The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1909-09-29
IT SURPRISES OLD.TIMERS.

The old-timer views with amazemen,
the marvellous progress that has beer
made within the pact two years in the
direction of state building in Mon
tana. He has seen vast sheep and
cattle ranges settled by farmers and
has witnessed the wonderful sights Of
fields of waving grain where before
had been found only the greasewood,
the sagebrush and the cactus.
It is not strange that the old .timer
has been b%ewildered by the remark.
able changes which have taken place
In the country which he regarded as
only fit for the raising Of sheep and
cattle, with possibly here and there q
river bottom or q narrow valley in
which forage could be raised for win.
ter feed. To the old-timer the limit
of progress was reached a decade ago,
and that settlers would still persist in
coming into the heart of the COW coun.
try to build for themselves homes,
was such a strange thing that the old
timer felt sure that something awful
was bound to happen to the venture.
some and misguided home. builders.
Something has happened to the set
tiers, They have come into the will
derness and they have alphabetically
made good. They have made the
desert to blossom as q huge garden,
and from the rich sagebrush and cac-
tus lands they have resped q great
store of golden grain.
The residents of Montana who are
not old-timers, seem to be as lacking
in perspective as were the old.timers
OF a generation ago. To them the
idea of one vast succession OF pro-
ductive farms stretching for miles
throughout eastern Montana and
northern Wyoming seems as wild as
did the idea of any farms at all, to the
pioneers.
The trouble with Montana is that it
is not able to look far enough into the
future: that it does not realize the
extent OF its almost infinite POSSIBLE.
tiles. 1t knows that it has done mar.
velous things in the way of develop.
ment ia the past, but it fails to see
that its have as yet hardly
been touched, and its period of growth
hardly begun.
Today when a man who has spent
wars in ohuaruot;o, - &bo ,.o-.L ~
the west, ventures to cay that hardly
an acre of that vast region within the
territory of eastern Montana an north.
ern Wyoming, but will be made to
contribute it's share to the wealth of
the nation, and that within the near
future every acre susceptible to cult
walton, will be subjected to the pillow,
the old-timer, and his friends of later
date. smile contemptuously and good
naturally term the booster a vision
airy who allows his imagination to
run away with his sense.
The railroads are much more far
sighted than is the average mar OF
NAOdeouo ouu NyOlAIuSs III Guc
northern part of the latter state alone,
one railroad, the Burlington, has
spent more money in betterments than
it could hope to get back in the com.
ing generation provided the old-timer
was right and the period of growth
has been reached. The railroad is
building for the good time that is com.
ing. 1t knows that the booster is
right, and it backs its knowledge in
the unanswerable way--by a liberal
expenditure of hard cash.
The growth of the northwest is be.
fore us and the great BODYBUILDING
movement is only at its beginning.
In five years, such will have been the
progress of development that the pess.
imists of today will appear as ridicu-
lous as today do the old.timers who
declared that Montana and Wyoming
were only good for the grazing Of
sheep and cattle. -Billings Gazette.