The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-10-02

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and since 1891 has sent more than
100000 pounds of wool to eastern
centers. Agriculture has been max
ing it's way slowly, but it's progress
is now to be more rapid. Grazing is
not to be abandoned, wool is still to
be shipped in large quantities, but
irrigation is to develop the small farm.
Already about 10000 acres are under
irrigation, for agriculture, in the rich
ings. Next year it is said that $4,000
more acres are to be reclaimed. When
the time comes for the opening Of the
great Crow agency to settlement, many
thousands more of rich land will be
available for irrigation. The country
around Billings gives promise of sup
porting large population.
Advantage Over Others.
The Washington correspondents
were entertained in very handsome
manner half of last Sunday by the
business men of Billings, at the Com
mercial Club rooms. There was
drive about town and over some of the
beautiful farming country. Notwith-
standing the party had seen so much
of irrigated land since their entrance
into Colorado, more than two weeks
before, and were pretty well exhausted
as the result of strenuous trip
through the great mountain states,
they manifested real interest here.
To begin with, irrigation here has
none Of physical difficulties which add
so heavily to it's expense in the other
arid and semi-arid states. In this part
of the state, for example, and the
same conditions prevail elsewhere,
owing to the liberal water supplies,
the Yellowstone gives many times as
much water as can possibly be used,
even if all the available land were
put under cultivation. All that the
people have to do is to construct their
bitches and turn the water on. The
process is simpler and much less ex-
pensive than in Colorado, Titan, Idaho
or Wyoming, and irrigation here ought,
therefore, to offer peculiar attractions.
Fruit Surprised Them.
In the rooms of the Commercial
club were a few samples OF orchard
fruits, grown in Yellowstone county,
and exhibited at the county fair Min
nesotans may be interested in know
ing that cuttings from that state were
used in growing the first fruit in
! Yellowstone county. The names OF
apples are the names SO familiar to
Minnesotans, and among them the
Gideon appears conspicuously. For
years the Bitter Root valley thought
it was to grow the best fruit in Mon
tana, and it's people were not long
in building up steady market for
all they could produce. They have
now large export trade. Yellow
stone county went into the fruit busi-
ness as an experiment only few
years ago. The first harvest was
satisfactory. Year after year the
orchards were carefully attended to,
and now the county grows enough
| fruit to supply its home demand. Re
Gently it came into competition with
| the older and better-known Bitter
/ Root country in fruit exhibit at a
| local fair, and carried away the hon,
ors Since then Yellowstone county
i has been wondering if it would not
be a good thing to go into the fruit
business on larger scale. That she
will do so is the opinion of her lead
! ing citizens.
The finest of alfalfa is grown here
It is said that every crop that can be
! grown in Minnesota can be groWr
here, in greater richness and abund
ance. There are more days of sun
shine in the year here than in Mime
/ sofa, and that means a great deal
Given water by irrigation, crops in
the cloudless skies of the great west
/ are of character that the farmer
of the humid states cannot under
stand. This abundance of yield il
! perhaps one of the compensations o.
nature. 1t is constant stimulus tt
4 the irrigator, for he knows that once
he has his farm ready for seed, hi
will make more in actual cash from i
per year than he could from two o.
three times the acreage in any O.
the humid sections.
The fruit display in Billings equal
\ lod ANYTHING that the WASHINGTON