When the coach was ready with fresh horses, and The Wild Man had satisfied himself that nothing of value had escaped his observation, another move forward was made, and on arriving at the ground the smaller party found that the occupants of the first coach were already on the plough, having ousted the colonists for the time being.  This plough was working on rough virgin ground, turning over more land in one hour than two men and four horses can do in England in a whole day.  Each member of the party took their turn on the plough, and enjoyed the pleasure derived from turning over the untouched soil, and of feeling that they were helping to start the development of Nature’s truest source of wealth.  The engine was drawing twenty disc-ploughs, and could plough twenty-eight to thirty acres of land a day, week in and week out.

Until recent years land in the Argentine Republic has been ploughed in small areas by animal labour, the farmer or colonist often employing the members of his family to assist him, and thus saving expense.  Owing, however, to the immense harvests and the vast tracts of country awaiting development, it has become necessary to work on a much bigger scale, and to bring in the aid of machinery.  In some places the ordinary form of steam plough has presented many practical disadvantages.  They are heavy and unwieldy, and apt to sink in soft ground, from which they are extricated with difficulty.  This is likely to cause damage, or more serious accidents, through explosion.  Further, they require a constant train of water-carts and fuel wagons, and a staff of at least six persons to work them.  At the spot where this engine was working the latter objections were obviated, as both wood and water were plentiful.  In general, these difficulties are largely overcome by the adoption of the naphtha motor engine, which has been brought to a state of considerable perfection in Great Britain and the United States.  It can be employed not only for ploughing and threshing, but also for traction, excavation, and embankment work, etc.  An engine and plough will break up one hectarea of camp per hour, and some of these machines with two relays of workmen will break 108 hectareas per week.  In a month of only twenty-three working days they will break up a league of camp.

[Illustration:  Ploughing Virgin Camp.]

The price of naphtha is gradually decreasing in the Argentine Republic, and the oil wells of the country will probably make the cost of fuel even less by-and-by than it is to-day.

Areas of fertile camp, which have hitherto lain fallow, owing to their being intersected by canadas, and difficult to get at, can now be treated by the motor plough, with the result that their value will rapidly rise.  In an actual case near the Central Cordoba Railway, people are to-day offering $118 per hectarea for land which was bought two years ago for $25 per hectarea, but during the two years it has been thoroughly ploughed and drained by mechanical means.