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;