The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-08-09

lion of millions OF acres OF ldHu III
this state. Mr.. Maxwell says:
There is a state with an area as
large as Illinois, Indiana n Ohio
combined. Those three states have
a population of 5000, 900 people, which
they sustain in comfort and plenty,
while Montana has a population OF
about 100000.
That one state of Montana contains
natural resources awaiting their devel-
opment by the hand of man, which
would provide within the next 10
years, if need be, opportunities for
10, 1000, 900 of our people to go there
and develop those great resources and
build their homes and create the indus
tries which would sustain them
Through all the years to come.
But there is this difference between
Montana and the three states with
which it has been compared.
Throughout those three states the
rich prairie lands were capable OF az
ricultural production in their natural
condition without irrigation. The in
going settler needed only to break
1.-THE sod and plant his crop and reap his
harvest. The individual could cope
with every problem necessary to build
a home for himself, and the creation
of the many homes which, in the end,
created communities and built cities
and made states, was the natural ag-
gregation Of the work of the many
individuals without the necessity for
aid from the government to overcome
difficulties which nature had put in the
pathway of man in his efforts to sub
ject to his needs the natural resources
of the country. %
In Montana it is different. The
natural are all there. And
they are even greater than in any OF
the prairie states. The mountains
of Montana n robed with magnificent
forests and filled with rich minerals.
IO1u anu SllfOl olu SopPSA OhN
and almost every commercial mineral
exist in enormous quantities. And
from the base of her mountain ranges
vast. plains stretch away and lie before
the. eye of the traveller as he watches
for mile after mile from the window
of a fast moving railroad train. Those
great plains-not only the level val
I legs along the river bottom, but the
high prairies and bench lands as well
> are rich in every element of product
> i've fertility, with the single exception
, of water. Nature sends the water, bu,
does not distribute it over the land a
! the right time to produce crops. Thu
rains fall upon the high mountains
the heavy SHOWS mantle them witt
thick robes of white, and fill the riv
ers when they melt in the spring, ant
unless these waters which now ru1
to waste in times of flood, a b
harnessed by the hand of man and le
. out upon the rich and fertile plain
. and used to irrigate them, those plain
u must forever remain to a very larg
u extent waste and desolate and III
y inhabited.
X If irrigated, however, they will SUI
g tain a teeming population.
1t is a conservative and reasonabl
10 estimate that in the state Of MOntan
u there are not less than 100000 acre
~ which could eventually be irrigated
&c the construction of national irrigatio
H. works. 1t can be done by pl
vate enterprise OF with private cal
tai. The task is too gigantic. TT
" legal and engineering problems a
too complicated. The amount of ca
ital required is too great. The tin
which must lapse between the origin
investment when construction begi
Is and the returns from the harvest {
ter the country has been settled,
too long a period. And above a.
beyond all this, the highest p~rosperi
&C. Of the settler, and of the irrigated co
MT, munities and of the state, can or
be accomplished through nation
lin construction and control of the wat
lal supplies in cooperation with the s
ust tiers themselves, so that the men W
80. will till the soil will suffer no ha
Via ship or extortion from water la
lords whose only interest lies in
II sorbing the largest possible share
a. the profits of the farmer.
Ike, The reclamation of 10000, 900 &C
lily, of land would cost an average of
lun- less than 500 an acre, increasing
rlct land became more valuable and 4
'ad, works necessary to reclaim it m,
yer, costly. OF course, the lands m
~