About The Ranch
Buck Mountain Botanical Farm & Production Facility
Our family owns thousand of acres of plains, hills and mountainous semi-arid land in southeast Montana between the Yellowstone and Powder Rivers. This beautiful country ranges from an elevation of 2,500 to 3,400 feet. The upper elevations, above 2,800 feet support large stands of yellow pine and juniper. This high plain paradise was used as range land. Now the pristine wilderness is managed for the benefit of the abundant flora and fauna found thereon.
According to the geologic record, Buck Mountain has been in place for about 55 million years. It will be here in ever changing form for many million more years. It is "privately owned", but to argue about ownership is silly since, at best, our family is a short term caretaker of this wonderful scape of life.
Since early 1994 we have labored to return the land to its native flora and fauna. In the process we have spread native seeds each year and planted thousands of trees and shrubs. We have repaired and expanded dozens of ponds, dams, and dikes to retain water in this land of sparse precipitation.
Many have encouraged us to cut the mature cedars and pines, simply because there is a strong commercial demand. Our view is why, so we would have additional resources to acquire more property with trees? We already have such a property. Trees are not renewable in our lifetime. They will not be harvested.
Medicinal plants: echinacea, wormwood, hawthorn, arnica, astragalus, bergamot, burdock, dandelion, grindelia, juniper, licorice, milk thistle, pulsatilla, skullcap, st. john's wort, valerian, yarrow and many others are native and in abundance.
We have formulated research projects to answer some of the many unknowns such as:
- How much and which age, or other characteristics of plant, can be harvested and have natural reproduction replenish the natural stands?
- What level of cultivation will offset greater harvest of the established
stands:
- What cultivation methods yield particular results?
- What signs of genetic superiority are presented by observable plant characteristics?
- Seeds from which plants should be used to replenish and expand established stands?
To ensure that we are not harming our land and the flora we have been cultivating and encouraging no more than 3% of any native stand is removed – except on small research lots. Further, we are not taking plants from any stand that has fewer than 1,000 plants therein. Also, since our private land is so very large we only take plants from a small percent of the existing stands.
In addition to the abundance of native species we cultivate many botanicals, many of which also occur naturally on the land. These include: milk thistle, comfrey, burdock, arnica, uva ursi, astragalus, st. john's wort, oregon grape, chamomile, licorice, garlic, capsicum, skullcap, bloodroot, goldenseal, valerian, lemon balm, passion flower and spearmint.
We have a 5,000 gallon per day reverse osmosis system that provides pure irrigation water for our cultivated gardens and an ever increasing number of deer fenced gardens in the bottom of riparian draws. No fertilizers, herbicides, synthetic pesticides or any other additives are used to alter the land in any way.