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THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



IRRIGATION IN YELLOWSTONE VALLEY. 



What It Has Done for Billings, Mont. 



The Billings correspondent of a Wisconsin journal 

 has just furnished his paper with an interesting article 

 dealing with the irrigation question as it relates to the 

 Yellowstone valley. The article follows : 



It is only recently that the horseback farmer of east- 

 ern Montana has either been made to dismount or has 

 been driven so far back onto the ranges that he no 

 longer impedes agricultural progress. For many years 

 the only semblance to agricultural pursuit was sheep 

 raising and the growing of alfalfa on the bottom lands 

 to furnish winter food for the immense flocks. Then 

 democratic wisdom intervened in the nature of the Wil- 

 son bill, now a matter of mere memory, only recalled 

 as a lesson of comparative politics during campaigns, 

 and the Montana sheep men were relatively reduced from 



3-0 



w. 



Fig. I. Wheel on Farmers' and Gardeners' Ditch, Colorado. 



princes to paupers. All this had its influence upon the 

 past and future development of Billings, the metropolis 

 of eastern Montana. 



It is here that the conservatism and shrewdness of 

 the East meet the progressiveness and energy of the 

 West, and out of the amalgamation comes a city typical 

 of the vast country of which it is the business center. 

 Its metropolitan blocks, public buildings, commodious 

 homes and all other features constituting what is with- 

 out doubt one of the best towns in the Northwest disclose 

 the secret of the city's growth and stability. This rests 

 upon the fact that home money has made the town and 

 no tribute is paid to eastern capital, in rentals, interest 

 charges or dividends upon investments. Home men 

 own Billings and its industries, its ditches, its far- 

 stretching ranges and furnish the energy as well as the 

 money to identify its remarkable successes. 



METROPOLIS OF GREAT DISTRICT. 



The city is not only the metropolis of Eastern 

 Montana, but when the day comes to divide a territorial 

 extent now over seventy miles long into two states, Bill- 

 ings will be the capital of the new State. This division 

 may not come within the next ten years, but it is sure 

 to follow the settlement now going on. The claim is 

 made here that this is only a matter of time, and that 

 Montana will be divided into an argicultural state in the 

 eartern portion and a mining and manufacturing state, 

 taking in the mountains and timber sections of the cen- 

 tral and western part. The irrigation of vast areas now 

 projected will induce a settlement of the eastern half 

 and the population will be increased many times over 

 during the next five years. 



There is a method or system in city making. Towns 

 in the East and Middle West of five times the popula- 

 tion of Billings fail to make half as metropolitan a 

 showing. Here it seems as though the entire "outfit" got 

 together under the right sort of influences and the re- 

 sult is a surprise in the way of showing what men can 

 do when they set about it in true western style. Con- 

 scious of the fact that Billings was and is a business cen- 

 ter of importance, with home money sufficient for all 

 legitimate development, its citizens organized to pro- 

 mote its best interests by attracting the attention of 

 the outside world to its manifold business advantages. 

 This plan differs essentially from the one usually pur- 

 sued in city making, for many a good town, with ex- 

 cellent industrial advantages, has gone into the somno- 

 lence of a country cross-roads village because it waited 

 for outside capital to come in and develop water powers 

 or establish factories. Unmindful of the fact that there 

 was enough home capital to do the work, these towns are 

 still waiting. Billings makes no demand upon the out- 

 side world for its money, for it has enough money of its 

 own and to spare. It simply calls upon the more densely 

 settled sections of the country to contribute of their 

 surplus population so that Montana's productiveness 

 can be increased and its unoccupied lands placed under 

 cultivation. Billings wants farmers with money if they 

 can be secured, but the money part is not the all essen- 

 tial, for all here have such unbounded faith in the possi- 

 bilities of the Yellowstone valley that they believe and 

 know that any man willing to work and who is fairly 

 intelligent in farming will succeed. 



WAS STOCK COUNTRY ORIGINALLY. 



Originally this entire section was given over to the 

 stockmen; first the cattlemen and then the sheepmen, 

 with their herds of thousands, ranging over a territory 

 within this one county larger than the State of Mass- 

 achusetts. The cattle business on the ranges failed to 

 pay, and the stockmen then turned to sheep raising. 

 This was profitably engaged in until Mr. Wilson of West 

 Virginia, through democratic connivance and possible 

 ignorance of specific Montana conditions, tinkered with 



Fig. 5. Wheel at North Yakitna, Washington. 



the wool schedule. Neither scab nor foot rot, with gen- 

 eral infliction and insurable effect, could ever have 

 wrought more wholesale devastation with the sheep of 

 Montana's hillsides, but it brought with it a lesson of 

 incalculable value. It changed Eastern Montana meth- 

 ods as completely, almost as though strangers had taken 

 up the work of developing the agricultural resources 

 of the State. 



