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.

A majority of these pioneer settlers are plodding Dutchmen, living
content in the back lanes and valleys of Nature; but the high price of
all kinds of farm products tempted many of even the keen Yankee
prospectors, made wise in California, to bind themselves down to this
sure kind of mining. The wildest of wild hay, made chiefly of carices
and rushes, was sold at from two to three hundred dollars per ton on
ranches. The same kind of hay is still worth from fifteen to forty
dollars per ton, according to the distance from mines and comparative
security from competition. Barley and oats are from forty to one
hundred dollars a ton, while all sorts of garden products find ready
sale at high prices.