Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-05-30

Map of South Dakota, showing location of Rosebud Indian reservation. reservation is purely a stock-raising country. The lands have been allotted to the Indians as grazing land and the number of allottments so far is 3,lS9, The attempt to raise crops has been made but has proved practically fail- ure and has for this reason been almost entirely abandoned. The soil is of an alkali nature, and the frequent and long droughts make it almost impossi- ble to bring any kind of crop to ma turity. A few Indians plant small gar- den patches in the damp ground adja- cent to the streams, but the only thing that proves profitable is stockraising,
 The Indians possess about 10000 head of cattle. They supply the gov ernment with quantity of fresh beef, in one year it amounting to 1885, ,000 pounds, valued at $44,000. In addition they ship an average of about 1000 head of cattle to the eastern markets each year. This brings in about $35,- 900 more, and the other sources of earnings of the Indians are from wood contracts about $3,000, hay $2.000 and freighting supplies more than $10,000.
 The reservation has been more or less troubled by the trespassing of stock of the ranchmen in the country adjacent to the reservation. Tn 1899 special effort was made to rid the Indians land of these depredating herds, and about 5000 head of live stock was driven out, but it is probable that since that year it has all, and more, drifted back.
 There is a general tendency among the Indians of the reservation to tu- berculosis, but aside from this their health is good. In view of the great extent of the reservation and the large population, the force of physicians is small. The deaths outnumber the births, in one year the former being 154 and the latter 124.
 The effort to educate the Indians is indicated by the number of schools on the reservation, there being 19 day schools and three boarding schools, one of which is maintained by the government and the other two being under control of missionary societies. The boarding schools report an average attendance of 184 at the government school, and 206 and 90 at the other two schools. The average attendance upon the day schools is 24, and 893 scholars have attended the schools thus far. All these schools are doing good work and greatly assisting in the prog ress of the people to civilization,
 Tn the presidents proclamation throwing open these lands for settle ment, the provision is made that the lands shall be entered under the gen. eral provisions of the homestead and townsite laws, and all the entries un- der the homestead law are to be made in person, except in the case of ex-sol- diers and ex-sailors, who may employ an agent. The entries under the home stead law will be permitted at the rate of 100 per day from the day of open ing, August 8. Persons desiring to es- tablish townsites on the reservation will be permitted to make application at any time before the opening, and their applications will be passed upon by the commissioner of the general land office It is hardly to be expect ed that there will be the rush for the lands of the Rosebud reservation as there has been when other reservations which were more valuable as agricul- tural lands have been opened for set clement, but that hundreds will avail themselves of the opportunity offered by the opening of this reservation to obtain free land is certain.