Undifferentiated Stream and Lake Bottoms 



This type is found along the Missouri River and Arrow 

 Creek. The distinguishing species along the Missouri River 

 are willow and cottonwood. Other common species are rose, 

 big sagebrush, silver sagebrush, rabbitbrush, common snow- 

 berry, silver buf f aloberry , western wheatgrass, bluegrass, 

 cheatgrass brome, needle-and-thread, blue grama, saltgrass, 

 lambsquarter goosefoot, sunflower, stickseed and plantain. 

 Much of this type is overgrazed, and a large portion of the 

 best land has been withdrawn for farming. 



H istory and Land Use 



Man has left evidence of his presence in the study area since 

 the paleo Indian inhabitation of North America. Indian tribes 

 used this area for hunting grounds for centuries and had exclusive 

 use of it until the white man arrived. Lewis and Clark's explora- 

 tory trip up the Missouri River in 1805-1806 gave the first impor- 

 tant record of the area. The country remained relatively unchanged 

 until the 1860 's as trappers and traders, exploiting the rich fur 

 trade, were the only white men residing in the area. The Missouri 

 River was used as their highway and it became more important as a 

 transportation route when heavy immigration to Montana came with 

 the discovery of gold in the 1860 's. The cattleman also arrived 

 in the 1860 's and became a dominant force in the development of 

 the territory when the mines became exhausted. In the 1880 's 

 farmers began to arrive and take up homesteads. The Missouri 

 River died out as a major transportation route when the railroads 

 arrived. The study area changed rapidly during the close of the 

 1800 's and the beginning of the 1900 's as more farmers arrived and 

 began farming the native grasslands. Livestock raising continued 

 to be the dominant land use practice on lands that were deemed un- 

 suitable for farming. The changes in the 1900 's in the western 

 half of the study area can best be compared with that of Chouteau 

 County. In 1925, 411,661 acres of land were cultivated in Chouteau 

 County (Figure 6). By 1967, Chouteau County, which is predomi- 

 nantly private land, Table 1, had 1,102,263 acres of land classi- 

 fied as cropland (Table 1) . Since 1967 more rangeland has been 

 converted into cropland and now dryland farming has taken in most 

 of the plains and divides (Figure 7) . The eastern half of the 

 study area is different, as it is predominantly public land. Here, 

 livestock grazing has remained the primary land use on both public 

 and private lands. However, each year farming continues to ex- 

 pand as more rangeland is converted to cropland. In summary, in 

 the past 100 years the land use of the study area has changed from 

 undisturbed native grassland prairies and rough breaks, which 

 supported large wildlife populations, to an area of intensive 

 small grain agriculture on the prairies and intensive livestock 

 grazing in the rough rangelands and which now supports much less 

 wildl i fe . 



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