STOCK-POTSONmG PLANTS OF MONTANA. 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 

 STOCK INDUSTRY OF MONTANA. 



Montana is a typical grazing State. Long before it was so closely 

 connected by its two great railway systems, the Northern Pacific and 

 Great Northern, with the more settled regions to the east and west, 

 its wide open ranges were a favorite ground for hunting herbivor- 

 ous animals. Immense herds of elk, deer, and buffalo then roved over 

 its grassy plains and mountain sides. These animals have gradually 

 been almost wholly exterminated from the State, and now in their 

 place there are hundreds of thousands of horses, cattle, and sheep, 

 which are being bred or fattened by their owners for profit, advan- 

 tage being taken of the permitted free use of the large areas of public 

 domain which the State still contains. 



The enormous growth of the stock industry of the State ma}' be 

 illustrated from the comparative statistics for sheep, the data for 

 which have, perhaps, been most accurately secured in the different 

 States. According to the census of 1880, the States which held the 

 largest number of sheep Avere in their order, loAva, Illinois, Ohio, and 

 Missouri. The sheep were for the most part kept on farms. The 

 aggregate number on farms was about 35,000,000, the number rang- 

 ing on the public domain was approximately 7,000,000, and those 

 otherwise held numbered 3,000,000, making a total of over 45,000,000. 

 On July 1, 1900, the total aggregate number of sheep in the United 

 States was reported by the Division of Statistics of the Department of 

 Agriculture to be nearly 42,000,000. The States which then contained 

 the largest holdings were in the order of their numbers, New Mexico 

 and Montana, each with nearly 4,000,000 ; Wyoming and Ohio, each 

 with nearly 3,000,000 ; and, with holdings of over 2,000,000 each, 

 Idaho, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, and California. New Mexico, 

 although the leading State in the number of sheep possessed, ranked 

 only fourth with respect to money value. Montana, the second State, 

 with regard to numbers, ranked first as to value, the total holdings 

 amounting to a little over $11,000,000. The holdings in Ohio aggre- 

 gated about $10,500,000, and Now Mexico about $8,500,000. Oregon, 



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