The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-03-16
NOWHERE IS SPIRIT Of COOPERATION
BETTER SHOWN THAN IN THE VALLEY
Transformation of the Range Into Wel-Kept Farms De-
ve1ops Agriculture and Its Side Products-Stevensviu
Cooperative Creamery Does Much for the Farmer.

habit of purchasing through mail or
der houses.
While too much credit cannot be
given the dairy as the means of pro-
noting better conditions at Stevens
Vile, there are other important fac
tors which go to help make this town
lively as a trading point.
The extensive planting of orchard
tracts, there being now $1,000 acres
within a 12-mile radius and more
projected, has brought about a change
in the personnel of the rancher.
The influx of eastern buyers, nan
OF whom are successful business or
professional men with sons college
graduates, proficient in modern agri-
cultural methods, has injected an
energetic, wide-aWake element into
the valley, alive to the natural ad-
vantages of the country and every adj
vanced method of producing better
results has it's opponents.
Most Of the tracts purchased are
from 10 to 40 acres, and to insure
running expenses while the orchard is
coming into bearing, the raising of
berries, potatoes, celery, asparagus,
etc., is largely engaged in, but no
more profitable side line and none
that has more enthusiasts is noticed
than the raising of poultry.
S~tevensville has today one of the
largest and most enthusiastic poultry
associations in the state. Everyone
seems to hav gone daffy on poultry;
nowhere in Montana does poultry do
better or bring a higher price, and
nothing goes better with the orchard
than the raising of chickens, so
everyone raises them, and what is
most important, everyone specializes
on some particular strain of pure
bred stock.
One of the best Indications of the
future prosperity in the Bitter Root
valley is the imparting of pure
blooded stock of all sorts and the
earnest e~ndeavors to grade up all the
domestic stock.
The writer is informed hat seldom
a day passes when there is not I'M
loaded at the S~tevensville station
crates of pure-bred fowl, a blooded
boar, bull or stallion.
. 1t was a pleasure to view the string
of high-class horses hitched to mod
eFn, Well-kept TlSS OF an SoFlS III loWH
last Saturday afternoon.
The writer ounted at one time
over 200 teams tied to rails, posts and
fences in every available place, and
the absence of the Old cayuse was
particularly noted.
Special attention is given the grad
ing up of the dairy stock at Stevens
vile. A few years age the average
dairy cow came in fresh in spring and
was allowed to go dry during the
winter months. The average yield of
butter fats was from 1876 to $50
pounds per year: today, in order to
be considered as worth keeping they
must return at least $50 pounds per
year, and all efforts are being made
to have them come in fresh when
butter fats bring the best price.
1t is almost impossible to purchase
a good mich COW at S~tevensville to-
day-no one will part with them-but
there are lots of culls which are fast
being weeded out.
Last year the number of farmers
milking cows, patrons of the cream
cry, increased from $50 to 1926. and
this year the increase will be just as
great with each Individual mixer in
creasing his herd, but there is room
for more. The creamery could not
supply one-half the demand for Gold
Bar butter this past season., and no
effort vas made to push it.
1t is a matter of record that over
100000 worth of dairy products
were imported into Montana last year,
and yet we have one of the best coun-
tries in the world to encourage the in
dustry. Natural conditions could not
be better, and it is claimed that the
highest price paid for butter fats any
where in the United States was paid
the past two years in the Bitter Root
valley, and ~Stevensvile shows it.
Nowhere in Montana have the
this past few years.
1t is encouraging, therefore, to note
that at Missoula. Hamilton, Darby, st.
Ignatius. Roman, Poison, Dixon,
Plains, Camas, Ovando, Hall, Philips
burg, earnest efforts are being made
to establish creameries and the, dairy
industry.
If the Introduction Of the COW and
the SOW does as much for these COM
Bitter Root, the warm, life-giving
blood of prosperity will disseminate
through every valley in western Mon
tana, and no longer will the farmer
depend on the market price of hay or
wheat for his success or failure.
F. M. l.. ,