Yearly Average. 
From 1860 to 1869 (inclusive)   ...  15,044
"  1870  " 1879   "           ...  29,462
"  1880  " 1889   "           ...  84,586
"  1890  " 1899   "           ...  43,618
"  1900  " 1909   "           ... 100,998

Sixty-five per cent. of the immigrants are agricultural labourers, who soon find work in the country, and again add their quota to the increasing quantity and value of materials to be exported.  Facing this page is a diagram of the Immigration Returns from 1857 to 1909.

Nature has been lavish in her gifts to Argentina, and man has taken great advantage of these gifts.  My desire now is to show what has been done in the way of developing agriculture in this richly-endowed country during the last fifty years.  One name which should never be forgotten in Argentina is that of William Wheelwright, whose entrance into active life in Buenos Aires was not particularly dignified; in 1826 he was shipwrecked at the mouth of the River Plate, and struggled on barefooted, hatless and starving to the small town of Quilmes.

[Illustration:  Diagram of immigration returns.

Note:—­In the years 1888, 1889 & 1890 the Argentine government assisted
passages.]

Mr. Wheelwright was an earnest and far-seeing man, and his knowledge of railways in the United States helped him to realise their great possibilities in Argentina; but, strange to say, upon his return to his native land he could not impress any of those men who afterwards became such great “Railway Kings” in the U.S.A.  Failing to obtain capital for Argentine railway development in his own country, Wheelwright came to England, and interested Thomas Brassey, whose name was then a household word amongst railway pioneers.  These two men associated themselves with Messrs. Ogilvie & Wythes, forming themselves into the firm of Brassey, Ogilvie, Wythes & Wheelwright, whose first work was the building of a railway 17,480 kilometres long between Buenos Aires and Quilmes in 1863; afterwards they built the line from Rosario to Cordova, which is embodied to-day in the Central Argentine Railway.  Other railways were projected, and this policy of progress and extension of the steel road still holds good in Argentina.

The year 1857 saw the first railway built, from Buenos Ayres to Flores, 5,879 kilometres long; in 1870 there were 457 miles of railroad; in 1880 the railways had increased their mileage to 1,572; in 1890 Argentina possessed 5,895 miles of railway, and in 1900 there were 10,352 miles.

The rapid increase in railway mileage during the last nine years is as follows:—­

In 1901 there were 10,565 miles of railway. " 1902 " " 10,868 " " " " 1903 " " 11,500 " " " " 1904 " " 12,140 " " " " 1905 " " 12,370 " " " " 1906 " " 12,850 " " " " 1907 " " 13,829 " " " " 1908 " " 14,825 " " " " 1909 " " 15,937[A]” " "