j Purdue University!
UIBRAF-V.
LAKAYETTE, INOJ
VOL. LIX.
INDIANAPOLIS, OCTOBER 1, 1904.
NO 40.
Letter From Northern Montana.
Editor* Indiana Farmer:
At tliis point is situated the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, Major W. R.
Logan, agent. The government has provided the Gros Ventres and Assiniboine
Indians here located with a $40,000 irrigation canal, and in this case, at least,
irrigation seems to be solving the Indian
problem. Each adult has 40 acres of
watered land and the right in addition to
range his cattle and ponies over the reservation, comprising 570,000 acres and entirely fenced. The Indians own their
stock, pay for and put up their fences,
buy their tents, 'blankets, and im fact
every necessity the same as anybody
would, tlie agent simply acting as selling
agent, with goods furnished at government cost, plus freight. There are
some 1,300 Indians and instead of over
a- thousand of them being supported by
government rations, within the laist 2
years, all but about one hundred of the
old Indians have become self-supporting.
Major Logan tells me that the Indians
are better off and probably more contented and happier than they ever were
under  wild  conditions. The  men  are
natural herdsmen and fine riders. The
women tan cowhide as soft as buckskin
and make moccasins of it, decorating it
■with  bead work. They  also  tan .young
steer hides with the hair on, making handsome rugs. AVith the cold Montana
winters, the steer's coat becomes a thick,
fluffy fur. They also make warm mittens
with "the fur side inside," like Hiawatha's.
Instead of burying their dead, the
Indians place them upon high hills overlooking the valley. Where possible they
put the body in a box or case, otherwise
they simply tie it up in the dead man's
blanket along with his personal belonging's—knives, belts, etc.—and lay it on the
ground in these family cemeteries. I
passed five or six of these in a short drive
across   the   reservation. Some   of   the
blankets and coverings had rolled away
and skulls and bones were exposed,
bleaching white.
This reservation will ultimately be
opened to settlement. As the Indians become expert farmers, sufficient lands will
be allotted to them—their pick of the
reservation—enough for their farming and
stock grazing, and the balance will be
thrown open.
A number of squaw-men are found on
the reservation—white men who have married Indians, and thus are allowed to live
on the reservation through their wives'
rights.
These Gros Ventres and Assiniboine
Indians are honest, said the reservation
doctor. C. Ij. Woods, to me. They will
steal absolutely nothing, unless it he a
picket rope, nnd this is a failing of all
Indians. There is no more use trying
to keep an Indian from taking a picket
rope than there is trying to make a darkey
keep his hands off a watermelon. They
are pretty good workers, too.
I asked one young Indian, whose bronco
was dancing around with him, as though
there was a burr under tlie saddle, if
there were deer the mountains. "Oh,
yes," he answered, in good English; "but
I am too busy to go and hunt them."
The trials of the beef consumer of the
east are not found in this stock country.
Little country hotels, corresponding to the
Eastern inn, where the enterprising cook
can; be heard half an hour before meals
rigorously pounding the steak, furnish por
terhouses and tenderloins whieh melt in
your mouth, tender and juicy—a dream ot
luxury and plutocracy.
I was invited to a cattle round .up by ti
man who is the head of a big live stock
company. He has just leased 275,000
acresfromtheCanadiangovernment at one
and a quarter cents an acre annually. This
is not so ridiculously cheap as it seems,
when it is learned that it takes 40 acres
to support a steer. The intention of the
company is to winter feed the tender yearlings, and let the herd run loose and shift
for itself during the year; in this northern
climate the most cruel and inhuman practice imaginable. The Montana and Canadian stockman who carries his 10 and 20
thousand herd without providing winter
_helter  and   feed,   in   this   rigorous   and
tion his name. After Mr. French had
loaded his stock, amply provided with feed
to carry Ihem through, the unknown was
prevniled upon to take out some of his
stock. The ear was therefore willingly
pushed back by the neighbors, though it
was near midnight, and after much trouble
six horses were gotten out, though even
this did not give the remaining animals
sufIcieiit rijom to warrant them, comfortable transportation; nevertheless it probably prevented the crushing and smothering of several colts and the breaking of
the legs of as many horses.
But such crowding of stock should not
be permitted. The cry of panic-stricken
horses,  jammed  against one another and
WEBSTER   LAKE,   NORTII  WEBSTER,  IND.
snow3' climate, is a brute. He figures
himself most lucky if he gets off with 10
or 15 per cent loss from starvation and
freezing. Cattle   cannot   paw,   and   in
case of heavy snow and blizzards, witli
the mercury 80 to 40 below zero (as it
goes every year) they gradually starve and
then freeze to death. Even those which
pull through and live suffer terribly—the
most wholesale and wanton cruelty in the
United States. Pastoral life in Montana,
Wyoming, and other cold states, as praj_-
ticed by the big stockmen who are too
unthrifty to irrigate some land and raise
hay for winter feed, is an avocation to
dam a man's soul for eternity. May the
day come speedily when this class of stock
growiug shall be driven out by the small
farmer who runs his animals on the open
range in the warm weather, the while irrigating his alfalfa fields to supply a nutritious and profitable winter feed.
