Irrigated Alfalfa in Prickly Pear Valley Near Helena. 



York City in 1911, when Montana wheat, oats, barley and alfalfa carried off the 

 sweepstakes prizes for the United States. This was followed a few months later 

 by the highest wheat and barley awards at the St. Paul Land Products Show, and 

 the following year Montana won the $5,000 prize for the best five bushels of wheat 

 exhibited at the St. Paul Land Show. Incidentally, this was the largest single prize 

 ever offered in a grain contest. The Dry Farming Congresses of both 1913 and 1914 

 acknowledged Montana's superior wheat, alfalfa and timothy; and at the National 

 Corn Show in Dallas, Texas, in 1914, this State carried off the world's championship 

 prizes in wheat, barley, oats, flax and timothy. To these splendid awards were added 

 new laurels in 1915 when the Panama-Pacific Exhibition at San Francisco honored 

 Montana with the highest competitive award in the division of agriculture, and by 

 the San Diego Exposition granting it the grand prize in cereals. 



Wheat Is Banner Crop. 



Wheat is the leading crop of the state. The acreage devoted to its production 

 has increased over 1,600,000 acres in eighteen years. In 1917 there were 1,727,000 

 acres given to wheat production and the crop was valued at $34,489,000. In 1918 

 there were over 2,000,000 acres. The statistics of the United States department of 

 agriculture gives the production in 1917 in Montana as 17,963,000 bushels which 

 shows a decrease from 1916. It is the judgment of a large number of the leading 

 elevator men and grain dealers throughout the state that the total production in 

 1917 amounted to 20,000,000 bushels. 



The following table shows the acreage, production and value of Montana's 

 wheat crop over a period of eighteen consecutive years: 



