REPORT OF THE GOVERNOR OF MONTANA. TERRITORY OF MONTANA, EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Helena, October 22, 1889. SIR: Complying with your request of July 19, I have the honor to submit the following concerning the progress and condition of Montana Territory during the past fiscal year, together with such suggestions as have commended themselves to my judgment: POPULATION. No census of the population of the Territory having been taken since 1880, it can only be estimated from such sources of information as are usually relied upon in such cases. The census of 1880 showed the population of the Territory to be 39,159. Since that year there has been a constant influx of immigration; and while the counties of Lewis and Clarke, Deer Lodge, and Missoula show the most pronounced increase, yet every portion of the Territory has perceptibly felt its influence. The total vote of the Territory for Delegate to Congress in November, 1888, was 40,014; basing an estimate of the total population upon this vote, and allowing one vote for every four inhabitants, would give us a total population of 160,056. To this should be added the Indian population of the Territory, which is estimated at 15,000, and also the immigration into the Territory for the year 1889, which is officially given by the railroad companies at 10,250, making a total of 185,306 on the 30th day of June, 1889. This, in my opinion, is a very conservative figure, and I am fully convinced that the census of 1890 will show a population of considerably more than 200,000 souls. TAXABLE PROPERTY. The rapid increase in population brings with it a proportionate increase in taxable property. With a tax levy of only 2 mills on the dollar for Territorial purposes, the Territory has been enabled to meet all its current expenses in cash and to maintain a surplus in the treas ury sufficient to meet all contingencies. The report of the Territorial treasurer at close of business on June 30, 1889, showed a cash balance in the treasury of $ 88,265.67, with not a dollar of outstanding warrants unpaid. The following is a statement of the total assessment of the Territory for the years named, and gives a clear illustration of the steady and substantial growth experienced since 1880: In connection with this statement it must be remembered that property is not taxed at over 60 per cent. of its value, and that our mines, which constitute the largest productive industry and represent millions of dollars of market value, only pay a tax on their net output and surface value at Government price, and the value of mills and other improvements erected thereon. Taking this into consideration, and placing other property at its true value, the total wealth of Montana to-day may safely be placed at the magnificent figure of $150,000,000, a showing that can not be equaled by the same number of people elsewhere on the face of the globe. As herein referred to the Territory has no indebtedness whatsoever. The aggregated indebtedness of her sixteen counties is $1,500,000, mostly incurred in the erection of court-houses and other buildings, and in constructing roads and bridges. Only one county in the Territory has ever made default in the payment of interest on its bonded debt, and that county is now numbered among the most prosperous in the Territory, amply able and promptly meeting all its liabilities, and its financial standing is as good as that of any county in the Territory. SETTLEMENT OF LANDS. The records of the several land offices in the Territory show the total number of acres of public lands settled upon in the past fiscal year to be 452,428.04 acres. This includes mineral lands, 5,169 acres, and coal lands, 12,889 acres, the balance being principally homestead, desert, and pre-emption entries. COMMERCE AND PROGRESS OF RAILROAD ENTERPRISES. No accurate statistics are obtainable showing total imports and exports for the past fiscal year. The official reports of the Union Pacific and the Northern Pacific Railroads for the year 1888 give the tonnage as follows for that year: These figures do not include the local business, such as the handling of ores, coal, lumber, merchandise, etc., which in number of tous far exceeds the through business to and from eastern points. The St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba and the Montana Central Railroads, running from St. Paul to Butte City, were not completed until late in the year 1888, and no report of the tonnage over those roads was made, but several thousand tons were by these roads transported into the Territory and a large number of cattle and horses carried out, which should be added to the tonnage given over the other roads, The tonnage via the Missouri River in 1888 amounted to 4,000 tons, consisting mainly of supplies for Government forts and Indian agencies; and the outgoing of wool, hides, and furs amounted to 2,000,000 pounds. There are now three transcontinental lines of railroads within the Territory, all apparently doing a large and profitable business. Besides these there are numerous short branches or feeders, reaching out to mining camps and agricultural valleys, all doing a large local business, and which add largely to the tonnage of the main lines. Following is a complete list of completed railroads in the Territory, up to December 31, 1888, with their mileage: There are also under construction and projected as follows: Missoula to Idaho boundary, by Northern Pacific Railroad. 110 Northern Pacific Railroad, branch to granite quarry near Helena 2 20.5 Harrison to Poney Total. 10 283.5 Roads surveyed but not yet commenced. Manitoba Extension, Great Falls to Missoula.. Oregon Railway and Navigation, in Montana, Idaho boundary to Missoula.. Miles. 