Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1908-03-13

oAVss0 AAASoH0ov 6uU WILL % COU UlUU0O
the next meeting. Tho League is
growing in members and enthusiasm
and cannot but work great good.
The Dukes in Montana.
February 9th, 1908.
My Dear Friends:--W While my part
ner is at Dayton and Somers on Flat.
head Lake looking up some fruit farms
we heard OF will write Of those things
which have most impressed US on our
western trip.
We spent Saturday and Sunday
driving on the outskirts of Billings.
There we saw many nice little farms Of
five, ten and twenty acre tracts used
for fruit, poultry, garden truck and
bee keeping.
There are great fields of sugar beets
and alfalfa. Cattle and sheep raising
is extensive. We saw the largest green
house we had ever seen full of growing
lettuce for the hotels of Billings.
The gardener told US that nearly all
the hot house flowers, vegetables and
poultry, were shipped into billings, as
the farms have not been irrigated long
and such enterprises are but In their
infancy about there; but that it is q
great field for making money.
The price of land close to the city is
rising rapidly, being $500 near Billings
and $50 per acre three or four miles
out.
We looked at an improved fruit farm
q mile out adjacent to city lots, with q
perpetual water right and an orchard
five years old. We could have secured
10 acres Of it at s4Oo per acre. We
could see that it would be q good in
vestment from q business standpoint,
as it would double in value in a year,
but as we we're looking for home and
not for great financial returns, we de-
cided to go where we could get one
cheaper and have little money left to
live on while waiting for the newer
country to develop. However, if any
one wishes to take advantage Of this
or any of the land about Billings and
Laural he can obtain information by
writing to my brother, Burloa G. Lillis,
civil engineer, Billings, Mont, al
though he is not a land agent.
Billings did not feel the business de-
preston last fall, for the gold from the
great sugar and beet industries had
begun to pour in as it does every fall.
The largest wool market in the world
is there, the largest sugar beet factory
in the U. s. and the first Y. M. c. A..
ever built in the state Of Montana was
built there; in short every thing is on
so large and generous scale that the
city should be called Billions instead
of Billings.
Business men we talked with in
Billings said that money invested
there doubled and often trebled it..
self in year or two. People buy a
farm on time and pay for it with the
first years crops. They believe in
using other peoples money there for
the outcome is SO sure and safe.
We passed through Butte and Mis-
soula at night. We stayed in Sand
Point, Idaho, a half day to visit dear
little school teacher we had heard of,
and took a sleigh ride on the first
snow we have seen this winter that was
deep enough.
Going east from Sand Point the
Great Northern runs along the beauti-
full Kootenai mountains and river,
enabling the traveller to look into
the clear blue depths of the river from
the car window.
Around Kalispell are good, small
farms and land is cheap, $50 per acre
and less.
It is a matter Of common opinion
that Kalispell will never make large
city as it is dependent for its indus
tries upon the timber lands which are
rapidly being cut away.
All eyes are turned toward the town
site of Poison at the foot of Flathead
Lake which has a glorious water
power and could make another
Chicago, but nothing will be doing
there till the reservation is opened.
A railroad will probably be built
from Missoula to Poison as soon as
that happens. Now the distance from
Missoula across the reservation is made
by stage or automobile, and from
Poison at the foot of the lake to Somers
at the head, a distance of 30 miles by
boat.
| When we have been here long enough
to give facts from personal observa-
tion we will tell Hot Springs people
more about .Flathead country in the
state of Montana.
Very truly,
j. LILLIs DUKE.