From Dr. A. R. Davila, proprietor of La Prensa, South America's largest newspaper, I received a letter of introduction to one of Mendoza's best known and wealthiest men, Dr. Juan Carlos SerÚ, a lawyer and country proprietor, who resides in a fine residence at 1055 Avenida San Martin. I went to see him to pay my respects and from him obtained some valuable information.

Up to the present time viticulture has been the staple industry of the Province of Mendoza, the landscape being covered with vineyards as far as the eye can see. This business has been on such an increase that it has now reached its climax for Mendoza wines have not been exported out of the country to any extent. With the opening up of Neuquen Territory, which is likewise adapted to the growing of grapes, the market will be more than flooded and there will not be much future in the business unless there should be a large export trade. Steps have already been taken to introduce Mendoza wines into Brazil which have so far met with success. Since the European war, the price of grapes has dropped and many of the small proprietors have been forced to the wall. The large ones and old established firms have managed to reap the profits. The value of the vineyards all depends on their proximity to a railroad or to the city of Mendoza. Dr. SerÚ owns seventy hectares of vineyard two stations distant from San Rafael, a wine producing district in the southern part of the province, which he values at three thousand pesos paper to the hectare; this would bring the value of a vineyard at the height of its production to approximately $512.40 an acre.

One of the largest bodegas (wineries) is that of Tomba y Sella in Godoy Cruz, a suburb of Mendoza. It was originally a private concern owned by Antonio Tomba. A scrap among the heirs caused a division and it is now a stock company with Domingo Tomba as president and the largest shareholder. The wine is kept in cement casks. The most famous bodega, although not one of the largest, is that named Trapiche, owned by the BenÉgas Brothers, situated about three miles southwest of Mendoza. It has agencies in Buenos Aires, Rosario, CÓrdoba, TucumÁn, Bahia Blanca, and in ParanÁ. One of the brothers lives in Buenos Aires where he conducts show rooms and a sales agency at 420 Calle Florida, while the others live in Mendoza, supervising the manufacturing end. I went to their bodega with Mr. SerÚ and was shown through the whole institution by the manager. The vineyard comprises 538 acres. The winery at the time of my visit was about filled and has the following capacity:

To this must be added 9000 barrels of 200 liters, total 1,800,000 liters, which brings the grand total to 4,860,000 liters capacity. These 9000 barrels mostly contain a brand of red wine named Reserva which sells for $51.24 a barrel. The wine sold in the bottle is 7/10 of a liter for it takes 280 bottles to fill the barrel. Perkeo of Heidelberg surely would have had a high old time if turned loose in the Trapiche wine cellars. Seven-tenths bottle of ordinary Reservada which retails in Mendoza at ninety-seven cents is selling now in Italy among the Mendocino Italians, who have returned home on account of the war, at $1.76. The BenÉgas Brothers manufacture seventeen brands of wine and two brands of unfermented grape beverage. The manager, who showed me around, must have thought I had a saintly countenance, for when I left the institution, instead of handing me some wine to sample, he poured out for me a tumbler of grape juice. I do not want the readers of this book to draw the conclusion from this that I left Mendoza without refreshing myself with some of the real article. The Tomba is the largest of all the bodegas, and there are many larger than the Trapiche; the Barra Quero being one of them.

Not only do the BenÉgas Brothers manufacture wine and grape juice, but they have lately installed a cold-storage system at their plant for the preservation of grapes which are sent to Buenos Aires and other parts of the country to be eaten in the Élite restaurants and in the homes of the wealthy. One kilogram (2? pounds) of table grapes from their vineyards retails in Buenos Aires from 56 cts. to $2.14 according to their quality.

Dr. SerÚ, seeing the results obtained from viticulture in this province was one of the first men to conceive the idea of growing fruit for canning as has been done in California. On his estate near San Rafael, he had some canned which he sent to Buenos Aires to compete with some articles from California. His product was found to be superior and to-day he has one of the best fruit fincas in the republic. Gath y Chaves, the great department firm which has branches in every large town in the republic have decided to accept, for their trade, no other brands than his. This is a big feather in his cap because Gath y Chaves is the largest firm of its kind in South America. Dr. SerÚ is now endeavoring to get North American capital interested in Mendocino lands for he is of the opinion that fruit will eventually supersede viticulture. Fruit lands average about $51.24 an acre; orchards of plums, apricots, peaches, and pears, six years old, will cost the purchaser $683.20 an acre. These figures are nearly exact regarding their present worth (1917), and if anybody who reads this book goes to Mendoza, not knowing conditions there, they should not be bluffed by other figures as these are nearly correct, they having been given to me by viticulturists and fruit growers of repute.

