THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



113 



stores with eastern ideas are winning trade, new indus- 

 trial enterprises that a few years ago would have been 

 laughed down as the vagaries of a scheming promoter, 

 are gaining ready support. Everywhere is the spirit of 

 progress, and the homeseeker will come from the quiet 

 East into a country bristling with enterprise and eager 

 to get ahead. While the ceded strip is only a small part 



water at the time of entry and was of little value until 

 the first ditch was built. The land is easily worth $75 

 per acre now. Mr. Lamey says that a man may now 

 purchase land near Billings and, on the basis of 160- 

 acre holdings, can easily earn enough to pay from 

 $1,500 to $2,000 a year on purchase price or put it in 

 improvements or reinvest it in other land. On the as- 



stacking Hay on the Reservation. 



of the great reservation, the influx of settlers is bound 

 to have an effect on legislation, and the rest of the land 

 will not long be withheld from settlement." 



Speaking of Billings and vicinity, Mr. Daniel 

 Lamey, a pioneer of that section, says that no man who 

 wants work need go without it in Montana. 



Mr. Lamey has a ranch three and one-half miles 

 west of Billings. He is living on a quarter-section 



sumption that a quarter section of land with water right 

 costs $11,000, a man may, provided he can make a rea- 

 sonable payment down, clear off the whole cost in from 

 seven to nine years, and at the same time make a good, 

 comfortable living for himself and family. In other 

 words, a man is almost certain of being independent at 

 the end of from seven to ten years. Mr. Lamey reached 

 Billings the year before the Northern Pacific Railway 



Harvest in Western Montana. 



(homestead), which he filed on twenty-four years ago, 

 and has raised and properly educated a family of four 

 children. A hale and hearty man is Lamey, who has 

 : secured success by close application and hard work. 

 'The government land on which he located was without 



was built through that section. Today he is easily worth 

 $25,000. In the early days he rode a cayuse seven miles 

 to work, making a ride of fourteen miles every day. His 

 wages were $1.00 per day, so that it may be seen that 

 economy was necessary to secure a start. 



