But This
Rule Is Almost Wholly Inapplicable Here, For, Notwithstanding Its
Savage Nakedness, Scarce At All Veiled By A Sparse
Growth of sage and
linosyris[16], the desert soil of the Great Basin is as rich in the
elements that
In rainy regions rise and ripen into food as that of any
other State in the Union. The rocks of its numerous mountain ranges
have been thoroughly crushed and ground by glaciers, thrashed and
vitalized by the sun, and sifted and outspread in lake basins by
powerful torrents that attended the breaking-up of the glacial period,
as if in every way Nature had been making haste to prepare the land
for the husbandman. Soil, climate, topographical conditions, all that
the most exacting could demand, are present, but one thing, water, is
wanting. The present rainfall would be wholly inadequate for
agriculture, even if it were advantageously distributed over the
lowlands, while in fact the greater portion is poured out on the
heights in sudden and violent thundershowers called "cloud-bursts,"
the waters of which are fruitlessly swallowed up in sandy gulches and
deltas a few minutes after their first boisterous appearance. The
principal mountain chains, trending nearly north and south, parallel
with the Sierra and the Wahsatch, receive a good deal of snow during
winter, but no great masses are stored up as fountains for large
perennial streams capable of irrigating considerable areas. Most of
it is melted before the end of May and absorbed by moraines and
gravelly taluses, which send forth small rills that slip quietly down
the upper canyons through narrow strips of flowery verdure, most of
them sinking and vanishing before they reach the base of their
fountain ranges. Perhaps not one in ten of the whole number flow out
into the open plains, not a single drop reaches the sea, and only a
few are large enough to irrigate more than one farm of moderate size.
It is upon these small outflowing rills that most of the Nevada
ranches are located, lying countersunk beneath the general level, just
where the mountains meet the plains, at an average elevation of five
thousand feet above sea level. All the cereals and garden vegetables
thrive here, and yield bountiful crops. Fruit, however, has been, as
yet, grown successfully in only a few specially favored spots.
Another distinct class of ranches are found sparsely distributed along
the lowest portions of the plains, where the ground is kept moist by
springs, or by narrow threads of moving water called rivers, fed by
some one or more of the most vigorous of the mountain rills that have
succeeded in making their escape from the mountains. These are mostly
devoted to the growth of wild hay, though in some the natural meadow
grasses and sedges have been supplemented by timothy and alfalfa; and
where the soil is not too strongly impregnated with salts, some grain
is raised. Reese River Valley, Big Smoky Valley, and White River
Valley offer fair illustrations of this class.
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