The Great Falls leader. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1888-1900, 1889-02-10
OUR SERMON
THIS SUNDAY MORNING ON THE
UNITED INDUSTRIES
OF OUR AGRICULTURE AND STOCK
3, GROWING.

/
OF OUR AGRICULTURE AND STOCl
J. GROWING.
9 Their Combination Essential to Il,
Prosperity of Montana Farmers.
|. A laconic suggestion at the winding u
OF brief notice of the. meandering Q
1 Judge Race in the East and the proba
bility of considerable immi grafton to thi
g vicinity from portions of Ohio, may no
; have made that lasting impression upo
the minds of many that its value and ex
cellence would warrant.
The suggestion is couched in these un
pretentious words:
"Ihis country certainly possesses ex
traordinary advantages for the farmer
who will combine agriculture and stock
growing"
We take this Us text for our Sunday
morning discourse. 1t may not seen
exactly an orthodox quotation from the
Holy Book; but it is as true nevertheless
as anything inscribed within the lids OF
that most wondrous record. We quote
it as the substantial declaration Of one in.
spired as with prophetic vision upon the
future of Great Falls. Our text, there
fore, is not wholly without the pale OF
prophetic utterance. Nor have we ever
yet attained to that hight of theoloqic
obtusencss which declaims against the
utilizing of any and every fact In the uni
verse of truth, whether of Christian or
heather derivation, from which lesson
may be drawn to benefit or bless man
kind. ''''''
The idea, still SO tenaciously adhered
to by many of the theological schools,
that "dle Bible contains the whole re-,
vealed word of God" is an absurdity upon
its face and will soon become as obsolete
as the erudite vagaries of Buddhism.
Paganism or Mahometanism, It ia on a
plane with that other absurdity, SPRING
ing from the same dense ignorance. that
"God is being without body, parts or
passions, whose centre is everywhere and
whose circumference is nowhere!'-an
absurdity of such colossal character as
has served to stamp the incongruous, dis
jointed thing sailing under the name and
colors of Christianity as unworthy the
attention Of intelligent men. With the
same obtuseness, to substantiate their
abominable nonsense, they will turn to
the closing lines of st. Johns vision on
the isle of Patmos, where, to warn the
vandal hand of the interpolator and the
plagiarist against tampering with the
solemn descriptions and injunctions he
had been commanded to record. he con
cludes: Sand testify unto every man
that readeth this book, that if any man
shall add unto the things herein written,
@+ssA -ea.sAA-e'ad unto him tho plae.aes- that
are written in this book; and if any man
shall take away from the words Of the
book OF this prophecy, God shall take
etc. Nowwhat has this to do with any
other writing, or epistle, or book? Palp-
ably nothing. The injunction refers to
! the revelations of John alone aud could
not by any indirection apply to or refer
to any other writing or record in the
world. And yet this language is miscon-
strued into an cdict issued as from the
throne Of Jehovah that such were the
last words He would ever utter from the
Heavens for the warning or instruction
Of "a benighted world! The bare assertion
is worthy only of a troup of imbeciles or
a bowling band of madmen. We there
fore assume this morning to accept our
text, being self-evident truth, as worthy
of IL place with all other truth; for
Truth is eternal-truth Is divine:
Truth like the sun In splendor shall shine:
Truth is the armor-trlth is the shield;
Truth Is the WeapOn-errOr shall yield.
The truth we would plant in the minds
of our hearers this morning is that con-
veyed in the simple, unmistakablc Ian
guage Of our text:
This country certainly possesses extraordinary
advantages for the farmer who will combine agri-
culture and stockgr0wing.
1t will he unnecessary to remind any
OF our hearers acquainted with the early
history Of Montana that this grand coun-
try-this Goods country"-was at first
pronounced by its discoyerers as only
adapted to mining. As the mines were
developed, occasionally u tenderfoot
venturcd within the charmed circle with
horse or two with which he had packed
his way hither. Upon those hills teem-
ing with vcrdurc and nutritious blue
joint and other grasses his nags ''picked
up amazingly;" and finally he bethou ght
himself that it might not be a bad specula-
tion to go down to Old Kentuck and get q
mare or two and see what they would do
on the Montana hills The result was what
We have seen; as Robert Vaughn, one of
the pioneers of this section, says, Mon
tana has proved to he the best stock grow
ing region on the earth. Cattle and
sheep have thrivcd equally we'll, and on
our vast rolling ranges, and on the
thousand hills of this wonderful land are
fed today, without care or shelter, 25OOOO
horses, 100000 cattle and more than
2,500, 900 head of sheep. 1t is estimated
that the sheep industry alone, within
another year, will amount to an aggregate
of $1O,00O,00O.
Until recently the thought that Mon.
tana could ever become a grain n-producing
country was not seriously entertained.
From the present outlook Montana Is
marching on to an emperial position
among the grain growing centres of the
continent. But for the facts which have
atfirmativcly settled it beyond all contro-
versy, it would he subject of reasonable
doubt that the vast pampas and plateaus
that form the bulk of the land in Northern
Montana would mature grain without ir-
rigation. That such is the fact admits of
no further question. The yield as also
the quality of wheat, oats and barley are
beyond all expectation and beyond all
comparison No other part of the CONT
nent has produced such crops of wheat
and oats-the yield Of wheat ranging
from 30 to GO bushels per acre and wei gh-
ing G2 to 65 lbs. to the bushel Of No.
hard wheat; and that of oats being 20 to
100 bushels per acre and weighing 40 to
IS lbs. to the bushel. OF the vegetable
crops raised on the same bench lands the
yield is equally large and unprecedented.
Nnw with cuc|, a nountrv fnr what