What the National Forests Mean to Montana 



13 



Mission, where the present town of Stevensville now stands. The 

 expansion of irrigation between 1860 and 1870 was simultaneous 

 with that of agriculture, some of the men disappointed in gold min- 

 ing turning to farming in the rich grass-covered valleys. 



Montana now has nearly 3,000,000 acres of irrigated land. The 

 irrigated area is being steadily enlarged by new projects, and by the 

 extension and improvement of many older ones. In many localities 

 cheap power makes it feasible to pump water to irrigate relatively 

 high lands, and this form of irrigation is already in successful oper- 

 ation in a number of places. (Fig. 10.) 



Fig. 9.- — An irrigation flume, Beaverhead National Forest. Near this point is the site 

 of the Big Hole Battle, fought between Nezperce Indians and soldiers in 1877 



Forested watersheds are important to irrigation as well as to 

 water-power projects. The timbered mountain slopes of the na- 

 tional forests, protected as they are from devastation, may be con- 

 sidered as great primary reservoirs. To conserve still further the 

 waters of the mountains, numerous lakes lying in the valleys have 

 been dammed. This form of development is encouraged by the 

 Forest Service policy of putting every resource of the forests to its 

 highest use. The orchards and fields of the famous Bitterroot 

 Valley are watered by streams rising wholly in the great areas of 

 national-forest land which encircle this region. The Sun River 

 reclamation project near Great Falls is entirely dependent for water 

 on the streams rising, in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Many 

 other cases might be cited, but irrigation is so generally dependent 



