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Montana Produces More Wool Than Any Other State. 



Montana, and during every year of this period Montana has led all the states of the 

 Union in providing new homes for homeseekers. Thus far there has been no slackening 

 of this great tide of immigration and there is no indication that there will be any 

 until the last of the public lands suitable for farming has been filed upon by some 

 energetic home-builder. Of the more than 100,000 homesteaders who have come to 

 Montana in the last six years the vast majority have come with the determination to 

 make good and are making good. During the last fiscal year almost 4,000,000 acres 

 of land — 3,994,418 to be exact — were patented to settlers, the largest area transferred 

 from the government to private persons in any year in the history of the state. When 

 it is considered that the land patented to Montana settlers last year could not all be 

 placed within the borders of the state of Connecticut and would occupy more than 

 half of the state of Maryland, one can begin to understand something of the size of 

 the empire which the newcomers into Montana are appropriating, and when it is 

 considered that each settler, in order to secure a patent to not to exceed 320 acres of 

 this vast domain, must first reside upon his "claim" for a period of three years and 

 cultivate at least one-eighth of it, something of the sturdy purpose of these home- 

 steaders and something of their faith in the agricultural future of Montana can be 

 appreciated. 



The higher quality of Montana's agricultural products is becoming generally recog- 

 nized. At every national exhibition held in the last five years the exhibits from 

 Montana's farms have been among the leading prize-winners, this great string of 

 victories having been crowned during the past year by Montana winning the grand 

 prize in agriculture at the Panama-California Exposition at San Diego, and the 

 grand prize in both cereals and apples at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, while at the 

 latter exposition more gold and silver medals were awarded to Montana farmers 

 than to those of any other state. 



