HISTORICAL SKETCH OF AGRICULTURE IN MOINTANA 



Though agriculture had its beginning in Montana seventy-eight years ago, it is 

 only now slowly emerging from the formative period, fixing those types of farming best 

 adapted to the various parts of the state. The comparatively little farming in the state 

 prior to 1890 was subsidiary to the livestock industry. From that year to 1905 the ex- 

 pansion in the farm areas was chiefly on irrigated lands. Since 1905 the exi)ansion has 

 been on the non-irrigated lands. This has been a period of land acquisition rather than 

 of farm-making. The present broad and growing interest in mixed farming, in hogs, 

 dairy cattle, and cultivated crops, signalizes that the era of permanent agriculture has 

 come. Significant of the new order is the marked growth of the acreage successfully 

 devoted to corn. While wheat will probably continue to be the state's chief crop for some 

 time to come, the frontiers of the northern corn belt already have been extended to 

 include the eastern half of Montana. 



Live stock in several forms has from the beginning played a prominent part in 

 agriculture in Montana, and is covered more fully in a following section devoted to the 

 live stock industry. The half century of live stock production has spanned the ebb 

 and flow of the range cattle and sheep industry, and the commencement of the swell 

 toward even greater production as a result of increased numbers of stock on fenced 

 farms and ranges. 



Montana's Father De Smet, a Catholic missionary to the Indians, was Montana's 



Pj^^^ first husbandman. In 1845 he seeded a patch of ground to grains and 



vegetables at St. Mary's Mission in the Bitter Root Valley, near the 



us an man pj-gg^^^ town of Stevensville. A few farms were established in the 



same valley in the next two decades. The first considerable influx of people to Montana 



Territory was precipitated by the Alder Gulch gold discovery in 1863. A few turned 



to agriculture. 



In 1864 there were a few farms on the eastern slope of the Rockies, and a few 

 in the Bitter Root valley. The first homestead entry in Montana was made by David D. 

 Carpenter on an application to the Helena land office, filed August 1, 1868. Patent 

 was issued February 10, 1871 for 150.55 acres. Part of this tract is now embraced in the 

 grounds of the Lewis and Clark County hospital. 



The first official mention of farm and live stock wealth for the state, is found 

 in the first report of the territorial auditor, "up to December 4, 1865". In the counties 

 of Madison, Edgerton (now Lewis and Clark), Beaverhead, and Gallatin, a total of 

 82,706 acres were "claimed". 



Improvements were valued at $128,369. These four counties returned for assess- 

 ment purposes 4,325 head of oxen, 1,207 horses, 464 mules and asses, 1896 cows and 

 calves, 1769 sheep and 249 head of swine. No returns were received from the counties 

 of Jefferson, Deer Lodge, Missoula, Chouteau and Big Horn (later changed to Custer). 



Mining By 1870 there were 851 farms in the territory, according to the federal 



Stimulates census. They contained 139,537 acres of which 84,674 acres were re- 



. ported improved. Only one-tenth of one per cent of the state's total 



gricu ure ^^^^ ^^^^ devoted to agricultural purposes. This small fraction was 



divided among a few districts, most of them in close proximity to the mining camps. 



One was in the Bitter Root, another near Missoula, one near the Madison and another 



near the Beaverhead county mining camps. Farming had started in the Prickly Pear 



valley near Helena and on the Sun River near Fort Shaw. There were four farms in 



Chouteau county, near Fort Benton, and, according to the census returns, there was one 



lone farmer in Custer county which comprised at that time the eastern half of the 



