Judith Gap journal. [volume] (Judith Gap, Mont.) 1908-19??, 1910-01-21
Montana'S Great Resources
BY H. Hall, Commissioner Of the Bureau Of Agriculture
Labor, lndsstsy asd Psblleity, the Daketa Farmer

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to farms. In the southwestern cor
ner of the state railroad is being
built which will give access to the
Salmon river country Of Idaho and
surveys for extensions of the three
great transcontinental systems which
cross the state have been made in
several sections of western Montana
which are now remote from railroads.
In Park county, the Northern Pacific
has under construction 4 branch line
which will run north from the main
line near Livingston and afford trans
portation facilities to the fertile lands
Of the extensive Shields River valley.
A still more important branch which
is under construction is the Glendive-
Mandan CUTOFF. In northern Mon
tana the Great Northern railway is
building branch to penetrate the
country drained by the Big Muddy
river.
These railroads are all being built
into sections already partially devel-
oped but which will advance with
amazing strides when transportation
facilities shall have been provided.
The extent Of the movement of pop
ulation into Montana is shown by the
number of homeseekers who have
taken up farms under the homestead
act. Every one of the nine land Of
fees, at Miles City, Glasgow, Billings
Bozeman. Lewistown, Great Falls,
Helena, Missoula and Kalispell has
been busy place. The Glasgow,
Miles City, Lewistown and Great
Falls offices. situated in the eastern
part OF the state, have beaten all
their previous records in the amount
Of lands disposed of. So great has
been the rush to make entries that ut
least one of these offices has. for a
time. been so overwhelmed with the
number of entries made that even
with the aid Of extra clerks provided
by the General Land Once it's powers
hsse been taxed to the. ,tsnest &o.
keep the filings recorded up to date
on the township plats. On July 1,
1908, there We're 46.532. 40 acres of
unreserved and unappropriated public
land in Montana and on July /, 1900,
there were 42,9OO, ,229 acres. Montana
is the only state having large areas of
fertile land open for settlement. In
other states the desirable farm lands
have nearly all been taken, but here
are many millions Of acres of lands
that need only to be titled to be con-
verted into valuable farms which are
unOccupied.
Montana has over 81, 3,OOO,O acres
of land within it's boundaries. Per-
haps 4 third is mountain land of
which u, 600, 900 acres embraced with
in forest reservations. There are
some Indian reservations not yet
opened, military reservations, and
lands withdrawn from the operation
of the homestead law and the lands
in private ownership which reduce
the total to the figures given. Some
of the unOccupied land is mineral,
some timber, much fit only for graz
ing, but of the total 1t is estimated
that there are in the state, ls,OOO,OOO
acres Of good farm lands. Only a
small percentage of tins has passed
into private ownership.
The only reason why Montana does
not now rank among the first of the
states in the value of products of the
soil is because only small portion
of its fertile lands have been planted
to crops. In crop production and in
values of land it is in the infancy of
its development, where the Dakotas,
Kansas and Nebraska were twenty
years or more ago, where Iowa and
!, Illinois and the other rich and pOpu-
lOus states west of the Ohio were over
half century ago. What it is cap
able of producing may be estimated
from what the small quality of land
in cultivation has produced. For the
ten-year period ending in 1907 in the
average yield of wheat and in the
AOAA VA VuC NlOpC ICA OStC ASAou-
tana led the average Of the United
States about one hundred per cent, in
oats greater percentage; in barley,
rye, hay and potatoes, Montana's
superiority was likewise shown. In
spring wheat the average of Montana
in 1897 was PAP bushels per acre as
against 1878 for Minnesota and 5.5 for
Kansas. 1t surpassed North Dakota
in the yield and farm value per acre
of fiaxseed. What has been done on
lands which have been cropped can
be duplicated on millions of acres of
land Oh which the sod has not been
turned. This has not been demon
strated by the experiment farms
which have been established by the