1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEP: CULTURE. 



535 



a market for produce, unless it is wool, wiiich ts 

 easily transported. 



There is also an impression that the West is 

 wild and woolly, and that children and delicately 

 nurtured women have no place there. Just the 

 reverse is true. In most of the States of the West, 

 educational facilities are superior to those of the 

 East, and good schools abound. By paying good 

 salaries they draw as with a magnet the best 

 teachers from the States further east. This pro- 

 cess has been going on for years, and still contin- 

 ues. Churches abound. Every little town has 

 its public library, and the latest ideas of the scien- 

 tific and literary world are discussed as soon as 

 presented. Under such conditions everybody is 

 an optimist, believing all things are possible. The 

 light, dry, invigorating air and genial sunshine 

 have much to do with this. Consumptively in- 

 clined people gain a new lease of life, and the 

 man with the "blues" is unknown. 



Nobody wants for work; and the more people 

 flock, the more work there is for all, and this con- 

 dition of aff^airs will continue for many years — 

 very probably a century or so. 



Scattered over Western Dakota and Montana 

 are fine tracts of land, either not settled at all, or 

 sparsely so. Though rich and fertile, some of 

 this land is still open to homestead entry. In many 

 other localities of the Northwest the Chicago, 

 Milwaukee &: St. Paul Railway is building a new 

 line which taps a new country all undevel- 

 oped. 



In Fergus Co., Montana, for example, the area 

 of land available for farming is over 3,000,000 

 acres, and at least 2,000,000 is fit for cultivated 

 crops. This is rich land; and yet the whole 

 country, having an area of 6762 square miles, has 

 only a handful of people, and those who are there 

 are largely interested in mining rather than agri- 

 culture, for it excels in the production of gold. 

 ■ It is safe to say 1,000,000 acres can be carved in- 

 to fine farms if homesteaders will only come along 

 and claim them. In the western and northwest- 

 ern sections of Fergus Co. the land lies in the 

 famous Judith Basin, which contains 2,000,000 

 acres or more of the finest kind of agricultural 

 land. It was only in the summer of 1907 that 

 one could reach this region by railroad, hence it 

 is no wonder it has not been settled. It is the 

 kind of land on which a good farmer may pro- 

 duce 40 bushels of wheat and 100 bushels of fat 

 oats. Will it answer for bees.^ Yes; very soon 

 the farmers will plant all kinds of clover, and the 

 wild pastures will become white-clover meadows. 

 Wild flowers are everywhere, and, what is very 

 important, there are excellent markets not far 

 away. Butte City, the greatest mining-camp in 

 the world, with 80,000 inhabitants, is not sa far 

 away, and pays higher prices for produce than 

 Chicago. 



The capital of Fergus Co. is Lewistown, with 

 3000 inhabitants. Here is located the United 

 States Land Office. It has all the leading churches, 



and also a fine public hospital. It has all the 

 'improvements" of a modern city, and quite, 

 possibly in a quarter of a century may contain 

 100,000 inhabitants, as it has a splendid country 

 all around. 



Extensive coal-fields lie near by, and mineral 

 deposits of all kinds are not far away. It will be 

 very strange indeed if these American men do not 

 create a great city there; and it will be a grand 

 city with beautiful homes. There is every thing 

 there to make it so. Nothing is now lacking but 

 the right kind of people. 



These States draw toward them the pick of the 

 brain and brawn of the American nation. Some- 

 how- the other kind does not find its way to the 

 Northwest, especially Montana. The sort of 

 people now there are home-builders of the intens- 

 est sort. There is plenty of hustle, but women 

 and children are splendidly protected, both by 

 law and chivalry. Fergus Co. has been instanc- 

 ed as an example; but there are sections just as 

 good — some of them not opened up yet to civili- 

 zation, because railways are too remote. 



The reason why we instance the Chicago, Mil- 

 waukee iit St. Paul R. R. is because the line is 

 absolutely new; in fact, several hundred miles of 

 track will be constructed or finished this coming 

 summer, and ere long it will reach the Pacific 

 Coast. This gives the homeseeker a grand op- 

 portunity to get in on the ground floor. There 

 is no need to go to Canada or Mexico when fine 

 lands on a well-known railroad are so easily se- 

 cured. If you are an American citizen you may 

 lay claim to 160 acres of excellent land, or you 

 may journey further westward and invest in irri- 

 gated fruit lands which will, in a few years, be 

 worth $1000 an acre if planted in apples, and the 

 same properly cultivated. The railroad man- 

 agers are anxious to get new people to settle near 

 their property, for unless towns and cities spring 

 up, their investment will prove a failure. They do 

 every thing to facilitate the movement of settlers, 

 and go to a great deal of trouble to furnish the de- 

 sired information. Nothing would do more harm 

 than for them to promulgate erroneous ideas of 

 the country, and usually this work is delegated 

 to men whose only interest in the work is the 

 salary they draw. This prevents exaggeration 

 and fanciful conceptions. While land is good 

 and the conditions good, this is essentially a 

 country for the hustler. It is no place for the 

 man looking for something easy. 



As a land of beauty it is unexcelled by any in 

 the world. Not far away is the famous Yellow- 

 stone Park, where people flock from all parts of 

 the world to view the scenery. And there is 

 plenty of more scenery of the same kind all through 

 the Northwest. It is the paradise of the sports- 

 man and angler, and the elysium of the natural- 

 ist and geologist. 



There are great forests for timber, and water- 

 falls for power. Taken all together it is a happy 

 land. 



