Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1883-07-26
FARMING IN MONTANA.

| The western emigrant who starts for Mon.
tana with view of farming should not sup,
pose that the country is like Dakota and Of
ters large areas of land of even fertility ready
for cultivation. Montana, with the excep.
ton OF the high. rolling, grassy plains in the
eastern portion of the Territory. is essen
TALLY mountain region. 1t is the back
heaved into countless ridges and ranges and
into SO many gigantic peaks that nobody
has found time to give them all names. Peo-
pie who get their idea of mountains from a
map and imagine that range consists of a
single line of ridge and SUBMITS will be SUR
prised to find that what is called the Main
Divide of the Rockies is about fifty miles
wide. and that spurs and lateral ranges fill
a belt of country more than two hundred
miles in breadth. Then there are detached
groeps and ranges that lie out on either side
OF the main body like the iRankers of an ar
my. The mountains are by no means value
less t" the settler, for their slopes are cover
edit with grass to an elevation of seven O"
eight thousand feet above the sea-level, and
timber grows in the ravines on their sides.
Agriculture, however, is necessarily confined
to the valleys which wind around among
the lofty ranges in long, narrow belts of fer
tile bottom-land. The farmer only seeks to
own strip of valley land, knowing that
the slopes Of the adjacent mountains
will afford free range tor his tlocks
and herds.
Not only is Montana farming limited to
the narrow valleys, but to such portions of
the valleys as can be irrigated. Crops are
raised in many localities without irrigation,
but this is in low land close to streams.
Generally speaking, on Montana farms the
scanty rainfall must be supplemented once
or twice daring the growing season by an
artificial watering of the fields. Thus far
the irrigating methods adopted have been
simple and cheap, each farmer providing a
ditch ter his own use. Usually the large
rivers are not drawn upon at all, but the |
little streams that come down from the
gorges are preferred. With the
exception of the Billings ditch, which is |
thirty miles long, no attempt has yet been
made to utilize large river to supply a
large number of farms. 1t is evident that |
any considerable extension of the present
agricultural industry of Montana must de-
pend upon the construction of main bitches
long stretches of valley. These,
as in Colorado, must be constructed by stock
receiving their profits from wa
.er rentals. In Montana, farming is ques-
lion not of land, but OF water. Only a small
percentage of the water available for irrigat-
ng purposes Is now used. Before there can
De any great increase of the farming popu-
alton, capital and engineering skill must
argely expand the present limited and
primitive system of local irrigation.
Is farming by irrigarion in Montana pleas
mt and profitable? the reader may ask
Yes; profitable because there is a home
market for all farm products at very remun-
'rative prices, and because large crops are
certain year after year; pleasant because the
climate is invigorating, the scenery magnifi-
ent, the swift, cold streams abound in fish,
md the mountains will always shelter game
o reward the hunters search. Lie is not