MONTANA AGRICULTURE 



MOTIVES FOR THIS BULLETIN 



The Bureau of Agricultural Economics serves as the principal agency of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture for collection, compilation and 

 dissemination of agricultural statistics. Througli its field offices a wide 

 variety of data relating to farm and ranch production, income and expenses 

 are gathered, assembled and distributed to the public. Information received 

 in each field office is summarized and processed into state reports which are 

 then transmitted to the Crop Reporting Board in Washington, D. C, for 

 review and use in preparing National Reports. Most of the information is 

 supplied voluntarily by farm and ranch operators and processors of farm 

 products through mail questionnaires. While the regular program of work 

 requires the assembly of data on a State basis, tabulations of figures appearing 

 on returned questionnaires are made by counties and crop reporting districts. 

 (See map inside front cover for outline of crop reporting districts.) Under a 

 co-operative agreement between the Montana Department of xVgriculture, 

 Labor and Industry, and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, with the 

 Montana Water Conservation Board and Montana State Chamber of Commerce 

 assisting, facilities have been made available to prepare statistics for Montana 

 counties contained in this bulletin. 



A large number of requests for county data received by the various local 

 State and Federal agencies concerned with Montana Agriculture, manifest 

 the need for such information. Such inquiries have come from farm oper- 

 ators within the State asking for detailed information for their areas to be 

 used as a basis for planning their cropping and marketing programs, and from 

 persons residing in other States who are contemplating a farming or ranching 

 career in ^Montana. Acreages irrigated and the amount of crops produced 

 under irrigation in each count}^ is needed as a basis for planning future irri- 

 gation projects. To arrange for economical and equitable distribution of cars 

 and movement of crops and livestock to market, railroads are in demand of 

 county statistics. All industries connected with agriculture — machinery 

 manufacturers, fertilizer manufacturers, seed houses, etc. — call for such 

 information to serve as guides for determining quantities to be manufactured,, 

 the location of manufacturing plants and methods of distributing their prod- 

 ucts. Bankers and P^inanciers base credit for production, storage and market- 

 ing of crops and insurance comp^uies base insurance and farm loans on thia 

 information. It serves as a guide to business men for expanding or contract- 

 ing their operations. State and Federal planning, development and action 

 agencies set up their programs from these statistics. Directly or indirectly,, 

 the agricultural industry affects the welfare of all inhabitants of the country^ 

 and while a few uses of agricultural data are mentioned here, the scope is 

 virtually unlimited. 



CONTENTS OF BULLETIN' 



Tliis bulletin presents, through a display of tables and charts, a historical 

 picture of Montana's agricultural production and income. It is comprised of 

 three general types of data outlined as follows : 



-Most of the county statistics for 1944 and 1945, and irrigated and non-irrigated 

 state statistics for the years 1929 to 1945 were prepared by Michael T. Solan, 

 John R. Russell, and P. J. Creer. Other employees in the office of the 

 Agricultural Statistician assisted with the copy work of data printed. 



