The Churchill county standard. (Fallon, Nev.) 1908-1920, 1914-04-08
SOVEREIGN STATE OF NEVADA
Facts About Our Own State
Which May Instruct Nevad-
ans on Refresh Memories.


largest state in the Union, and has
been a state for a half a century,
there Is perhaps no state SO little
known and none of vast resources
and possibilities so little developed.
Ever since 1t has been a state mining
has been its paramount industry
with stock raising second and farm
| ing third in the industrial list. But
this order bids fair to be reversed in
the not far distant future, as Me-
vada is Just entering upon period
of great agricultural development.
Nevada is part of the great
American basin. that vast tableland
lying west of the Rockies, and has
an average elevation of from 1000
to 5000 feet. About one-sixth of
the area of the state is alkali wastes
and barrens, which in the present
stage of agricultural science are
hopeless of reclamation and are of
value only for their mineral con-
tents of salt, soda and borax The
mountains and hilly areas, unsuited
for cultivation, but excellent for
stock raising, and on which a half
million head of cattle and a million
and half of sheep now find sub
sistence cover more than one-half
of the state. The total arabic land
is estimated to be not less than one
fourth the state. This represents
100000 acres of land, an area,
by the way, equivalent to all of the
states of Massachusetts, New Hamp-
shire and Rhode Island combined.
This land except for sagebrush, has
lain fallow for ages and furnishes
the richest soil for farming, yet less
than five per cent of it is today un-
der cultivation.
Nevada is a land of little rain, the
average annual rainfall varying
from four inches In the southern val
leys to from eight inches to fourteen
inches in the valleys of northern,
eastern and western Nevada The
great problem with the agriculturist
is. therefore, the water problem.
There are some 200 valleys big and
little, in the state, separated from
one another by mountain ranges
anywhere from 1000 to 1000 feet
higher than the valley levels. These
mountain ranges gather the storms
and intercept the precipitation and
have rainfall three times as great
as the valleys. The numerous rivers
and streams which rise in these
mountains furnish water for irriga-
ton.
The waters of only five rivers In
Nevada find their way into the
ocean, the others emptying into
lakes without outlets or disappear
ing below the surface of the valleys,
to reappear in many instances
through artesian wells or through
pumps driven by electric motors. To
these souces of water supply must
be added springs which occur in
many parts of the state from which
considerable bodies of land are ir-
rigated
While the natural flow of nearly
all the streams during the irrigation
season is already appropriated, only
a small portion of the food waters
are utilized. Were these waters
properly impounded and conserved
to flow only during the irrigation
season they would be sufficient to re-
claim and put under cultivation sew
eral million acres of the choicest
land for farming and fruit raising.
Already government funds and
private capital have been devoted in
large sums in solving the water
problem in Nevada. Several water
development enterprises are now in
progress and others of greater or les
ser magnitude are being projected.
Here is field where much capital
can be invested with the greatest ul-
innate profit. Where now is desert.
one requirement only Is lacking to
transform the desert into waving
fields of alfalfa and grain, the ver-
dure of plants and fruit, tree and
shrubbery, the homes of farmers,
and seats of villages, towns and cit
les. That one requirement is water.
and that in turn calls for capital.
Nevada is therefore land of be-
ginning in an agricultural sense and
a land of almost unlimited oppor-
tuities. The rich soil is here, ample
water supply in most of the valleys
a waiting the necessary dayelnnment