USA > Idaho > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 82
USA > Montana > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 82
USA > Washington > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 82
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737
PROFITS OF RAISING CATTLE.
The only danger to the welfare of the country, from the prominence taken by this business, is that
was good, allowing them to feed several hours each day, assuming the risk of accidents to the cattle, charging $40 or $50 per day for the whole train. Free passage was granted to the proprietors, who took the usual passenger trains, and to a certain number of cowboys, who had a special car attached to the cat- tle train, which took from 6 to 7 days to reach Chicago. The cattle sold are generally beeves, 3 or 4 years old, and weigh 900 to 1,100 pounds when em- barked, hut lose 120 or 160 on the journey. They bring from 3} to 5 cents per pound; or sell for an average of $35. If kept another year or two, they may bring $45. Improvements are being made in the methods of transport- ing stock, to save it from loss of weight, or total loss, which does not often happen. The plan of production and sale is to part with one fourth of the herd annually. Bulls raised in the herds are not considered desirable, but those used for breeding purposes are taken from foreign localities, and the best possible, the English short-horns being preferred, after them Durhams, then Spanish. A cow will usually cost from $24 to $27, and will produce a calf annually for ten years. The increase can be counted on to be half male and half female. The female half in 2 years doubled itself, and so on in arithmetical progression, and at little cost to the owner. The following table illustrates the cattle-raiser's increase in 10 years, beginning with a herd of 890:
Years.
Steers.
Yearlings.
Cows.
Born.
Total.
1st
190
190
300
290
970
2d.
90
290
400
300
1,080
3d.
80
300
970
400.
1,750
4th
100.
400
720
600
1,820
5th
190
500
1,070
800.
2,660
6th
200
800
1,470
1,000
3,470
7th
300
1,000
2,070.
1,600
4,790
8th.
500
1,600
2,870
2,500
7,470
0th
790.
2,500
.4,100.
.4,000.
11,390
10th
1,000
.4,000.
.6,000.
.9,900. 21,000
The table above allows for accidents, and loss by cold, drought, etc., and supposes the steers only to have been sold. The yearlings comprise all the animals born of either sex one year after birth.
The expense of caring for cattle or horses in herds of 1,000 or more is about 75 cents per head. Adding taxes and all the costs of producing a steer worth $30, and we have a total of $3.50. Previous to 1879-80 the average loss from storms was about two per cent per annum. In that year the loss was 7 or 8 per cent, and the following winter it was also unusually large; but many were cattle driven in from Oregon late, and in poor condition. The banks loaned money to be invested in stock, and there was no more sure invest- ment in Montana. A firm which borrowed $13,500 at two per cent per month for six years showed a profit of $51,073 over total investment and expenses. Strahorn's Montana, 103. The West, compiled from the Census of 1880 by Robert P. Porter, and presenting a significant array of faets concerning the Pacific states, says that there were in Montana, in 1877, 220,000 head of cattle, 40,000 horses, and 120,000 sheep, and that the census of 1880 shows 489,500 cattle, 512,600 sheep, and 29,000 swine. It should be borne in mind, also, that the figures in a census report are always below the facts. In E. J. Far- mer's Resources of the Rocky Mountains, published in 1883, containing brief descriptions of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, Dakota, and Montana, it is stated that there were at that date 400,000 cattle and nearly 500,000 sheep in Montana: the cattle being worth at $25 per head $10,000,- 000, and the sheep $1,750,000, the wool elip being not less than 3,000,000 pounds.
A large stock-owner in Montana was Baron de Bonnemain, born in 1851, at Means, Seine-et-Marie, France. He served in the French army under HIST. WASHL-47
738
MINING AND CATTLE-RAISING.
the cattle-owners will continue more and more to oppose themselves to settlement. This they cannot do as successfully in Montana as they have done in Texas, where they have taken possession of the springs and watercourses by the simple preemption of a quarter-section of land where the spring occurs. As settlers must have access to water and timber, to control the supply is to drive them away from the re- gion. But in Montana there is a greater abundance of water, and timber also, and consequently not the same means of excluding farmers. Doubtless efforts will be made to obtain the actual ownership of large bodies of land, which the government wisely endeav- ors to prevent.
