Montana

Before 1890 the comparatively little farming was subsidiary to the live stock industry. Farming was developed first in the Bitter Root and Gallatin valleys. By 188o it showed a tendency to creep eastward into the Judith basin and down the Yellowstone. Oats were the chief crop, the stage lines and military posts affording a home market for it. The construction of the Northern Pacific extended the area of rural settlement eastward along the Yellow stone as far as Glendive. Wheat could now be raised for ship ment. Farms increased from 1,519 in 188o to 5,603 in 1890 and to 13,370 in 1900, when there were 1,736,701 ac. of improved land. Over one-half of this acreage was irrigated, while in 1935 only 2.7% of the 47,511,868 ac. of improved land were irrigated. This shows the tremendous influx of dry-land homesteaders in recent decades. In 1900 little farming was done in eastern Montana except in the Yellowstone and Milk river valleys; but by 1910 the bench lands back of the river valleys were being settled, and between 1910 and 1920 every eastern county in the State, except Cascade, showed an increase in rural population of 50% or over. By 1935, 50.8% of the State's total area was devoted to farms.

From the beginning of Statehood (1889) Montana has had only two Republican governors, Richards (5893-97) and Dixon (192 I — 25) . In presidential elections the State has fluctuated between the

Democrats and Republicans (six times Republican and six times Democratic).

important State publications are t

he Biennial Reports of the superintendent of public instruction, the register of State lands, the State forester, the State board of health, and the State board of equalization ; the Annual Reports of the State treasurer and the agricultural experiment station ; the publications of the depart ments of agriculture, labour and industry ; the Bulletins of the agricultural experiment station ; the Montana Farm News; the Univer sity of Montana Bulletins (including the bureau of mines and metal lurgy series) ; and the Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana (1873-1923). H. F. Sanders, History of Montana (1913); K. H. Fogarty, The Story of Montana (1916) ; Tom Stout, Montana, Its Story and Biography (1921) ; and R. G. Rayner, Montana, the land and the people (193o) are the best general histories. See also H. M. Chittenden, History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West (1902) ; G. Stuart, Forty Years on the Frontier (1925) ; and C. D. Manning, Government in Montana (1928). (T. J. W.)