548 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
COLORADO. 
FORT GARLAND. 
Captain J. MorRISs BRowyN, assistant surgeon, U.S. A., post surgeon, 
reports as follows: 
The forestry of this particular locality is very limited in area, being confined to the 
borders of the streams intersecting the San Luis Valley, and the foot-hills and mount- 
ain-sides. The variety bordering the streams are mainly cottonwood and willow ; and 
on the foot-hills and mountains, pines, pifon, aspen, and cedar, with some scrub oak and 
spruce. Few of these trees attain to any great size excepting the cottonwood and 
some pines, which furnish an inferior quality of building lumber, the other varieties 
furnishing excellent fuel. The drainage of the valley is naturally good and trends 
toward the south and west, the surface being gravel, through which water is reached 
only at a great depth. 
The elevation of the site of this post is given at 7,681 feet above sea-level, and I 
understand that this altitude was ascertained barometrically by a party belonging to 
Wheeler’s expedition, about two or three years ago. The valley has a gradual descent 
toward the south and west to the Rio Grande and the spur of mountains forming the 
southern boundary of the park. On the western side of the river there is a gradual 
rise to the San Juan range of mountains. 
The climate is very dry, the yearly rainfall being very small in amount. For the 
fe two years the rainfall, according to the meteorological register of the post hospital, 
as been as follows, viz: 1875, 11.56 inches; 1876,7.50 inches. 
FORT LYON. 
Colonel C. H. Suitu, Ninteenth Infantry, reports: 
The elevation of this post, as shown by the hospital records, is 3,800 feet altitude; 
is not known how or by whom obtained. The amount of rainfall since 1870 is as fol- 
lows: 1871, 7.67 inches; 1872, 16.97 inches; 1873, 11.58 inches; 1874, 14.58 inches; 
1875, 10 inches; 1876, 9.01 inches; 1877, till ist of October, 9.53 inches. The country 
is rolling prairie, drained by ravines and small streams, which run southeast on the 
north side and northeast on the south side of the main streams into which they flow. 
The forest area in the immediate vicinity of the post is small; in fact, there is no 
timber except what is growing on the banks of the large streams. The timber on the 
Arkansas River, commencing about forty miles east of the post, keeps increasing in 
size and area as you approach the mountains; but it is principally composed of scrub 
cottonwood, confined to the banks and islands of the river, and fit for nothing but 
fuel, until you arrive west of the Pueblo, when the pine makes its appearance. 
The Purgatoire River, which flows into the Arkansas about one mile west of the 
post, is still better timbered with cottonwood than the latter, and its timber area in- 
creases aS you approach the headwaters in the Raton Mountains, where some cedar is 
found. 
The only large and valuable timber area in the near vicinity commences about sey- 
enty-five miles west of here, and is between this point and Denver, on a spur of the 
mountains known as the Divide. This is said to embrace thousands of acres ef pine 
timber, from which valuable lumber is sawed and hauled to Pueblo on the south and 
the Kansas Pacific Railroad on the north. 
FORESTRY PROPER OF THE COLORADO VALLEY. 
(Extract from report of Lieut. A. G. Tarsin, Twelfth United States Infantry.) 
First in order comes the scanty vegetation of the dry, sandy, and gravelly sides of 
the basin between the river-bottoms and the base of the mountain ranges forming the 
apex or upper edge. 
This is composed of the Larrea Mexicana, the Echinocactus cylindraceus, and Atriplex, 
with here and there an isolated specimen of the Yucca brevifolia, or cactus palm, ap- 
pearing principally in the ‘‘ washes,” which will be described further on. 
As a general rule the vegetation, scanty at best, is always more plentiful and of a 
higher order in these depressions of the soil than in the higher and general plane of 
the surrounding country. 
