As Compared With The
Foothill Ranches, They Are Larger And Less Inconspicuous, As They Lie
In The Wide, Unshadowed Levels Of The Plains - Wavy-Edged Flecks Of
Green In A Wilderness Of Gray.
Still another class equally well defined, both as to distribution and
as to products, is restricted to that portion of western Nevada and
the eastern border of California which lies within the redeeming
influences of California waters.
Three of the Sierra rivers descend
from their icy fountains into the desert like angels of mercy to bless
Nevada. These are the Walker, Carson, and Truckee; and in the valleys
through which they flow are found by far the most extensive hay and
grain fields within the bounds of the State. Irrigating streams are
led off right and left through innumerable channels, and the sleeping
ground, starting at once into action, pours forth its wealth without
stint.
But notwithstanding the many porous fields thus fertilized,
considerable portions of the waters of all these rivers continue to
reach their old deathbeds in the desert, indicating that in these salt
valleys there still is room for coming farmers. In middle and eastern
Nevada, however, every rill that I have seen in a ride of three
thousand miles, at all available for irrigation, has been claimed and
put to use.
It appears, therefore, that under present conditions the limit of
agricultural development in the dry basin between the Sierra and the
Wahsatch has been already approached, a result caused not alone by
natural restrictions as to the area capable of development, but by the
extraordinary stimulus furnished by the mines to agricultural effort.
The gathering of gold and silver, hay and barley, have gone on
together. Most of the mid-valley bogs and meadows, and foothill rills
capable of irrigating from ten to fifty acres, were claimed more than
twenty years ago.
A majority of these pioneer settlers are plodding Dutchmen, living
content in the back lanes and valleys of Nature; but the high price of
all kinds of farm products tempted many of even the keen Yankee
prospectors, made wise in California, to bind themselves down to this
sure kind of mining. The wildest of wild hay, made chiefly of carices
and rushes, was sold at from two to three hundred dollars per ton on
ranches. The same kind of hay is still worth from fifteen to forty
dollars per ton, according to the distance from mines and comparative
security from competition. Barley and oats are from forty to one
hundred dollars a ton, while all sorts of garden products find ready
sale at high prices.
With rich mine markets and salubrious climate, the Nevada farmer can
make more money by loose, ragged methods than the same class of
farmers in any other State I have yet seen, while the almost savage
isolation in which they live seems grateful to them. Even in those
cases where the advent of neighbors brings no disputes concerning
water rights and ranges, they seem to prefer solitude, most of them
having been elected from adventurers from California - the pioneers of
pioneers. The passing stranger, however, is always welcomed and
supplied with the best the home affords, and around the fireside,
while he smokes his pipe, very little encouragement is required to
bring forth the story of the farmer's life - hunting, mining, fighting,
in the early Indian times, et. Only the few who are married hope to
return to California to educate their children, and the ease with
which money is made renders the fulfillment of these hopes
comparatively sure.
After dwelling thus long on the farms of this dry wonderland, my
readers may be led to fancy them of more importance as compared with
the unbroken fields of Nature than they really are. Making your way
along any of the wide gray valleys that stretch from north to south,
seldom will your eye be interrupted by a single mark of cultivation.
The smooth lake-like ground sweeps on indefinitely, growing more and
more dim in the glowing sunshine, while a mountain range from eight to
ten thousand feet high bounds the view on either hand. No singing
water, no green sod, no moist nook to rest in - mountain and valley
alike naked and shadowless in the sun-glare; and though, perhaps,
traveling a well-worn road to a gold or silver mine, and supplied with
repeated instructions, you can scarce hope to find any human
habitation from day to day, so vast and impressive is the hot, dusty,
alkaline wildness.
But after riding some thirty or forty miles, and while the sun may be
sinking behind the mountains, you come suddenly upon signs of
cultivation. Clumps of willows indicate water, and water indicates a
farm. Approaching more nearly, you discover what may be a patch of
barley spread out unevenly along the bottom of a flood bed, broken
perhaps, and rendered less distinct by boulder piles and the fringing
willows of a stream. Speedily you can confidently say that the grain
patch is surely such; its ragged bounds become clear; a sand-roofed
cabin comes to view littered with sun-cracked implements and with an
outer girdle of potato, cabbage, and alfalfa patches.
The immense expanse of mountain-girt valleys, on the edges of which
these hidden ranches lie, make even the largest fields seem comic in
size. The smallest, however, are by no means insignificant in a
pecuniary view. On the east side of the Toyabe Range I discovered a
jolly Irishman who informed me that his income from fifty acres,
reinforced by a sheep range on the adjacent hills, was from seven to
nine thousand dollars per annum. His irrigating brook is about four
feet wide and eight inches deep, flowing about two miles per hour.
On Duckwater Creek, Nye County, Mr. Irwin has reclaimed a tule swamp
several hundred acres in extent, which is now chiefly devoted to
alfalfa. On twenty-five acres he claims to have raised this year
thirty-seven tons of barley.
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