Montana State Soil
Our State.
Our Home.
Our Soil.
Scobey Soil
The origins of Scobey Soil began in the Pleistocene ice age, 95,000 to 15,000 years ago in North America. The Laurentide Ice Sheet, which was more than 2 miles thick, flowed from Canada and deposited a rich glacial till that filled 700,000 acres of what would become Montana.
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This land was the soil that nurtured the bison upon which Montana's First People relied. In the soil grew grasses and sedges that nourished bison of the prairies. Blackfeet, Gros Ventres, and other tribes harvested bison for food, clothing, shelter, and tools.
Bison, too, shaped the soil as their grazing sustained biodiversity on grasslands, wallows allowed shallow wetlands, decomposing bones created rich patches of nitrogen and phosphorus for plant growth, and hooves aerated the soil. |
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When homesteaders arrived in the territory, it was Scobey Soil that grew dry land farming practices. Consistent production from the soil allowed the homesteaders to settle permanently on this rich land. Today, the Scobey Soil makes up Montana's Golden Triangle along the Hi-line and produces a larger annual non-irrigated harvest of high-quality wheat than any of the other 700 soils named and mapped in the state. Scobey Soil is responsible for much of the agriculture that is Montana's largest industry, generating in the state's economy over $4.7 billion in services and products.
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The Scobey Soil also supports native grasslands inhabited by black-tailed prairie dogs, swift foxes, burrowing owls, pronghorn antelope, and black-footed ferrets, the rarest mammal in North America.
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Longfellow Fourth Graders