Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1919 — No Horses, Only Tractors Are Used to Work 200,000 Acres of Indian Farm Land [ARTICLE]

No Horses, Only Tractors Are Used to Work 200,000 Acres of Indian Farm Land

Wheat will be harvested next fall from one of the world’s largest farms comprising about 200,000 acres of In.dian lands in Montana and Wyoming. On this huge farm not a horse will be used., Instead, large tractors capable of turning over large quantities of prairie sod were purchased. In all 52 of these machines are now the property of the corporation, and the plowing record for last summer was more than one acre a minute for the working time. On one day 1,880 acres were turned and broken. Of this big tract, about 33,000 acres of irrigated land have been plowed and seeded) and the remainder it is announced will be cultivated during the coming summer. The land is located on the Crow, Blackfeet and Fort Peck reservations in Montana and the Wing river reservation in Wyoming. To make this land productive a corporation with $2,000,000 capital was organized last spring, when Thomas D. Campbell, a North Dakota farmer, conceived the idea of cultivating the thousands of acres of the Indian lands in Montana and Wyoming. Campbell lacked capital, but obtained the approval and assistance of the secretary of the interior, Franklin K. Lane, and J. P. Morgan and other leading New York bankers. The corporation was then formed with several of these bankers as members of the board of directors and Campbell was president.