The falling-off in the yield of the mines forced development in other directions, so that by the time Montana had railroad connection with eastern mar- kets it was prepared to furnish exports as well as to pay for importing. In 1879, three years before the railroad reached Helena, the farmers of Montana produced not less than $3,000,000 worth of agricul- tural products,12 and were supplied with the best labor-saving machinery. They lived well, and were often men of education, with well-stored book-shelves,
Marsbal McMahon in the Franco-Prussian war, after which he immigrated to New York, and visiting Montana on a hunting expedition, perceived the ad- vantages of stock-growing on the natural ranges, and engaged in the business. He had 3,200 head in 1883, and a range of 32 miles. The baron has furnished my library with a manuscript on the subject, Stock-Raising in Montana, which agrees with that of Weis and other accounts.
The first blooded horses introduced into Montana in 1873 were owned by Mr Campbell of Gallatin City. The first large sales of cattle to eastern shippers was in 1874; by 1876 a regular trade was established, bringing in $120,000. Charles Anceny was one of the most enterprising cattle-raisers in Gallatin county, in the beginning of the business. The Montana Wool- Grower's Association was organized in September 1877. In 1878 John Healy of San Francisco, agent for a California company, established a depot at Helena for grading wool. The wool clip of that ycar was 1,000,000 pounds. An effort has been made to domesticate the Rocky Mountain sheep, but with- out success. Helena Gazette, Oct. 3, 1873; Ilelena Independent, Sept. 30, 1875; Winser's Guide to N. P. Railroad, 172-3; Deer Lodge Independent, Oct. 18, 1869.
12 Wheat 400,000 bushels, oats 600,000, barley 50,000, corn 12,000, vege- tables 500,000, hay 65,000 tons. Strahorn's Montana, 90. In ISSO Montana produced 470,000 bushels of wheat, 900,000 of oats, 40,000 of barley. Far- mers' Resources of the Rocky Mountains, 110.
739
AGRICULTURE.
even while still occupying the original farm-house built of logs. By the laws of Montana a homestead of the value of $2,500 was exempt from execution and sale. Experience has shown that the grasshop- per is the worst, and almost the only, enemy that the agriculturist dreads. This pest appears to return annually for a period of three or four years, when it
Sec. 3
Sec. 2
Sec. 1
Sec. 6
Sec. 5
Sec. 4
UNSURVEYED
Sec. 10
Sec. 11
Sec. 12
Sec. 7
Sec. 8
Sec. 9
BUTTE
Sec. 15
Sec. 14
Sec. 13
Sec. 16
Sec. 17
Sec. 18
TOWN SITE
BOTTE AND SUMMIT VALLEY MINING DISTRICT.
absents itself for an equal length of time. No com- plete destruction of crops has ever occurred, their visitations being intermittent as to place-now here, now there; and grain-farmers agree that while the yield and the prices remain as good as they have been, they can support the loss of every third crop. But it is probable that in time the more general cul- tivation of the earth will be a check, if not destruc- tion, to the grasshopper.
But whatever the advantages of Montana to the agriculturalist, stock-raiser, or manufacturer of the present or the future-and they are many-it is and must remain preeminently a mining country. A re- action toward an increased production of the precious metals began in 1878, the silver yield being in excess of the gold.13
13 The most famous silver districts were those of Butte in Silver Bow, Phil- ipsburg in Deer Lodge, Glendale in Beaverhead, and Jefferson in Jefferson
740
MINING AND CATTLE-RAISING.
