44 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



ceded strip comprises in round numbers 1,150,000 acres, 

 or about one-fifth of the entire reservation. It lies 

 within Yellowstone County and its western border is 

 only a few miles from Billings, the county seat. The 

 Burlington railway traverses it diagonally and offers 

 an outlet to the eastern and western markets. The land 

 is a rolling prairie, with' plenty of wooded sections and 

 numerous streams that insure water for irrigating pur- 

 poses. The largest of these, the Big Horn, gets its water 

 supply from the snow-capped mountains of Wyoming. 

 The soil is mostly a sandy loam and in some sections a 

 black alluvial deposit. No better soil for general farm- 

 ing and horticulture exists in the world. Wheat, oats, 





Threshing at Miller's Ranch, Three Miles South of Billings, Mont. 



barley and rye can, by reason of the large average yields 

 per acre, be produced at a less cost than in the rain 

 belts of the middle States. Wheat on sod land, without 

 fertilizers of any kind, produces from twenty-five to 

 fifty bushels to the acre. Oats yield from forty to one 

 hundred standard bushels ; barley, forty to sixty bushels ; 

 rye, twenty to twenty-five bushels an acre. In potatoes 

 the Yellowstone 'valley can rival the largest yield that 

 Colorado can produce under the most favorable condi- 

 tions. Any place in the valley will produce two hun- 

 dred bushels and several have made records a-bove five 

 hundred bushels. There is a ready market right in 

 Montana for potatoes at from 65 cents to a dollar a 

 hundred. 



The impending opening of the Crow reservation 

 and the rapid development of the Yellowstone and other 

 valleys in the eastern part of the State has attracted the 

 attention of capitalists and by the time the ceded 

 strip is thrown open there will be other avenues for 

 marketing the product of this rich agricultural region. 



Many homeseekers are taking time by the forelock 

 and getting on the ground early in order to "avoid the 

 rush" and to have the advantage of an actual acquaint- 

 ance with local conditions before the "strip" is opened. 

 Some are purchasing Yellowstone valley lands outside 

 the strip that are already under ditch, as lands are still 

 cheap and the difference in cost is not enough of an 

 object for those who command ready capital to make it 

 worth while to wait for the opening. 



To the farmer who is accustomed to cultivating an 

 "eighty" or a "quarter," and has had little experience 

 in what is known in the Northwest as intensified farm- 

 ing, where a few acres is made to do the work of ten 



times as much under other methods, the raising of al- 

 falfa offers the greatest inducements. Under ordinary 

 conditions, three crops can be raised each year, stock 

 can be turned in on the stubble after the third cutting, 

 and there is a ready market for the product among the 

 sheep men who buy it in the stack and winter their stock 

 on the ground. In the Yellowstone valley today there 

 is a larger acreage in alfalfa than all other crops com- 

 bined, -and as the price runs from $3.50 to $5.00 a ton 

 in the stack, and six tons is an average yield, and the 

 cost of cultivation is less than in any other crop, the 

 profits from this source are considerable. 



Although Uncle Sam is going into the irrigation 

 business on a bigger scale than anyone else, it remained 

 for private enterprise to point out the way and the 

 private individual or corporation still has the right to 

 take out water when he fulfills the legal requirements. 

 Private enterprise has already accomplished a great deal 

 for the reclamation of the Northwest, and that, too, 

 in the face of untold obstacles. The lower portion of 

 this valley, which is far prettier to the eye of the farmer 

 than its name would imply, is within the ceded strip, 

 and it is here that the government will construct its 

 first ditch, reclaiming thirty-five thousand acres that is 

 now covered with sage brush. There are only a few 

 thousand acres of this great valley that is under cultiva- 

 tion just now, but the crops on these have been enormous 

 and experiments have shown that it is adapted to gen- 

 eral farming and is particularly favored for fruit grow- 

 ing. Along the Yellowstone River for 350 miles are 

 dozens of ditches of lesser size, and land is still com- 

 paratively cheap. Nothing has been done to advertise 

 the country. Eastern Montana and northern Wyoming 

 are today the last of the old frontier. For years past 

 thousands of settlers bound for the coast have passed 

 through valleys more fertile than those at their jour- 

 ney's end. These valleys needed but the magic touch 

 of water to make them blossom as the rose. Within the 

 last few years, private capital has accomplished a great 

 deal, and now Uncle Sam, with 'his limitless wealth, 



Ranch of Louis La Fehldt, Five Miles North of Billings, Mont. 



will complete the work. The opening of the Crow res- 

 ervation will open the eyes of the East to the fact that 

 right here at their very doors lies a region of undevel- 

 oped resources that will in the course of time become the 

 stronghold of the nation. The towns that a few years 

 ago were frontier trading posts are beginning to live up 



