cotton-seed meal which finds its way to the United States and Europe. It is as if Great Britain were to export all her coal and retain none for home consumption. Cotton-seed meal commands a price. "Well," argues the Mexican, "what more natural than to dispose of it?" Of course, logic of this description is unanswerable. If the haciendado cannot see that this cotton-seed may be transmuted into good sound beef which he can sell at, let us say, ten times the price, that is his affair.
The Federal Government has certainly little to reproach itself with, for in the hope of improving the breed it has imported the finest cattle procurable from England and the United States; and here it may be put on record that the Mexican farmer owes a great deal more, perhaps, to his Government than the farmer of any other country in the world. Bad as the Diaz régime was in many ways, this charge cannot be laid to its door that it was neglectful of the interests of the haciendado. If he is not now on the average a flourishing individual, it is decidedly no one's fault but his own. In the course of years it is almost certain that he will find himself replaced by the American cattle-raiser, and he will have himself to blame. Strangely enough, however, he has not neglected sheep and goats in the same way as he has neglected the larger cattle. The quality of these, however, is by no means of the first class. Disease is fearfully rife among them; but when one thinks of the ridiculous price of upkeep per head (say, 6d. per annum), something can be allowed for wastage. Such wastage could, in any case be checked by a little more vigilant supervision, which is too often lacking; and many animals are destroyed which could easily be saved by the introduction of proper conservative and sanitary methods. The wool yielded by native breeds is, for the most part, poor and scanty, but the introduction of merino rams has to some extent improved the native stock.
A smart Yankee once asked a Mexican haciendado, "How