Mendoza has been hit rather hardly in the question of labor for three thousand Italians alone have emigrated from the province to return home on account of the European war. Business is now at its lowest ebb, but of all the provinces of the republic, it has undoubtedly the brightest future. It is going to be a great granary, and wheat is going to play an important part in its exports. Everything is grown by irrigation, and it has been found that grain grown this way there doesn't rot or soften as it does in other districts under similar conditions. Under ordinary conditions, the wheat yield in Mendoza is fifty-two bushels to the acre; that of the whole republic is only twenty-three. A man on an experimental farm grew ten acres that averaged seventy-six bushels to the acre; figures that I had hitherto thought impossible. There is no flour mill in the province; neither is there one in the neighboring province San Juan. Sr. Emilio Vogt, manager of the Molino del Rio de la Plata, the largest flour mill in Argentina, which has a capital of $14,945,000, tells me that a flour mill either in TucumÁn or in Mendoza would be a profitable investment. One with a daily capacity of 30 tons would cost 300,000 pesos ($138,100.00). It would need 200,000 pesos ($85,400.00) extra for working capital, bringing the total to 500,000 pesos ($223,500.00). He says he would guarantee a mill like this to make forty per cent. annually on the original investment. It would have all it could do to supply Mendoza city alone. Vogt says that in the flour business in Argentina, everything depends on the freight. The grain belt at the present time is midway between Buenos Aires and Mendoza. Wheat is shipped to Buenos Aires to be ground and the flour then shipped back over the same rails and beyond to Mendoza. This cuts a big hole in the profits. Since Mendoza is destined to be a great wheat country, the grain won't have to be shipped far to the mill if one is established there.

The city of Mendoza according to the census of 1916 had 59,117 human inhabitants. Its neighbor, Godoy Cruz had a population of 16,021. The canine population of both of these cities outnumbers that of the human in a proportion of at least three to one. Only two dogs out of this vast number are of any consequence and they are on exhibit in the zoÖlogical gardens. The other dogs are not worth the powder to blow them up.

With the exception of Buenos Aires, Mendoza is undoubtedly the finest city in Argentina and is the liveliest of the provincial capitals. It is a beautiful place with many broad avenues bordered by symmetrical rows of sycamore, plane, and linden trees. All the streets of the newer part of the town are well paved with rectangular cobble stones. Between the road and the sidewalk are ditches paved with round polished stones and spanned by bridges under which rivulets of muddy water flow. I have been told that in this respect, Mendoza bears a similarity to Guatemala. The sidewalks are paved with tile of various somber colors and designs. The residences are mostly one story in height built of a brownish brick or of adobe and stuccoed. The town presents an extremely verdant and refreshing appearance largely due to the murmuring of the running water that is everywhere.

The Plaza San Martin, the principal one, though to me not as charming as the Plaza Pringles in San Luis, is the finest in the republic. In its center is a large equestrian statue of the guerrero, San Martin, looking towards the Andes. From its center, eight walks, the tile paving of which cost the city forty thousand dollars, radiate, the four center ones containing little islands of flowers. The corners of this plaza which are sunk about two feet below the level of the street are round. In this neighborhood much of the activity of the city centers for here are the Grand Hotel, Hotel Bauer, the cathedral, the Spanish Bank of the River Plate; the Bank of the Province of Mendoza (a huge building in construction); the Bank of the Argentine Nation and the Municipal Theater. Nearby is the post office.

There is another plaza, that of Independencia, which is still in an embryo state. It contains four city squares and when finished is expected to be a masterpiece. Work of grading is now in progress but it is being done so slowly that I conjecture the year 1920 may not witness its completion. In the meantime horses graze on the tall grass and alfalfa that will be eventually dug up to be planted to trees and lawn. This is supposed to be the exact geographical center of New Mendoza and on it faces the capitol and governor's residence. Both these edifices are but one story in height; the former covering an entire block.

The city is divided into nearly equal parts by a broad avenue, that of San Martin, formerly the Alameda which runs north and south.

