XII 



NEVADA FARMS* 



To the farmer who comes to this thirsty 

 land from beneath rainy skies, Nevada seems 

 one vast desert, all sage and sand, hopelessly 

 irredeemable now and forever. And this, under 

 present conditions, is severely true. For not- 

 withstanding it has gardens, grainfields, and 

 hayfields generously productive, these com- 

 pared with the arid stretches of valley and 

 plain, as beheld in general views from the 

 mountain-tops, are mere specks lying incon- 

 spicuously here and there, in out-of-the-way 

 places, often thirty or forty miles apart. 



In leafy regions, blessed with copious rains, 

 we learn to measure the productive capacity 

 of the soil by its natural vegetation. 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,^ 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 



* Written at Ward, Nevada, in September, 1878. [Editor.] 



* See footnote on p. 38. 



154 