I have suspended writing to go out and
help load a couple of cars of horses. The
government regulates the shipment of live
stock by water, providing for its comfort
and against overcrowding; it should likewise over-see the shipment of live stock
by railroads. I assisted in the loading
of two carloads of horses, mares and
colts. The  first   load  consisted  of  40
animals crowded into a 30 foot car. The
animals were pushed and beaten in to
the limited space until a number of the
colts and weaker horses were down and
all were packed in like sardines. The
next car, 40 feet was loaded with only 2D
animals. Quite   a   difference. The
shipper was Mr.. French, trader at the
Fort Belknap Indian Agency. The
othermanwas apparently ashamed to men-
being trodden down by the stronger ones
is a terrifying sound which carries an almost human appeal.    Guy E. Mitchell.
Oregon.—From a Woman'.. Standpoint.
Kditors Indiana Faraer:
You want to know the thoughts of a
woman about Oregon,—just an every day
woman, with every day experience. After
25 years' home here I will try and tell
you.
You are not the first person who wants
to know. Nineteen out of 20 of the
home-seekers here want to know that
very thing, on behalf of their wives or
sweethearts. Y'ou may depend that the
twentieth is not worth much as a husband
or a lover, or he would want to know too.
I am not saying too much when I tell
you that women have helped to make our
Oregon of to-day, just as much as the men
have.
Many would have gone back on Oregon,
like a man I heard of yesterday. He
threw up the first payment he had on a
small farm, because he did not feel sure
how his "woman." who was still back
East, would like it!
From Sacajawea down, (tlie Indian girl,
who guided Lewis and Clark a hundred
years ago,) it has been always the woman, who has helped the man.
A friend of our's—an old original pioneer, when 000 acres could be taken,—relates, how Mrs.- J would harness herself to
the old mare for plowing, and how the
daughter, when" old enough, would drive
the reaper!
The more trades a woman knew in those
days, the better she got on. I went
as far as shoe mending, and a little car
pentering,   and   mighty   proud   I   was  of
my a <.c .mplishments.
Tl ere are stretches of the country now
awaiting the new comer, in the Lake
district, S. E. Oregon, where there are
as.yet no railroad facilities, and the land
is all given over to huge ranches for
graded sheep and stock. So if you take
a fancy to go there, learn to do all yoa
can!
I know they say in the East, "What! are
you going to Oregon? Away off to
Oregon?"
California, farther yet, is nothing of a
journey! But California boomed herself
over her gold in the "forties, and fifties:"
and where won't people run for gold?
Let me tell you right here, that Oregon
has a pretty fair output of gold herself,
i.0,000,000 a year, and the industry is but
fringe. Three days and four nights
bring you here to our beautiful Queen
City of Portland, from Chicago. As yon
steam alongside of tne far famed Columbia, the conductor of the O. R. and N.
train acts the showman in every car, calling your attention to the most romantic
spots. To me the most bewitching of
all is where the old Tomamawas, "the
bridge of the gods" stood, when the world
was young, when as a punishment for too
much lighting, it fell beneath the water..,
making the whirlpools, eddies, and waterfalls, near The Dalles.
I have seen a great many of the most
beautiful cities of Europe, but Portland
l>eats tliem all for its beautiful setting.
Its four snow mountain cones, looking
down like angels on its north and east; the
shadowy foot hills at the base of Mount
Hood; the two majestic rivers, one it
which only reaches the ocean; the
"heights," against which the city stretches
'tself up, half lost in the haze, of an early
morning; (the green hills and the bln(e
hills outviewing each other in beauty;
all this and much mire will make Portland, (with its population of 130,000) at
the time of the Lewis and Clarke Exposition, 1905, the "joy of the whole earth."
There will not be a civilized nation unrepresented here.
We have, of course, plenty of small cities, each the nucleus for a more or less
wide section; four or five universities; an
agricultural college, second to none, and
an experimental station, that keeps the
farming world in touch with all the new
and   scientific  methods  of  farming.
There never was such a state for
schools, nine times out of ten, within a
mile of the settler. A new settlement
of 20 souls can call for one and get it!
Our progressive State superintendent is
about to adopt manual training in Port-
Iand.and is studying up new methods for
the rural schools.
Churches, of course, abound in the little towns and some of them send out Sunday supplies for the country school houses.
Then, in many districts, there is rural
free mail delivery, and rural telephones
for novelties, as the woman found, who
tied the "receiver" on to the baby's cradle,
when she went out visiting her neighbor,
that she might hurry back, when the baby
cried too hard.
The old tried friend is the Grange, with
it hundred subordinate granges. You and
everybody knows, what that means, intellectual and social life; summer picnics
and  banquetings.
I say summer, because with us, it is
summer rather than winter, that we make
our trips and pay our friendly visits. Oa
our ocean beaches, or our mountain r»
sorts, are whole cities of tents and campers, who are having the good time of the