Many phenomena are brought forward to account for the climate of Montana, such as the isothermal
county. In May 1864 Charles Murphy and William Graham discovered the Black Chief lode, which they called the Deer Lodge, in the Silver Bow dis- trict. Soon after, G. O. Humphreys and William Allison discovered the Vir- ginia, Moscow, and Missoula leads. The Black Chief was an enormous ledge, extendiog for miles. Copper also was found in the foothills, and soon a camp of seventy-five or a hundred men had laid the foundations of Butte at the head of Silver Bow Creek. But they had neither mills nor smelters, and but for the finding of good placer diggings by Felix Burgoyne, would have aban- doned the place. In 1866 a furnace for smelting copper was erected by Joseph Ramsdall, William Parks, and Porter Brothers. In 1875, the time having expired when the discoverers could hold their claims without performing upon them an amount of labor fixed by a law of congress, and no one appcar- ing to make these improvements, W. L. Farlin relocated thirteen quartz claims south-west from Butte, erected a quartz-mill, and infused a new life. into the town. Five years afterward a substantial city, with five thousand inhabitants, occupied the place of the former shabby array of miners' cabins. From twenty quartz-mills, arastras, roasters, and smelters, $1,500,000 was being annually turned out, and the thousands of unworked mines in the vicinity could have employed five times that number. The Alice mine, which begun with a twenty-stamp mill, in 1881 used one of sixty stamps in addition, crushing eighty tons of ore daily. The vein was of great size, depth, and richness. While the Alice may be taken as the representative silver mine of Butte, the Moulton, Lexington, Anaconda, and many others produced well. Eastern capital has been used to a great extent to develop these mines. The silver ores of this district carried a heavy percentage of eopper, and some lodes were really copper veins carrying silver.
Cable district, twenty-five miles north-west of Butte, took it name from the Atlantic Cable gold mine, which yielded $20,000 from 100 tons of quartz, picked specimens from which weighing 200 pounds contained $7,000 in gold.
North-west of the Cable district was the Silver district of Algonquin, on Flint Creek, where the town of Philipsburg was placed. Here were the famous Algonquin and Speckled Trout mines, with reduction-works crected by the Northwest Co. In 1881 a body of ore was found in the Algonquin which averaged 500 ounces to the ton of silver, with enough in sight to yield $2,000,000. The Hope, Comanche, aud other mines in this district were worked by a St Louis company, and produced bullion to the amount of from $300,000 to $500,000 annually since 1877. The Granite furnished rock worth seventy-five dollars per ton.
Philipsburg was laid out in 1867, its future being predicated upon the silver-bearing veins in its vicinity. The first mill, erected at a great expense by the St Louis and Montana Mining Company, failed to extract the silver, which for years patient mine-owners had been reducing by rude arastras and hand machinery to prove the value of their mines, and the prospects of Philips- burg were clouded. A home association, called the Imperial Silver Mining Company, was formed in 1871, which erected a five-stamp mill and roaster, and after many costly experiments, found the right method of extracting sil- ver from the ores of the district. The stamps of their mill being of wood were soon worn out, and the company made contracts with the St Louis com- pany's mill to crush the ore from the Speckled Trout mine, the machinery having to be changed from wet to dry crushing, and two new roasting- furnaces erected, the expense being borne by the Imperial Company.
The process which was adopted in this district is known as the Reese River chloridizing process. The ore, after being pulverized, dry, is mixed with 6 per cent of common salt, placed in roasting-furnaces-1,200 pounds to each furnace-and agitated with long-handled iron hoes for 43 hours, while sub- jected to a gradually increasing heat. After being drawn and cooled, the pulp is amalgamated in Whecler pans. The wet pulp, agitated in hot water and quicksilver, after four hours is drawn into large wooden vats called set-
741
METHODS OF WORKING ORES.
lines, the chinook wind, and the geysers of Yellow- stone park, all of which influences are doubtless felt ;
tlers, with revolving arms, from which it passes through a small pan, where the last of the amalgam which may have escaped is saved. It is then retorted and turned into bullion. The cost of milling and roasting the ore was $40 per ton, and the yield $125. Eight tons per day of 24 hours was the capacity of the works. Deer Lodge New Northwest, June 22, 1872. The salt used in reducing ores in Montana is chiefly brought from the Oneida salt-works of Idaho.
