“So-called conservative Montana House Speaker Austin Knudsen recently talked about making hard choices on what government should spend its money on in tough fiscal times. What's so hypocritical and humorous is that he conveniently leaves out the fact that his family agriculture operation receives over $40,000 a year in taxpayer-funded agricultural subsidies to keep his business afloat — which is nearly the average annual salary for working Montanans.”

“The county seat fights were terrific. Some farmers slew each other with pitchforks, businessmen battled in saloon and street. A few times, on hostile ground, Dan actually risked his life; but he always escaped unmarked.”

​“It is true that for a few years almost anyone could set up a bank in Montana and almost anyone could get a loan. As Garet Garrett put it, money went to people the bankers knew nothing about ‘except that they owned land, wore spurs, and smelled of cattle.”’

“He had thirty plants in the bulb, root or tuber classification, fifteen for salads, nine for greens, at least six edible tree or bush barks; he had fifty fruits. Twelve plants made his meal and flour, to made his sugar and syrup. And he topped this all off with ten plants for jellies, jams, or marmalades.” ​

“They preferred small herds, to avoid the stampedes inevitable with the large ones. Best range was about two hundred yards. The first shot would scatter the herd, but it would pause for a moment, swing, and by some inscrutable instinct, every animal would start in the same direction. The hunter then would shoot at the ground in front of them. This would turn the herd. He would continue this until the bewildered buffalo stopped running and stood helpless and terrified, to be shot down to the last animal. The number killed in one stand varied from a half dozen to eighty.”

“Within a few years Montana was transformed from a young people’s state to a state of young children and old men and women. The injury to the economic organism was permanent: nothing could ever reestablish population balance save a catastrophe which would wipe out the entire citizenry and leave a clean slate for a new start. Grave pension and relief problems could be anticipated: more and more unemployed and aged Montanans to be supported by fewer and fewer young workers.”

“’Sidewalk farming,’ once started, grows like a snowball. Families which choose at first to remain on their farms find themselves isolated as their neighbors move; next year they move too. Social and cultural community are lost. The farm becomes merely an economic apparatus like a factory; its owner, in town, joins a luncheon club and the Chamber of Commerce and is persuaded that his interests coincide with those of other substantial businessmen.”