller, but are more rapidly developed, and are sold when only three or four years, or even less than three years, old. Then, while in Europe, nearly every cow is expected to give a calf each year, in Rio Grande and Montevideo the number of calves is only eighty per cent., in Parana only fifty per cent, that of the cow. In Parana the calves are nearly always born at or near the same time of the year, between September and November, while in Rio Grande and Montevideo the time of calving varies with different years, and even in the same year on different estates, and the proportion of calves is likewise irregular. The estancias of Montevideo are liable to visitations by epidemics which often carry off