In 1876 the St Louis company took $20,000 worth of silver bullion from 157 tons of the Hope ore, and the average yield of medium ore was rated at $65 per ton. As a result of the profitable working of the mines of this dis- trict, the population, which in 1872 was little over 200, by 1886 had doubled. In every direction from Flint Creek, the valley of which is a rich agricultural region, the hills are full of minerals. At Philipsburg there is about four per cent of gold in the bullion. North from there the gold increases, until near Beartown it is almost pure. Between Philipsburg and the mouth of Flint Creck veins carrying silver, gold, copper, and iron abound.
In Lewis and Clarke county the quartz gold mines held their own. The Whitlatch-Union after producing $3,500,000 suspended, that its owners might settle some points of difference between them, and not from any want of productiveness. About twenty-five miles north-west of Helena was the Silver Creek or Stemple district, the most famous of whose mines of gold is the Penobscot, discovered by Nathan Vestal, who took out $100,000, and then sold the mine for $400,000. The mines in this district produce by mill- ing about ten dollars per ton on an average. ' The Belmont produced with a twenty-stamp mill $200,000 annually, at a profit of nearly half that amount. The Bluebird, Hickory, Gloster, and Drum Lemond were averaging from ten to twelve dollars to the ton.
Silver mines were worked at Clancy, eighteen miles south of Helena. At Wickes, twenty-five miles south, were the most extensive smelting-works in Montana, erected by the Alta-Montana Company, which had a capital stock of $5,000,000, and calculated to treat all classes of ores in which silver and lead combined. Silver was discovered on Clarke fork of the Yellowstone in 1874, and F. D. Pease went to Pa in the spring of 1875 to arrange for erect- ing smelting-works; but Indian troubles prevented mining in that region until 1877, when the Eastern Montana Mining and Smelting Company erected furnaces. In 1873 the famous Trapper silver lode was discovered, followed immediately by others in the vicinity.
As a rule, the ores of Montana are easily worked. The rock in which auriferous and argentiferous veins occur is limestone or granite, often granite capped with slate. The presence of lead and copper simplifies the process of the reduction of silver, and in general the character of Montana galena ores does not differ greatly from those of Utah, Colorado, eastern Nevada, and Idaho. No lead mines have heen worked, though they exist in these terri- tories, but the lead obtained from their silver ores furnished, in 1875, half of that used in the United States, which was 61,473 tons. Copper lodes are abundant and large, and are found near Butte, at White Sulphur Springs, and in the Musselshell country, as well as in several other parts of the country. Iron is found in a great number of places. Deer Lodge county has an iron mountain four times larger than the iron mountain of Missouri. Fine marble, excellent building stone, fire-clay, zinc, coal, and all the materials of which and with which men build the substantial monuments of civilization, are grouped together in Montana in a remarkable manner, when it is considered that the almost universal estimate of a mineral country is that it is unfit for the attainment of the greatest degree of refinement and luxury, and that when the precious metals are exhausted, nothing worth remaining for in the country will be left.
In 1879 the United States assay office was opened at Helena, congress having enacted that the secretary of the treasury might constitute any super-
742
MINING AND CATTLE-RAISING.
but to the lower altitude of the country, as com- pared with the territories lying south, much of its
intendent of a mint, or assayer of an assay office, an assistant treasurer to receive gold coin and bullion on deposit. The assay office was a relief to miners, who had been forced to send their bullion east at exorbitant charges.
The silver export aggregated in 1879 $6,635,022. The non-mineral ex- ports, after ten years of territorial existence, were as follows:
Buffalo robes, 6,500 @ $5 .. $327,500
Antelope, deer, elk, bear, wolf, and other skins @ 50 cents # 1b. 50,000
Beaver, otter, mink, etc. 20,000
Flint hides, 400,000 ibs @ 12 cents. 50,000
Sheep peltries 5,000
Wool, 100,000 Ibs @ 35 cents. 35,000
Cattle, fat, @ $27.50, 3,500 bead. 101,250
Stock-cattle @ $20, 1,000 head 20,000
Total.
