The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1870-05-27
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A good many people speak entireiy 100
contemptuously of our sagebrush landsi
and such viii doubtless regard with a
sheer the use of the word 'Husbhndry
as title to an editorial in this locality.
Some who ought to know better enter
tain such notions. The most alive man
On the Coast-Jno. G. Falls nov look
ing at White Pine. He knows a great
many things which would be worth
learning. 0ls Is. that almost every foot
Of sagebrush land is excellent for agrd-
cultural use, If only water can be got
upon it The proportion of such land
upon which water cen not, by proper
effol., be got, is very small. Mr.. Fall
has as fine a vegetable garden in Union
vile as you can find in boastful Cali
~fornia; yet We remember when the
ground was the m~ueh-abussd ~sagebrush
land, overrun by horned toads and liz
ards. Agriculture, to flourish in this
State, wants an infusion of enterprise.
The men who are imbued with an enter
prising turn, and many who have very
little of it, turn their attention to mining
pursuits-determined to make money
faster than by growing barley to fatten
cattle.
BY favor of Senator Stewart, we have
the March and April reports from the
Department of Agriculture, in Washing
ton-always interesting documents. In
this number we find an article under the
caption we have used above. It embod-
les a correspondence from Stewart
county, Georgia. The writer dilates on
the custom of the people of Georgia to
adhere to the production of cotton, to
the exclusion of other lines of produc-
ton. Cotton brings a high aggregate in
come, but its value is largely fictitious
for this reason; the people who neglect
to produce what their lands are capable
of producing, toward the supply of their
home wants, lose the profits of their
cotton crop in expenditures for imports.
They subject themselves to a double
skinning by middle men. Their cotton
does not bring them the value at the
factory, less cost of transportation; for
middle men come between and thrive by
the percentages they make; then they
yearly become involved for advances, to
buy the articles of home consumption
which ought to be coming OF while the
cotton is growing. These, again, they
do not get at the cost on the farm or at
the dairy in the North, for middle men
deliver these articles. their profits being
paid from what is left to the producer of
the cotton planter by those other opera
tors to whom he sells. The Georgians
could subsist themselves almost entirely
from their own generous soil; and sell
enough products other than cotton to
clear all their necessary purchases-but
they fail to see this, and so cheat them
selves continually of the large net profits
which cotton ought to bring them.
This has been the curse of California
and Nevada. The gold product and the
silver have been sent abroad TO bring the
n~ecessaries of life which ought to have
been produced here. A case in point is
furnished in another part of this same
report from the Department. Mention
is made of four mammoth steers sold in
the New York market by George Ayrault.
of Poughkeepsie. The weights of these
bovine beauties were as following: 1890
lbs, 1920 lbs, 9,406 lbs., and 3,440 lbs.
The four scld for SO, 200.
Their average weight at the age of three years
was 1850 pounds. After attaining this age. each
received daily a peck of corn meal and wheat
shorts, or oatmeal, combined, divided into two
feeds, and, as dessert, a peck of sugar bets
twice a day. In the Summer, until lately. their
only feed was grass supplemented with a little
sweet hay. The second Winter the daily feed of
meal WIS Increased TO ten quarts each, given in
two feeds. In the Summer Of 1869, each re-
ceived one peck of meal per day. given at MORN
ing noon and nighti and in the Winter follow
ing, twelve quarts of meal daily. in three feeds,
besides roots. In their course of feeding they
have had, in Winter, the best of early cut hay
from old meadows, and have usually had access
to it in Summer. They were not closely con-
nncd IN WINTER, usually having the run OF q
small yard. with access to water, and with sheds
under which they could lie protected from
storms, and were tied at feeding time
Now suppose Mr.. Ayrault had restrict
ed his industry to the rearing of cattle
for market. He would have been obliged
to buy meal, hay, beets, wheat, ~and
shorts. And in that case he would have
been very fortunate to get out even.
The policy would have been exactly the
equivalent of that Georgia policy, and
the policy till lately in vague on this
Coast. But NJ. Ayrault raised his own
wheat, corn, hay, beets, and oats;
and marketed a portion; and the feed
ing of his steers was only a process of
making a better market for a portion of
his surplus farm products; and probably
the price of the cattle seemed to him
about the same as clear money. A good
many farms are opening in the valleys in
Eastern Nevada, and such matters
as We have called attention to above
have an interest for our friends in the
valleys.