THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



299 



and the Bitter Root Valley, and in this particular there 

 are excellent opportunities for people with a limited 

 amount of capital. 



While Montana boasts with a pardonable pride in 

 having the greatest mining camp in the world, her 

 wool industry is second to none in the Union. Accord- 

 ing to official government reports the year's clip is given 

 as 33,043,500 pounds. Next to Montana comes 

 Wyoming, with a total clip for the corresponding period 

 of 32,100,000 pounds, while Oregon is third with only 

 15,635,150 pounds. The number of sheep in Montana 

 at shearing time in 1904 was 5,255,000 as compared with 

 4,681,000 in 1903. The Montana clip the last year, 

 while not so large as in previous seasons, proved to be 

 more valuable than that of most any other State, and 

 brought prices 20 per cent higher than in Wyoming. 



most empires in themselves. Some of them are greater 

 in area and resources than entire States. The only 

 things in which they are not equally great are popula- 

 tion and development, and these are being rapidly pro- 

 vided by the great influx of capital, immigration and 

 irrigation. 



In 1905 the Spokane country produced 50,000,000 

 bushels of wheat a quantity sufficient to feed 10,000,- 

 000 people with bread and it has the resources to pro- 

 vide an equally great population with almost every other 

 need and comfort of life but aside from lumber and 

 wheat and fruits, which find outside as well as local 

 markets, the country as yet does not supply the re- 

 quirements of its 500,000 population; and in this con- 

 nection it may be noted that Japan, a country having 

 an area of only one-fifteenth greater than that of the 



Fruit Orchard Washington Under Irrigation. Great Northern Railway, 



According to the official report of Dr. E. A. Ram- 

 sey, chief inspector of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 

 Montana and the Dakotas are the largest sheep raising 

 regions in the Union. From Montana alone during the 

 last six months of last year 1,000,000 sheep were 

 shipped. In cattle shipments South Dakota was in the 

 lead, with 280,793 cattle, while Montana was next with 

 shipments making a total of 150,511. Montana cattle 

 are known the world over. Almost all during the year, 

 except in the most easterly portions of the State, where 

 the winters are severe, livestock may be permitted to 

 remain on the ranches most all of the winter. 



The Spokane country embraces an area of 15,000 

 square miles and includes all of the State of Washington 

 east of the Cascade mountains, the northeastern portion of 

 Oregon, northern Idaho and a portion of western Mon- 

 tana. So vast is its extent that it has become known 

 as the Inland Empire. Within this great territory are 

 other countries, with boundaries defined by no fixed 

 lines of demarkation, yet distinct in character, and al- 



Spokane country, and with less than one-tenth of its 

 land surface available for cultivation, supports nearly 

 50,000,000 people, or 100 times the present population 

 of the Inland Empire. Producing the finest dairy and 

 poultry products in the world, the entire output of the 

 Spokane country is less than sufficient to meet a scant 

 half of the local market requirements. This is due in 

 large part to the great percentage of the population that 

 is engaged in the lumber and mining interests, which 

 represent a yearly output of $25,000,000 in minerals 

 and 250,000,000 feet of lumber. 



Comparatively speaking, these industries are still 

 in their infancy, the mineral districts having been lit- 

 tle more than scratched, while more than 300,000,000,- 

 000 of feet of the best timber in the world await the 

 lumberman. 



Of the entire West it may be said that everywhere 

 prosperity reigns supreme. Bountiful crops are being 

 harvested and the future never gave greater promise of 

 better things. So prevalent is the general good feeling 



