and the large landowners in years of low water. The resources of the rich enable them to weather the temporary difficulties which years of drought inevitably bring. By contrast, the poor landowner may be forced to sell his farm and stock at just the time when they bring least. To him the droughts may mean not only distress but ruin.
In earlier years, when there was a purely local market for farm products, the rains were not an unmixed blessing. The owners of hired troops of mules, the cattle importer, and the miner were all benefited, since their stock found free forage. But the landowner who made a business of renting pasture or selling hay found his income reduced, because the lower prices of wetter years more than offset the greater product. Since the prices of all merchandise were largely controlled, in the pre- railroad days (before 1851), by the rate of transport from the coast ports, and this in turn by the abundance of free pasture and the price of hay, the wet years always carried the advan- tage of cheaper goods, and this advantage was shared by all. Those who had forage to sell, therefore, gained most in years of moderate dryness, when there was neither free pasture nor abundance of water for irrigation.
At the present time the nitrate industry alters this condi- tion. Its steady demand upon the alfalfa meadows for the thousands of mules that are required for the caliche carts maintains the prices at a higher level, and most years of rain are now marked by a much higher level of prosperity for the landed proprietors. This in turn helps the poor laborer, the vagrant shepherd, and the small landowner who in former times was often pushed to the wall. Life has therefore become easier and safer; the former waste in years of rain and the dis- tress in years of drought have been displaced by organized commerce in response to the steady market at the nitrate works of the desert. But the people have not in any sense lessened their dependence upon the rains. In fact, they have greatly increased it. A new industry and the general organiza- tion of commerce in which the railroad plays a large part have merely turned their dependence into new channels.
In the wet years, imported cattle from Argentina winter in
