868 " " "
" 1903 " " 11,500 " " "
" 1904 " " 12,140 " " "
" 1905 " " 12,370 " " "
" 1906 " " 12,850 " " "
" 1907 " " 13,829 " " "
" 1908 " " 14,825 " " "
" 1909 " " 15,937[A]" " "

12,000 of which are owned by English companies, representing a capital
investment of L170,000,000.

In other words, for the last forty years Argentina has built railways
at the rate of over a mile a day, and in 1907, 1908, and 1909 her
average rate per day was nearly three miles. This means that owing to
the extension of railways during this last year alone, over a million
more acres of land could have been given up to the plough if suitable
for the cultivation of corn.

When William Wheelwright first visited Argentina it was little more than
an unknown land, whose inhabitants had no ambition, and no desire to
acquire wealth--except at the expense of broken heads. There was a
standard of wealth, but it lay in the number of cattle owned; land was
of little value, save for feeding cattle, and therefore counted for
naught, but cattle could be boiled down for tallow; bones and hides were
also marketable commodities; the man, therefore, who possessed cattle
possessed wealth.

The opening out of the country by railways soon changed the aspect of
affairs. The man who possessed cattle was no longer considered the rich
man; it was he who owned leagues of land upon which wheat could be grown
who became the potentially rich man; he, by cutting up his land and
renting it to the immigrants, who were beginning to flock in in an
endless stream to the country, found that riches were being accumulated
for him without much exertion on his part. He took a risk inasmuch as he
received payment in kind only. Therefore, when the immigrants did well,
so did he, and as many thousands of immigrants have become rich, it
follows that the land proprietors have become immensely so. It was the
railways which created this possibility, and endowed the country by
rendering it practicable to grow corn where cattle only existed before,
but many Argentines to-day forget what they owe to the railway pioneers;
it is the railways, and the railways only, which render the splendid and
yearly increasing exports possible.

In 1858 cattle formed 25 per cent. of the total wealth of Argentina, but
in 1885 cattle only represented 18 per cent. of the total wealth,
r