$608,750
Deer Lodge New Northwest, April 30, 1875.
There was received at Omaha, in 1876, over $60,000,000; $27,000,000 in silver bullion, handled by express, besides a large amount sent as freight. The gold handled was $25,000,000. The Omaha smelting-works furnished $5,000,000. Of the silver, $10,000,000 was in coin, about half of which was returned. Of the whole, the Black Hills furnished $2,000,000; Colorado, Montana, and Idaho the rest. Omaha Republican, in Bozeman Avant-Courier, Feb. S, 1877.
An agricultural, mechanical, and mineral association was incorporated in Dec. 1867, which held its first fair from the 6th to the 12th of Sept., 1868, at Helena. Governor Smith was the first president; Sol Merideth, vice-presi- dent; W. E. Cullen, secretary; J. T. Forbes, treasurer; J. F. Farber, W. L. Irvine, W. S. Travis, C. P. Higgins, W. L. Vantilburg, J. B. Campbell, and Philip Thorn, directors. Helena Montana Post, March 17, 1868. A territorial grange was organized soon after. Missoula county held its first fair in 1876. It will be seen that, under the conditions set forth as existing previous to the opening of railroad communication, no matter what its facilities for agri- culture, Montana would not establish a reputation as a farming country. Nevertheless it was gradually coming to be better understood in this respect with each succeeding year. It bas been demonstrated that new soils are the most highly productive, the yield of grain, and particularly of vegetables, being often astonishingly great in the territories. Therefore I pass over the numerous instances of enormous garden productions, to the statement that as a wheat country virgin Montana was not surpassed, and all the cereals except corn yielded largely. In the higher valleys grain was likely to fail on account of frost, but in not too elevated parts the yield was from thirty to fifty bushels per acre. Wheat averaged thirty bushels and oats seventy-five. The following table in Strahorn's Montana, 82, is valuable, as recording the names of pioneer agriculturists, with their locations:
Name.
Location.
Acres.
Crop and Yield.
Average buah. per acre.
Value.
A. G. England ..
Miaaoula Valley ..
160
Wheat.
7,000
43%
$8,400
A. G. England.
Miasouls Valley ..
40
Osts.
2,000
GO
1,200
Robert. Vaughn ..
Sun River Valley
4
Osts ...
410
1023%
24G
M. Stone.
Ruby Valley.
100
Wheat
6,000
60
7,200
Brockway.
Yellowstone Valley ..
8
Oata ..
600
75
Brigham Reed
Gallatin Valley ...
6
Osts.
620
103%
362
Marion Leverich.
Gallatin Valley.
23
Wheat
1,150
50
1,380
William Reed ....
Prickly Pear Valley ..
50
Oats
3,500
70
2.100
Charlea Rowe ....
Miascurl Valley ..
23%
Wheat and oata. 1,200
45
1,230
Con. Korbs ..
Deer Lodge Valley ..
11
Oats
1,200
100
720
John Rowe
Gallatin Valley ....
85
Oats.
4,982
57
2,989
Robert Barnett ..
Reese Creek Valley ..
48
Wheat
2,200
45
2,640
S. Hall.
Ruby Valley ..
500
Wheat.
