20 MONTANA : INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES 



agencies are the state department of agriculture, the state agricultural college, 

 and the state land board. 



Marketing facilities and advantages in Montana are certain to enjoy rela- 

 tively rapid expansion owing to the advantageous availability of the state to 

 both eastern and western marl<ets. Competitive factors from 

 Marketing the great marlcets of the central states and from the increasing 



the Crop buying and manufacturing markets of the Pacific coast, meet in 



Montana, and the future result has immense economic signifi- 

 cance to farmers in this state. Co-operative marketing by farmers has been de- 

 veloping for years, chiefly among producers of grain, livestock, wool and cream. 



Wheat is Montana's chief export grain crop, and until the last few years 

 practically all that moved beyond the state boundary went to Minneapolis and 

 Duluth. The growth of western markets has been rapid, however, and they are 

 steadily absorbing a larger proportion of Montana's wheat crop. There are 700 

 grain elevators serving all farm districts in Montana, about ten per cent of which 

 are co-operatively owned and managed l)y farmers. The most important present 

 movement toward co-operative marketing of wheat is in the Montana Wheat Grow- 

 ers' Association, with over six thousand members, which handled through a 

 growers' pool o\er five million bushels of wheat of the 1922 crop. 



Jlarketing livestock from Montana has established well-grooved and efficient 

 channels. Operating co-operatively through a state department, cattle-growers 

 maintain inspectors at all the markets to which Montana ships for the purpose 

 of protecting the property rights of owners beyond the state borders. Co-operative 

 livestock shipping associations to accommodate the owner of small lots of stock 

 are developing all over Montana with signal success. 



There are 60 creameries, many of them co-operative, and well-organized cream 

 shipping facilities for marketing cream, and the pull for surplus butterfat from 

 both east and west reaches well into ^Montana and quickens market conditions 

 over a considerable part of the state. 



The market seeks the grower of Montana wool, but co-operative sale through 

 a growers' pool is rapidly approaching domination of the state's big clip. Of 

 the 1022 crop, three million pounds, or over 15 per cent of the total, were sold 

 through the pools of the Montana Woolgrowers' Association ; of the 1923 clip, 

 indications point to 45 per cent to be handled through the association pool. 



In addition to the developing western markets there are other economic and 

 marketing advantages offered by ^Montana that are certain to react favorably on 

 her agriculture. Low production costs because of high yields combined with low 

 laud values constitute the initial step toward successful marketing. Cheap 

 production is over half of marketing. There are special markets near at hand 

 now drawing supplies from points much farther away than Montana, as for 

 illustration, literally hundreds of thousands of fat hogs are shipped through the 

 state from Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota to supply the demand of the packers 

 of the Pacific northwest. The natural trend is toward the production of com- 

 modities of which marketing costs, including transportation, take the least possible 

 share out of final selling values. 



There are over twenty farmers' organizations of special or general character 



in Montana, and comers will find it easy to re-establish old connections in their 



new home. Thirty-fiA-e counties, or all but five or six of the 



Farm agricultural units of Montana, have county farm bureaus. 



Organizations which are federated into the Montana State Farm Bureau. The 



:Montana division of the Farmers' Educational & Co-Operative 



Union has active units in ten counties, and is strongly intrenched in six comities 



