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THE TREASURE STATE 



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Montana Cattle Help Supply the Nation With Beef. 



scorn. And yet today, so changed is the Montana idea of its own agricultural possi- 

 bilities, that the well-informed citizen looks upon last year's record breaking crops 

 as merely an indication of what may be expected in the next few years when 

 Montana gets the people necessary to properly cultivate the 35,000,000 acres of fertile 

 agricultural land which lies within the borders of this great empire. 



Some half-dozen years ago it was begun to be realized that the great need of 

 Montana was people — active, energetic people who were not afraid of work but who, 

 with adequate reward assured, were willing to do their share in the development 

 of the magnificent resources of this great commonwealth. For such people, it was 

 realized, this state offered opportunities which are not to be found elsewhere. Re- 

 peated experiment and thorough trials had demonstrated that the benchlands of 

 this state were capable of producing enormous crops of grain and that, properly 

 farmed, Montana Avas destined to become one of the great cereal producing states 

 of the Union. The greater part of these fertile and highly productive bench- 

 lands were yet in the public domain and could be secured by the ambitious under 

 the liberal provisions of the homestead law. 



It w^as hard to make those who had always associated Montana climate with that 

 of the Arctic regions believe that, despite the popular impression to the contrary, the 

 climate of the greater part of this state was practically the same as that of Ohio, 

 Indiana and Illinois, although the reports of the weather bureau proved this to be 

 true. It w'as hard to make people believe that there were agricultural possibili- 

 ties in a state which their geographies had taught them was useful, aside from 

 its mineral production, only by reason of the fine grazing it afforded in the summer 

 time for great herds of cattle and sheep. 



But education, as always, won over popular ignorance and during the last six years 

 more than 29,000,000 acres of public and Indian lands have been entered by settlers in 