.10,000
50
11,000
743
ALTITUDES.
mildness of climate must be ascribed. Latitude west of the Rocky Mountains does not affect climate as it does to the east of that line; nor does it account for temperature to any marked extent on the eastern slope of the great divide, for we may journey four hundred miles north into the British possessions, find- ing flourishing farms the whole distance; and it is a curious fact that the Missouri River is open above the falls, in Montana, four weeks before the ice breaks up on the Iowa frontier. In all countries seasons vary, with now and then severe winters or hot summers. A great snowfall in the Montana mountains every
The soldiers at Fort Ellis in the Gallatin Valley raised all the vegetables to feed the five companies stationed there, thereby saving the government between $7,000 and $8,000. General Brisbin, who was for a long time in command of that post, was one of the most enthusiastic writers on the resources of the country, contributing articles to the American Agriculturist, and other journals, which were copied in the Montana newspapers. See Helena Herald, Jan. 2, 1879. Rye raised by B. F. Hooper of Bowlder Valley produced grains { larger than the ordinary size, plump, gold-tinted, and transparent as wheat-65 pounds to the bushel. Three quarts of seed yielded 10 bushels of grain, sown in the spring. This seed is said to have come from some grains taken from the craw of a migratory bird killed in Oregon in 1863. Virginia Montana Post, Jan. 29, 1868.
As in every country, the valleys were first settled. What the uplands, now devoted to grazing, will produce remains to be demonstrated in the future. Although it is generally thought that comparative altitude is an im- portant factor in the making of crops, it is now pretty well understood that where bunch grass grows wheat will grow as well.
The average altitude of Montana is less by 2,260 feet than the average altitude of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico. Official reports make the mean elevation of Montana 3,900 feet; of Wyoming 6,400; of Col- orado 7,000; and of New Mexico 5,660. Of Montana's 145,786 square miles, an area of 51,600 is less than 4,000 feet above the sea; 40,700 less than 3,000. The towns are either in mining districts, which are high, or in agricultural districts, which are lower; therefore the following list of elevations is indic- ative of the occupations of the inhabitants:
Argenta. .6,337
Brewer's Springs. . . 4,957
Hamilton .. 4,342
Beaverhead .4,464
Camp Baker .. .4,538
Jefferson ... . 4,776
Bighorn City .2,831
Carroll. .2,247
Lovell . .5,465
Boetler's Rancho .. 4,873
Deer Lodge .4,546 Montana City . 4, 191
Bozeman . .4,900
Fort Benton .2,780
Missoula ..... 3,900
Butte .5,800
Fort Shaw 6,000 Nevada City .. 5,548
Bannack .5,896
Fish Creek Station. 4, 134
Sheridan ..... 5,221
Beaverstown 4,942
Fort Ellis .4,935
Salisbury .. .. 4,838
Blackfoot Agency. 3,169
Gallatin City. .4,838
Bowlder .5,000
Helena. .4,266
Virginia City .. 2,824 Whitehall .... 4,639
It will be observed by a comparison with the preceding table that an alti- tude of nearly 5,000 feet, as at Bozeman, Fort Ellis, and Gallatin City, does not affect the production of cereals unfavorably. Sun River Valley near Fort Shaw, at a considerably greater altitude, produces 100 bushels of oats to the acre.
744
MINING AND CATTLE-RAISING.
winter is expected and hoped for. Its depth through- out the country is graded by the altitude, the valleys getting only enough to cover the grass a few inches, and for a few days, when a sudden thaw, caused by the warm chinook, carries it off. Occasionally a wind from the interior plains, accompanied by severe cold and blinding particles of ice rather than snow, which fill and darken the air, brings discomfort to all, and death to a few. Such storms extend from the Rocky Mountains to east of the Missouri River; from Helena to Omaha.
The mean temperature of Helena is 44°, four de- grees higher than that of Deer Lodge or Virginia City, these points being of considerable elevation about the valleys, where the mean temperature is about 48°. With the exception of cold storms of short duration, the coldest weather of winter may be set down at 19° below zero, and the warmest weather of summer at 94°. June is rainy, the sky almost the whole of the rest of the year being clear, and irrigation necessary to crops. The bright and bracing atmos- phere promotes health, and epidemics are unknown. Violent storms and atmospheric disturbances are rare. 14
The first settlers of Montana had doubts about the profits of fruit-culture, which have been dispelled by experiments. Apples, pears, plums, grapes, cherries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries bear abundantly, and produce choice fruit at an early age.15 In the Missoula Valley cultivated
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