MAKING HOMES 



rush to the opening' of a comparatively small reserve, but the opening of 

 practically an entire state and a state of imperial proportions. 



Montana is the mecca of the land hungry, and this State gives encour- 

 aging answer to all who seriously would heed the economic call of back to 

 the soil. Accurate statistics arc impossible in a new land, and yet scattering- 

 figures, gathered here and there, are amazing in the story of 

 Montana Is wonderful growth which they illustrate. During the fiscal year 

 the Mecca. ending June 30, 1913, the General Land Office of the United 

 States reported that more than a third of all the public land 

 filed upon in the entire country was taken in Montana ; during this same 

 period, the amount of unappropriated and unreserved public land in Mon- 

 tana, available for homesteading, was reduced from 29.053,995 acres to 

 21,542,853 acres, a total reduction, practically all by homesteaders, of 

 7,511,142 acres oir 11,861 square miles, an area greater than that of the 

 entire states of Massachusetts and Delaware combined. 



The assessed valuation, of the .State, property being assessed at between 

 25 and 40 per cent of its actual value, likewise shoA\'^ the rapid growth of 

 this State, being as follows for the last five years: 1909, $280,401,064.00; 

 1910, $309,673,699.00; loii, $331,670,418.00; 1912, $346,550,585.00; 1913, 

 $382,807,277.00. 



The school census, taken every year, also gives indication of the rapid 

 increase in the State's population, the number of children of school age 

 (between 6 and 21 years) being reported as follows for the last five years : 

 1909, 81,545; 1910, 88,8oq; 191 1, 98,687; 1912, 104,774; 1913, 113,671. 



The growth of ]^Iontana during the last few years has been due to the 

 extension of agricultural and allied interests more than to any other cause. 

 Mining, lumbering and industrial enterprises of a similar nature have gone 

 forward in a satisfacto.ry, though comparatively conservative 

 The Reason way, while the advance along agricultural lines has been little 

 For It All. short of phenomenal. The extension of farming in this State 

 \aas been due solely to the repeated demonstration of the high 

 fertility of Montana soil and the miagnificent growing character of Montana's 

 climate, combined with the extremely low price of ^Montana farm lands. 



The Way they Harvest in Montana 



