Evening star., 1915-06-20

Their territories comprise about 5.ooo,-
900 acres. or 1000 Para aguayan leagues,
and the cattle ranch they are esta dish
ing is to be one Of the largest IN the
world. AS I have said. they nave al
ready about 10000 head of stock on
them and / am told that this number
is rapidly increasing. The majority
of their cattle are cross between the
Indian Zebu and the South American
tran1uero, but good breeding stock Will
be imported and the ranching is to be
scientifically carried on. The company
is stNdying markets and Mr.. Richard has
been shipping some of his stock down
to Buenos Aires The animals are
Asuncion. and thence south by rail
through Paraguay proper and the prov.
ince of Entire Rios to the capital or
Argentina. MIR. Rickard estimates that
it costs something like $40 head In
freight, duties and loss of weight to
get the animals to the market. ana
nevertheless he says they can be sold
at profit.
to build railway from San Paulo
across country westward to Matto
Crosse, striking the northern edge of
the Chaco. When this is completed the
cattle of Matto Crosse and the north-
ern Chaco will have a haul of only
about 500 miles to the markets. This
is about as far from New York to
Cleveland and the freight cost would
be low. An American packing company
is now erecting its buildings at San
Paulo with the eXpecta ton that much
of its beeves will come from those re-
gions.
Among the other railroads proposed
to open up this territory IS the sys-
tenn that will go from Argentina
northward into eastern Bolivia and
eventually be extended on to the ANA
zon A number of lines have been
planned, and when under way they
will open up a vast empire of good coun-
try, a great part of which will be in
Bolivia. The Argentine Republic is maxi
ing a narrow gauge railway to cross its
part of the Gran Chaco, running from
the Parana river at Resistencia back
into the province of Salta. and it will
have other lines extending out from
this into the grasslands and forests,
The only railway now in operation in
the whole territory is a line built by
French capital which connects Resis-
tencia with the Argentine system. In
addition there are several hundred
miles of narrow gauge timber roads.
made by the Quebracho and other COM
panies to get out their lumber and
logs for tanning.
And this brings me to the forests of
the Chaco. They are of vast extent
not only in Argentina, but also in Par
Aires I had an interview with one of
the experts of our forestry department
who has gone to South America to
aid Argentina in the exploitation of
it's timber resources. This man S
name is H. NJ. Curran. who is now con-
nected with the forestry department of
Argentina. He had samples of many
of the woods of the Chaco, and is per-
haps the best posted of all men upon
the forests of this part of the world.
Said he:
THE area of the Argentine forests is
something like 250,000 square miles. 1t
is twice as large as that of Kentucky.
Virginia and Ohio combined. At least
one-fourth of 1t is solid timber and the
grea ter part Of it is covered with trees.
The woods are of many varieties, and
they are fit for every use under the sun.
Some of them are soft and some hard.
Some will take up moisture like a sponge
and others will not rot under water.
Some of the soft woods will float, but most
of the hard woods will sink like a stone.
The algarrobo, for instance, is like our
black walnut. 1t is very hard and is