Evolution of Agriculture in This Valley Chapter I

During my lifetime, there has been many changes in the agriculture practices in the Valley I grew up in. The period of time in this discussion is between the years 1952 and 1960. 

In 1958 the majority of the ranches in the Valley were livestock focused. There were three small family owned dairies as well as multiple sheep and cattle operations. The balance of the operations were hay, small grain, and row crop farms. The row crops included potatoes, onions, and possibly garlic for seed. I am not exactly sure when the first seed garlic was grown, but before 1960.

The diaries were owned by the Terrell, Alpers, and Settlemeyer families. They shipped their milk to small creamery operators here in Western Nevada. Prior to the bulk shipping they separated the cream from the milk and shipped the cream in ten gallon milk cans to a butter company in Minden, Nevada. They all raised pigs so they could feed the skim milk to them.  The skim was mixed with ground alfalfa and ground wheat or barley. I am sure that is where I learned the term:"Slop the Hogs". The market for the pigs was a small abattoir that did the processing and curing 35 miles away in Minden.

Three large sheep enterprises were based here. Members of the Fulstone, Annette (Day), and Compston families operated them. They all had lambing sheds for protection of the newborn lambs and corrals made from willows. The willow corrals were about twelve inches in width, with stacks of willow horizontally placed between juniper posts. They were great wind breaks as well as fences. I still am in awe at the amount of labor hours it took to build these structures. Some are still standing. There is only one of them still operating, and it is still in the same Fulstone family.

There were many cattle operations in the area. Some were quite large and others were smaller. The smaller operators often raised multiple species of farm animals both for their own use and to sell. The larger operators brought their cattle to this Valley in the late Fall. They were fed hay during the winter as well as grazed native pastures and developed land. The smaller operations kept their livestock in the Valley year around, while the larger ones moved them to private and public grazing in the higher elevations. They were trailed there in large groups, cattle drives. I have fond memories of the drives in the Spring and Fall. 

Row crop farms raising onions and potatoes were nearly all owned and operated by Italian immigrant families. Nuti, Giovacchini, Lommori, Saroni, Fenili, Petroni, Cardoni, Acciari, and Rosaschi families were all row croppers. Many of their families still live here and have businesses. They had  large cellars that they stored them in after harvest. Many of the cellars were built with lodge pole pine harvested from the Sweetwater Mountains, just south of the Valley. Lumber was available from small local sawmills that harvested pine and fir in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Some of the roofs were built by laying willows over the rafters and purlins, and then a layer of straw covered with sheet metal. They graded and sorted the onions and potatoes and shipped them in 100 lb burlap bags. Many of the workers were Native Americans from the Paiute-Shoshone tribes that lived here.

More to the story in series of blogs to come.