125 115 200 65 115 60 80 110 870 It is the intention of the several companies to build the above-named lines next year. The routes have all been surveyed or thoroughly explored, and everything appears in readiness for active work all along the line. No statistics are to be had giving exact value of exports; yet, through the railroad and express companies, cattle and sheep organizations, mining companies' reports, and other equally reliable sources, it can be estimated very closely, and is given as follows as a very conservative estimate for the past twelve months: AGRICULTURE. The fame of Montana's mines and stock-ranges has thrown a shadow over its agricultural resources. To those unacquainted with the country the name "Montana" calls up an image of great mountain ranges, seamed with veins of precious metals and rough, broken stock-rauges, dotted with droves of cattle and flocks of sheep. But, while there is some truth in such an idea, it is by no means all the truth. Between these mountain ranges lie many great and small valleys, equaling in fertility the famous valley of the Nile, and a very large portion of what is now an almost unbroken stock-range consists of rolling table lands eminently adapted to grain-raising. It is a low estimate to say that two-fifths of the area of Montana is fitted for cultivation. This makes 36,000,000 acres. Of this vast area only about 4,000,000 acres are returned for taxation, inclusive of surveyed railroads, showing that eight-ninths of the cultivable area of Montana are still unoccupied lands. Montana is still so new that very accurate statistics are not obtainable; but I give a few figures from the best available sources. Area of Montana Area of cultivable lands (estimated) Lands on which crops were raised in 1888. Number of farms in 1888 On 26,155 acres were raised 770,200 bushels of wheat. Acres. 91, 000, 000 36, 000, 000 351,382 3,741, 459 4,882 These figures show that the agriculture of Montana is still in its infancy. Over one-half of the total amount of grain produced is raised in two valleys, those of the Gallatin and Bitter Root. Nineteen-twentieths of the total amount is raised in the western or mountainous third of the State. This is due to several reasons. The mines have afforded the best local market, and therefore those valleys lying contiguous to the mining regions are most thickly populated and have been settled longer than those counties lying east of the mountains. The mountain valleys are most easily irrigated. How far those 32,000,000 acres now vacant will be brought under cultivation depends almost altogether on the water question There are some sections of Montana where crops may be raised successfully without irrigation. This is especially the case with the fertile benchlands lying along the foot of the mountain ranges, where the snow lies deep in winter, and where sufficient moisture is stored away in the soil to mature magnificent crops of winter wheat, rye, and barley, even in such exceptionally dry seasons as the present one. In some of the northern valleys also the soil may be sufficiently moist to warrant cultivation without irrigation. But in spite of these exceptions the fact remains that over by far the greater portion of Montana the question of the amount of land which may be utilized for farming depends solely on the quantity of water available for irrigation. Montana is by far the best watered of any of the Rocky Mountain States and Territories. Clark's Fork of the Columbia drains that portion of it lying on the Pacific slope, and so abundant are the streams of that section that I believe there can be no question that there is sufficient water, when properly utilized, to water every foot of tillable land in that section. East of the Rocky Mountains the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, with their various tributaries, lie almost entirely within the boundaries of Montana from their sources in the high mountains to their junction on our eastern border. In our mountain valleys the fall of the streams is so great that it has been comparatively easy to utilize their waters for irrigation. No large canals were needed where the natural slope of the ground was from 25 to 100 feet per mile. Each farmer tapped the stream with his own ditch, and in that way nearly all of our present farms are cultivated. This, however, is an exceedingly wasteful system, and it has been carried about as far as it can be done by the individual farmer. Corporate enterprise is now beginning to take out large canals from some of the larger streams, selling the water to the farmer; but the main streams are hardly touched as yet, and yet the surveys, now being prosecuted, will show conclusively that the fall of both the Yellowstone and the Missouri is sufficiently great, and the elevation of the contiguous fertile table-lands sufficiently low to make every drop of water in those streams available for irrigation. I can not here go into details, and the report of the Senate Irrigation Committee will probably make it needless that i should do so; but I can not but emphasize the urgency of the adoption of a comprehensive scheme of irrigation of the now waste lands of Montana. A storage system as well as a system of large canals will be necessary. Almost all of our streams run, in their course through the mountains, through a series of lakes or old lake-basins, now drained, separated by narrow cañons, offering admirable natural sites for reservoirs and dams. By storing the flood-waters of the streams here an abundance of water would be had for the irrigation of all the upper valleys, and even though all of the water be taken from the stream-beds for this purpose, the seepage from the irrigated lands would soon again fill the river-beds for use over and over again in the lower valleys. But such works are altogether too great for private enterprise, and to carry them out control over the water supply, as well as control over the now unoccupied lands, is necessary. It will necessarily require cooperation between the General Government and the State, and as many of the private canal enterprises now being undertaken would conflict with a more comprehensive system, it is important that such a scheme should be mapped out as soon as possible and immediate steps taken to carry it into effect.. Although the problem of irrigation is a new one to the Anglo-Saxon race, and although the Montana farmer has had to teach himself the very a b c of this science by hard experience, the results are already magnificent. On well-irrigated farms crops of 40 to 60 bushels of wheat and 80 to 100 bushels of oats per acre are common, and where water was abundant even this exceptionally dry season has had no effect in diminishing the crops. When the traveler over the sun-scorched plains of western Dakota and the Lower Yellowstone during the past summer entered the Gallatin Valley and saw richer crops of grain and hay than any in Illinois and Kansas, and then realized that not one drop of rain had moistened those crops, he was taught by an object lesson the value of irrigation, as nothing else could teach it, and yet there are to-day many millions of acres in Montana only waiting for the fructifying applica tion of those great streams of water, which are now running to waste, to produce crops equal to those of any lands in the world. The land is there, the water is there. While they are kept separate, Montana can not feed her present population. Bring them together and you add another great grain-producing State to the Union. |