It is upon these small outflowing rills that most of the Nevada ranches are located, lying countersunk beneath the general level, just where the mountains meet the plains, at an average elevation of five thousand feet above sea level.  All the cereals and garden vegetables thrive here, and yield bountiful crops.  Fruit, however, has been, as yet, grown successfully in only a few specially favored spots.

Another distinct class of ranches are found sparsely distributed along the lowest portions of the plains, where the ground is kept moist by springs, or by narrow threads of moving water called rivers, fed by some one or more of the most vigorous of the mountain rills that have succeeded in making their escape from the mountains.  These are mostly devoted to the growth of wild hay, though in some the natural meadow grasses and sedges have been supplemented by timothy and alfalfa; and where the soil is not too strongly impregnated with salts, some grain is raised.  Reese River Valley, Big Smoky Valley, and White River Valley offer fair illustrations of this class.  As compared with the foothill ranches, they are larger and less inconspicuous, as they lie in the wide, unshadowed levels of the plains—­wavy-edged flecks of green in a wilderness of gray.

Still another class equally well defined, both as to distribution and as to products, is restricted to that portion of western Nevada and the eastern border of California which lies within the redeeming influences of California waters.  Three of the Sierra rivers descend from their icy fountains into the desert like angels of mercy to bless Nevada.  These are the Walker, Carson, and Truckee; and in the valleys through which they flow are found by far the most extensive hay and grain fields within the bounds of the State.  Irrigating streams are led off right and left through innumerable channels, and the sleeping ground, starting at once into action, pours forth its wealth without stint.

But notwithstanding the many porous fields thus fertilized, considerable portions of the waters of all these rivers continue to reach their old deathbeds in the desert, indicating that in these salt valleys there still is room for coming farmers.  In middle and eastern Nevada, however, every rill that I have seen in a ride of three thousand miles, at all available for irrigation, has been claimed and put to use.

It appears, therefore, that under present conditions the limit of agricultural development in the dry basin between the Sierra and the Wahsatch has been already approached, a result caused not alone by natural restrictions as to the area capable of development, but by the extraordinary stimulus furnished by the mines to agricultural effort.  The gathering of gold and silver, hay and barley, have gone on together.  Most of the mid-valley bogs and meadows, and foothill rills capable of irrigating from ten to fifty acres, were claimed more than twenty years ago.