No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 597 



on foot all tliat distance, and supplies must be taken along; and 

 probably he had his family with it. How could he ever get across 

 this desert? There is nothing to support animal life, and no living 

 plant or tree. Well, the res''t of the passengers were tenderfoots 

 like myself, and no one could answer that question. The conductor 

 could not enlighten me, but finally a man who said he was an 

 engineer, and had engineered all through that country said, '"I 

 can explain that to you." He said "When the Forty-niner went over 

 there the grass was knee deep. These were the sheep pastures of 

 Nevada, right along here, where we are now running." (Mr. Wing 

 was there and can tell you whether or not I am right; this is the 

 engineer's history, and I don't know whether I am right). He said 

 in the first place came the cattle man, and got possession of the 

 land when the grass was knee high, selecting the places where 

 there was grass (there was water there) was all the title required 

 so far as he was concerned, and the next cattleman who came along 

 took the same thing. Now, he had the cattle, but he did not 

 figure on the sheepman. Then he came along and I have been told 

 by men out there that the sheep can go thirty days without water, 

 and I do know that the sheep can get ahead of the cattle on the 

 water proposition. And no cattle will follow sheep in large numbers. 

 Then, he said, it rains sometimes out here, and you people who have 

 not lived here know nothing about this abode mud; it is worse than 

 anything you ever saw. The sheep you know, not only eats the 

 grass like cattle, but he will burrow down and pull out the roots, 

 and they pulled out the roots of the grass and trod down this abode 

 mud so hard that where there was grass knee high in the days of 

 the Forty-niner, there is now neither grass, nettle, nor jack rabbits. 

 So I began to notice more particularly. I had supposed that this 

 country, this one-third of the United States west of Denver was to 

 be the feeding place of the whole United States, that we were to go 

 there and get our young cattle and bring them east. That was what 

 I supposed eight years ago, but when I looked at it, it looked differ- 

 ent. I can bring it home to you. Let me give you a few illustra- 

 tions to call it to your attention. 



What is contained in the State of Nevada? I went up to Carson 

 Lake and took the stage down to Carson City. Along the stage line 

 I saw a "V" shaped box, and in that box was running water. I 

 kept looking at it and wondering what it was. Finally I summoned 

 up courage enough to ask the only other passenger on board, Avho 

 Avas a woman, what it was. "Why," she said, "this is a flume." I 

 said "What is a flume?" "W^hy," she said, "that flume brought 

 down wood from the mountains to the box factory at Carson City," 

 "Oh," I said, "there is a box factory at Carson City?" "No," she 

 said, "there is none there now." I said "Why not?" I suppose 

 she thought by that time I was a fool, but she said "We have no 

 wood." I was afraid to ask am^more questions, so I kept on looking 

 and at Reno, Nevada, I asked a man why it was that there was no 

 lumber in that part of the state, and he told me that Mackay, the 

 lumber king, had oser two hundred and fifty men at work up there 

 day after day for more than four years cutting that wood. I went up 

 to Reno by train. The train stopped; I have never learned why it 

 stopped, because I didn't see any house, .^o I m^A ''What is this 



