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Show 30 REPORT OF COMMISSIONEB OF INDIA% A F F A ~ . A minimum crop is estimated to. be about 12 tons an'acre, wbrth $54, a maximum crop 20 tons, worth $90, and an average crop 16 tons, worth $72. The project contemplates a thorough irrigadn of the lands, and the lessees are permitted to take sufficient water from the reservation streams to run the factory, estimated at 200 miner's inches. The Indians are busily engaged this year in raising crops which will prepare the ground for sugar beets next year. The enterprise will be watched with much interest and some s~licitude,b ecause the experience of several years has shown that Indians take naturally, and of their own accord, to the manual labor involved m beet culture on white men's farms, and I hape long been anxious to see whether the same industrial energy could not be so conserved as to secure a larger share of its profits for the workers themselves. The legislation authorizing an experiment at Fort Belknap, if the experiment proves a success, will doubtless be only a forerunner of some general provi-sions which will enable us to start similar work on other reservations where the soil and climatic cor~ditions are favorable and the Indians are intelligent enough to appreciate their own advantage. In addition to the lease mentioned, two smaller leases have been - entered into with individual members of the tribe for sugar-beet cul-ture on the reservation-with Mrs. Rose Stevens for 1,000 acres and with Mrs. Nellie A. Bolster for 500 acres. They agree to plant one-half of the land to beets each year, the other half to be planted to some suitable rotating crop. Like the other lessees, they are per-mitkd to take water from the reservation streams for irrigation pur-poses. As rent to the tribe for the use of the land the lessees are to pay one-tenth of the value of the sugar beet crops, but they are to have for their own the entire proceeds of the rotating crops. This experiment, like the one undertaken with the tribe as a whole, is for purposes of demonstration, in the hope that if it is successful it will inspire individual Indians here and there to do something independ-ently of the mass of their fellows. COMMERCIAL AGENT FOR THE SIOUX. As I have said repeatedly, I believe that just as sdon as any Indian is found reasonably competent to manage his own businw affairs and protect his own interests, he should be free from government supervision, control and assistance. He should be given the same opportunity that his white neighbors have to make a way for him- .self, to earn his own living, and to learn as they d e b y experience. My report for 1907 referred to the aljpointment of Henry J. Phil-lips to be commercial agent for the Sioux, his task being to persuade them to live on such of their allotments as were fit for. farming pur-poses, and to encourage them to till the soil, with a guaranty that |