The Oskaloosa herald., 1911-10-19
is NOT ALL SUNSHINE
Mrs. Blackwood Gives Inside Facts
of Life in Montana.
Osborn, Montana, Oct. 6. 1911.


but have waited hoping to find tim,
to write a letter from Huntley Pro
ject, Montana. We are much amused
when we receive letters from oul
friends commiserating us for beinl
away out on the borderland and ask
ing when we expect to return to civ
ilization. 1t is true that the Oldest
inhabitant on the Project has been
here just four years, but it has set
tied so rapidly that there are but few
open claims remaining. If you will
stop to consider that the farms are
only forty acres, a house on every
farm, you will readily see that we are
in one of the most thickly populated
rural districts in the United States,
and the people are all from the East
most of them from Iowa and Illinois,
and have had educational and social
advantages, and we consider them a
very civilized class of people. Most
of them have come from the towns.
| In fact very few were ever farmers
One of our neighbors is a lawyer
who has an office at Huntley. His
wife is fine singer, a graduate of
the Baltimore Conservatory of Music
Another neighbor is a doctor from
northern Missouri. Professors and
teachers are numerous; in fact, near.
ly every trade and profession is rep.
resented. Many are here for theil
health. some for a change, and all &c
get rich.
Montana has had such rains this
year that the whole state will have
boom, and real estate men will rear
fortune, and | feel it my duty to
sound a note of warning. The eli
mate here is so erratic that no two
seasons are alike and the rains of
this year were never had before.
Where they get one good crop there
will be three or four failures in the
dry farming districts. If a man has
money enough to live through the
failure years he can usually make
it the one good year. Last fall there
were thirty vacant houses on The
Bench between Hutnley and Billings,
The implement companies had their
yards full of farm tools they had
foreclosed on. The Huntley Project
being irrigated always has a crop. but
il is not Poor Mans country either.
The gOvernemnt says man must
have at least 1000 to locate on an
irrigated farm unit. But if one will
do a little figuring they will see that
single man might be able to do it,
but man with family cannot. So
many have that amount laid up. and
it is alluring to read IAN irrigated
claim for 1925 a year" They forget
to do all the rest of the figuring. The
first thing is some kind of a shelter.
then fences, for the laws are for cat
tie rangers, not settlers. If stock
get on a mans place and are dam
aged he has to pay for it unless he
has q legal fence. Then he must
have a team, and a good team is
high priced. They must have feed
for a year. He must plan that every
thing he needs for at least a year
he must buy, and that at prices that
are but little short of robbery. If
he thinks to make something on gar
den products he will find he can
scarcely give it away at the small
towns and the market gardeners
around Billings have that town more
than supplied. One can never earn
living on these small tracts raising
grain. Beets is the only money max
ing crop with sure market, but the
sugar company will only contract for
a certain acreage and one may fail
to get a contract. Potatoes usually
do we'll. but one year hundreds of
bushels were dumped into the ma
not pay the freight to a market.
This year blight struck them and
J they are almost a failure. Then no
one should come to this place unless
| he is willing TO work harder than he
ever saw anyone work. lrrigating is
/ one cant build his ditch banks of
newly plowed soil and have them
stand water pressure 1t is far from
being play when one works a week or
TWO trying to make ditch to carry
water to certain piece then find he
had flooded the garden that didn't
need it or made lake of the chicken
lot and barn yard, and work like
! Trojan for several days and never
get the water to the place it was
wanted. The second year one can
have the bitches in a more settled
condition and his ground cultivated
The sage brush has to be plowed out,
then piled and burned, all of which
requires good backbone with plenty
OF strong muscles attached, but if
one has the grit and money to stick
TO it, he will see this Project one of
the richest parts of the country, for
the soil certainly will produce any
thing that will grow when there is
plenty of water. We had three acres
that was nearly free OF sage brush.
Not having time TO pillow it Mr.. b.
disked and leyeled II, then drilled in
oats, thinking 1t would make good
pasture. He irrigated IL once inten
tonally, but il seemed to attract the
water whenever he tried TO get II
any other place. Before the grain
| heads hauan IN dpann n raaobad ,nx