NEVADA FARMS 



The immense expanse of mountain-girt val- 

 leys, 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. Indeed, I have not yet noticed 

 a meager crop of any kind in the State. Fruit 

 alone is conspicuously absent. 



On the California side of the Sierra grain will 

 not ripen at a much greater elevation than 

 four thousand feet above sea-level. The val- 

 leys of Nevada lie at a height of from four to 

 six thousand feet, and both wheat and barley 

 ripen, wherever water may be had, up to seven 

 thousand feet. The harvest, of course, is later 

 as the elevation increases. In the valleys of 

 the Carson and Walker Rivers, four thousand 



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