The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1920-04-16
FARMERS COMING
BACK TO MONTANA
HOMESTEADERS DRIVEN OUT
BY THE DROUGHT RETURN
BY THE THOUSAND
For Several Weeks Every Passenger
Train Coming Into Montana Has
Been Crowded With Them; Rail-
road Estimate Is That 50 Per Cent
Will Return to Homesteads.

The back-to-the-farm movement is
on in earnest in Montana.
Not the back-to-the-farm move
ment which for some years past was
lagitated in the larger cities as a
means to get the wage Garner, who
was merely eking out an existence
in the large centers, upon the land
where he could build UP an independ-
ent industry in the place of an almost
hopeless future, but movement
which means the return of the
drought sufferers of this great state
to the homesteads which in the past
two or three years had failed to pro-
duce their quotas of grain and live
stock.
For several weeks past every pas
senger train entering Montana from
the east, the west and the south, has
been bringing in men, women and
children who last fall were forced to
leave their homes and seek other
more productive localities.
Conductors Tell
They have not been coming back
in ones and twos but they have been
returning in scores. Passenger con-
ductors running in and out of Great
Falls on the Great Northern railway
tell of the large numbers they are
bringing in on their trains from all
sections of the country. Not only
are they coming back but they are
coming with money, perhaps not in
large sums, but probably with
enough to enable them to secure pro-
visions for themselves and families, |
feed for their stock and seed for their |
soil.
These men, and there were thous-
ands who went out of northern and
central Montana last fall, have been,
for the most part, working in some
of the other states, some in the ship
yards, some in the factories, some
at building construction and some
upon the farms. They have man
aged to support themselves and their
during the winter and with
the good wages they have obtained,
they are bringing some of their earn
ings with them.
How many of these farmers left
Montana last fall can only be con-
jectured, but it is certain that there
were thousands of them. Many went
away with the idea that they should
never return and many carried with
them what little stock, household
goods and farming implements they
possessed
Not only are these farmers coming !,
back but they are bringing back with !
hem the personal property which
hey hopelessly carried out of the :
state last fall. Nearly every freight s
rain coming into the state at the a
present time has in 1t one or more t
cars of immigrant movables and r
much of it consists of those movables /
which last fall moved in the other 2
direction. lv
These farmers, who had staked v
on the harvests of 1918 t
md 1919 and who lost, did not en- t
irely lose faith in Montana soil and a
Innate and they have been keeping
n touch with the conditions here q
Turing the winter. They have been r
.dvised as to the fall of moisture and t.
he condition of the soil, and, with Il
he close of the favorable winter as "
o the snow fall, they are satisfied Il
o take another chance and many are s
lready at work preparing the soil
or spring seeding. n
Where They Wintered b
The states of Washington, Oregon, b
daho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Mis- Il