Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1912 — RICH INDIAN LAND [ARTICLE]

RICH INDIAN LAND

Fort Peck Reservation Ready for - Settlers Next Spring. i Last Big Tract Left in West—Soil Unusually Productive In Grain, As Shown By Progress Made By Tribes Themselves. Butte, Mont. —Two million acres of land in Montana, now known as the Fort Peck Indian reservation, will be thrown open for settlement by the government next spring. This is the last large tract of public land in the west that has not been opened to settlers. Inasmuch as less than one per cent of this land has been cultivated and all of it is said to be fertile, it is estimated that the harvest will be enriched by 20,000,000 bushels of grain a year after it is settled and developed. The share of this tract alloted to Indians of many tribes is 723,693 acres. The rest is unoccupied. “On the supposition that the unoccupied lands were devoted to the growing of wheat on the summer fallow plan, which would mean that onehalf the area would be in crop at one time, and on the further supposition that the wheat would yield 26 bushels per acre, which is a moderate estimate for yields on land thus prepared, the aggregate production would be 19,312,600 bushels.” Thomas Shaw, agricultural expert, estimates. Prof. Shaw further says: “If this land were entirely devoted to the growing of barley on the summer fallow plan, the yield would be 30,900,000 bushels, as barley grown on such land should average 40 bushels per acre. If the entire area were devoted to the growing of oats on the sam 4 lines, the total production would be W. 626,000 bushels, as 60 bushels per acre would not be $n extravagant estimate for land thus farmed.” The Port Peck reservation will also be the scene of a unique event when the first county fair ever held by Indian tribes will open there. At this fair will be shown the rapid progress made by the red men in extensive agriculture after only a few years of instruction in modern farming methods. There will be exhibited at thiß time some unusual specimens of grain and grasses that will also be entered later in the year at eastern land shows in competition with prise products of the white man. This progress has all been made in the last two years, since before that time hardly any of the land was being developed with modern methods. A year ago the Great Northern railroad sent a representative body of the tribes inhabiting this region to the New York land show to give them an opportunity to see what the white man was doing to wrest a living from the soil. The exhibits there were carefully studied, and the representatives returned to their prairie homes with ideas as revolutionary as they proved to be profitable. Instead of truck farmers living in tepees, they resolved to be ranchers living in comfortable cottages overlooking thousands of acres. That they went to work with a vim Is shown by the fact that at the present time there are twice as many acres of land under cultivation as there were a year ago. Agriculture is not (he only form of American civilization the Indians on this reservation have assimilated. They have also learned to play foot' ball. The civilization will not be entirely overshadowed by what has been learned from the white man, however, all the old tribal customs will be perpetuated in dances and ceremonies that have been handed down for centuries. Sioux will hold their annual festival at which all the weird rites of their' forefathers will be used.

Three thousand redmen, in native attire, will be gathered outside the agency town In a vast circle of tepees, and it will be a scene marked for Its brilliancy.