THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Ill 



THE YELLOWSTONE VALLEY AND MONTANA, 

 AROUND BILLINGS. 



Montana is as large in area as Illinois, Indiana and 

 Ohio combined. Those three States sustain a population 

 of nine million people in comfort while Montana today 

 has less than 300,000. But there is a difference in Mon- 

 tana and these prairie States. The pioneer could cope 

 with natural conditions there; he needed no capital but 

 his energy; it required no outlay of money to insure 

 water for his fields, the rainfall took care of that. So 

 the country settled up without the capitalist. In Mon- 



to the eastern farmer. Naturally the query arises if 

 land in Iowa or Illinois that can produce only fifteen 

 or twenty bushels of wheat to the acre, or their usual 

 quota of corn, oats, barley, hay, etc., all of which must 

 be marketed at Chicago prices, is worth from $100 to 

 $125 an acre, what must this Yellowstone valley land be 

 worth that can produce double, treble, or four and even 

 five times as much to the acre, and all sold at local prices 

 far in excess of what the same products would command 

 in the East? And yet a farmer can get an eighty or 

 "quarter" jn the Yellowstone valley for far less money 

 and on easy terms. 



A Truck Garden. 



tana the resources are all there in greater profusion and 

 wealth than in any eastern State. Nature supplies an 

 abundance of water, but man must attend to the dis- 

 tribution of it himself. The capitalist has met this 



Concerning the water supply, there are 25 lakes of 

 notable size in Montana, 80 large rivers, and 362 smaller 

 streams. N State in the Union is better watered. The 

 map shows that it is to the western part of the State 



Irrigation Scenes in the West 1 he IMrst Cutting ot Hay on an Altalta Farm, Near Las Cruces, 

 New Mexico, Within the Rio Grande Project. 



demand, and everywhere in the State irrigation is being 

 developed to its highest degree. In the more favored 

 valleys, the results have so far exceeded the most san- 

 guine expectations that farmers have been amazed at the 

 results. A glance at the achievements in the Yellow- 

 stone valley, close to Billings, reveals startling figures 



that Montana owes its reputation as a mountainous 

 country. It is here that mining has been developed to 

 such a remarkable degree, and it is in the cities and 

 towns of western Montana that the great Yellowstone 

 valley will find its best market for produce of every 

 description. Eastern Montana is an open range country, 



