;6 MONTANA-1916 



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Spring Seeding in Montana — Forty Horses at Work on One Field. 



and the farmer, the day of free farm land in the United States will have passed. In 

 the first great rush toward the west, the fertile acres of Montana were given not 

 a thought. Its mines had given Montana its renown, but save for the rockribbed ore 

 deposits lying within its mountains and save for the grazing ground which it 

 afforded for cattle and sheep, the casual saw little for the future of the common- 

 wealth. 



But the new day came and with it came the awakening of a great state. It was 

 shown that the benchlands upon which grew the nutritious bunch grass could be 

 transformed into the greatest and most productive wheat farms in the world. Grad- 

 ually the skeptic was convinced; gradually the land hungry of eastern states turned 

 their eyes toward Montana, and the state awoke from its lethargy. Another trans- 

 continental railroad, in record-breaking time, stretched its line across Montana and 

 into the state began to come the advance guard of the farmers who were to change 

 its destiny and make it the "breadbasket of the world." 



They made good, and with less than one-eighth of the tillable lands of the 

 state now under the plow, Montana, among the states of the Union, now stands 

 twelfth in the production of wheat, seventeenth in the production of oats, thirteenth 

 in the production of barley, thirteenth in the production of potatoes, and third in 

 the production of flax. When the 35,000,000 acres of good farming land in this 

 state shall be under cultivation it is not unreasonable to suppose that this state will 

 take the lead in the production of practically all staple farm crops. 



Montana, the most prosperous and growing state in the Union, is the most highly 

 endowed of all of the commonwealths. Its hills and mountains are great storehouses 

 of mineral wealth, which modern industry is releasing at an ever increasing rate. 

 Its valleys and benchlands are fertile to a high degree and are being rapidly 

 converted into farms of great productivity. Its ranges give sustenance to immense 