These two parts are called by the distinctive names of Mendoza which is the western section and Old Mendoza, the eastern one. Old Mendoza, which I think contains the greatest population is in the form of a trapezoid, while the new city is that of a square. The old city was the part that existed before the earthquake of 1861. It was nearly totally destroyed and has been rebuilt again. The best to do inhabitants instead of repairing their ruined homes, laid out plans for a new and better city with wide streets and spacious parks. It is this new part that to-day is the most important. Old Mendoza with its one-story, primitive adobe buildings, in some respects resembles San JosÉ de Costa Rica, although it is not nearly as fine and clean a city. Its streets are treeless and most of them are never paved. The poor element lives here. The old plaza with its dirt walks, which was formerly the center of the city, is a full mile from that of San Martin. The ancient crumbling unstuccoed adobe pile which was the pristine city hall is now an almshouse. There are no residences in Mendoza which can be termed palatial, that of my acquaintance, Dr. SerÚ being the best. It is a two-story structure on the wide and shadeless Avenida San Martin, hemmed in on both sides by shops. The residence of Domingo Tomba at Godoy Cruz is the finest house in the province, but it is in a poor location, on the busy and dusty plaza of that small city.

Regarding the earthquake in Mendoza, "Until 1861," writes Dr. Martin de Moussy, "the Province of Mendoza was not aware of the terrors of an earthquake. The violent shocks that had at different times agitated the Chilean provinces seemed to lose their intensity on going over the chain of the Andes. The inhabitants only knew slight tremblings of the earth previous to then. March 20, 1861, one of the most violent earthquakes ever recorded destroyed in a few seconds the city of Mendoza and buried one-half of its inhabitants under its ruins."

At 8:30 P.M. that night, the town was totally destroyed by one of the most violent earthquakes ever experienced. The sky was perfectly clear; the atmosphere quiet; the greater part of its inhabitants at home, although some of them were enjoying a walk in the Alameda and on the plaza. Suddenly a subterranean noise was heard, and at the same moment before there was time to escape, all the public buildings and private houses were falling in with a tremendous crash. The walls fell outward and all sides of the rooms and the roofs came down in the center so that the inhabitants, both those who were inside the houses and those who were on the streets were all buried beneath the dÉbris. The movement was first undulatory from northwest to southeast and afterwards seemed to come from below upwards. Its violence was so great that in the gardens many people fell down. In the Church of San Augustin, where mass was being held, only one person escaped alive. He was a drunken man asleep in the vestibule. The pillars fell in such a way that he was uninjured. Fire started by broken lamps and from kitchen braziers. The dÉbris of the earthquake clogged the canals and started a flood. Food ran short and the stench of the corpses which could not be taken from the ruins was awful. The fire raged ten days. When everything was normal again, it was estimated that at least ten thousand people perished. The Almanaque del Mensajero gives the total number of victims at fifteen thousand. The shocks were continued at frequent intervals until the end of May. There was a suggestion to rebuild the city on some granite hills known as Las Tortugas but old ties and affections pervaded so a new city was built directly west of the Alameda which is now the Avenida San Martin. The ruins of the churches of San Francisco and San Augustin should be visited.

The Parque Oeste (West Park) which its name indicates is in the western part of the city. It is built on a scarcely perceptible general slope, and to my idea out-rivals that of Palermo in Buenos Aires, it being more natural and rustic. It is not yet entirely completed, but that part of it which is, nearly attains a perfection. It is spacious and its broad avenues, cross lawns planted to trees indigenous to the country. There is a fine music pavilion and a zoÖlogical garden there.

Westward from this park and past the hospital in the course of construction, a broad road bordered by year-old Carolina poplar trees takes one to the mile distant Cerrito de la Gloria a 1300 foot hill which rises abruptly from the desert Pampa. Its eastern slope is planted to eucalyptus, various generi of cactus, pepperberry, and other trees and shrubs. Dependent on water which is forced through a conduit to the top of a hill, they have in the three years of their existence here attained a marvelous growth on what was formerly a barren waste. Serpentine automobile roads with no balustrades coil upwards around the hill. It would be no place for a joy ride. A driver in very sober senses drove off the road in broad daylight in August, 1915. The only occupant of the victoria beside himself was a young girl. They both saved their lives by jumping but both the horses rolled over into the ravine and were killed.

Monument to the Army of the Andes, Mendoza