Bulnes presides over continued prosperity, as production…

Bulnes presides over continued prosperity, as production from the farms and mines increases, both for external and for internal consumption.

In response to foreign demand, especially for wheat during the California and Australia gold rushes, agricultural exports increase.

Instead of importing scarce and expensive modern capital and technology, landowners expand production.

They do this primarily by enlarging their estates and absorbing more peasants into their work forces, especially in the central provinces, where the vast majority of Chileans toil in agriculture.

This expansion fortifies the hacienda system and increases the numbers of people attached to it.

The growth of the great estates also increases the political power of the landed elites, who succeed in exercising a veto over agrarian reform for a century.