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. 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 much greater elevation than four thousand feet above sea level. The valleys 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 feet above the sea, the grain harvest is about a month later than in California. In Reese River Valley, six thousand feet, it begins near the end of August.