18Jt MONTANA 19U 



This would indicate, if it is true, that sooner, or later Montana will 

 have to have a railroad line within twelve or fifteen miles of every farm. 



The value of Iowa land is not in the soil. Acre for acre, the lands of 

 old Iowa will not compare in value when it comes to production with 

 the lands of Montana. The value which has been g-iven to the farms of 

 low'a has come from their beinsy made accessible to the m)arkets by the 

 construction of good wag:on roads and the building- of railroads. 



Iowa is a network of steel. There is a railroad through almost every 

 *ownship, until there are but two small spots on the map of the state 

 which are more than ten miles from a railroad or railroad station. The 

 average wagon haul in the state is under six miles. In Mis- 

 Where Dis- souri the average wagon haul is but nine miles. 

 tance Does Thus the ^Icntana farmer has to compete in the markets 



Not Lend of the world, not only with a farmer who can make two or 

 Enchant- three trips a day to the railroad with his grain, but after the 

 ment. grain is on the traiu it reaches a primary market at least five 



hundred miles nearer the point of production than the farm 

 in Montana. 



The Montana farmer then mu.'^t have lines of railway nearer his land, 

 and there must be enough more farmers to increase the production to a 

 point where very low rates can be made by the railroads to enable the 

 products of the farm to reach the primary markets and compete successfully 

 with the farmers of the more intensely developed sections which are nearer 

 these markets. 



If the people of Montana realized fully what the building of a railroad 

 tlirougii a given section means to the state in added wealth, they would 

 forget all other problems with which they have trifled in confusing num- 

 ber and variety, and bend eA-ery energy to railroad building. 



It would be a long story to trace the development which followed the 

 construction of the Northern Pacific railway across the siate. Thirty 

 years is too great an era to use as an illustration. When the Xortherri 

 When the Pacific came. Montana could not pay the cost of its operation 

 First Rail- 'icross the state, and for years the traffic in Minnesota and 

 roads Came "^^'^shington paid the expenses of the railroad in Montana. 

 t This "^^ ^^"^^^ °^ more recent construction is the line known as 



State Chicago-, Milwaukee & Puget Sound, of the great Chicago, Mil- 



waukee L^' St. Paul system. This line was completed across 

 the state in 1909. It stretched from one end of the state to another — 

 500 miles of steel. 



The first benefit derived by the state from the coustruction of such a 

 line of railroad, aside from obtaining "easy transportation for men ^ and 

 commodities," is the enormous increase in the taxable property valuations. 



An authority on the subject says $10,000.00 per mile is added to the 

 taxable value of the land along new railway lines. This is conservative. 

 The building of the ^Milwaukee & Puget Sound added rnore than $10,000.00 

 per mile to the taxable value of lands a'long its line before the first loco- 

 motive pushed across the Dakota line, drove the cattle and sheep back 



— Free homestead land can he found in etery county in Montana. 



