{"id":101,"date":"2014-09-14T22:53:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T21:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cabophoto.com\/blog\/?p=101"},"modified":"2015-11-13T13:49:46","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T12:49:46","slug":"harvest-on-montanas-hi-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cabophoto.com\/blog\/harvest-on-montanas-hi-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvest on Montana\u2019s Hi-Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFive hundred\u201d, Jason Wanken said. \u201cOK, and the price?\u201d, I asked. Again the reply was \u201cFive hundred\u201d. I was sitting in the buddy seat of a combine that had a 500 hp engine and cost around US$ 500,000. An impressive machine that replaces hundreds of farmhands.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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A storm brews over Montana's fields of gold as Doug Henke is cutting winter wheat on his farm near Chester.<\/div><\/div><\/div>

Up here on Montana\u2019s\u00a0Hi-Line<\/em>, the stretch of land around the Great Northern Railway line, bigger is better. When settlers were lured here in the early 20th\u00a0century, they could claim up to 320 acres in exchange for farming the land for three years and building a house. Soon it became clear that this wasn\u2019t enough to feed a family, and a process of concentration set in. Today, the average farm size is more than 3,000 acres.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>