GENERAL REPORT. ll 
horses the range of the taller bunch-grass. Of course, when the land was 
definitely settled, surveyed, and paid for, the proprietor would consult his 
own individual interest. , 
Along our route, the possibilities of agriculture died out as we ap- 
proached Georgetown, though here and there an acre under cultivation 
- showed that the farmer must have received some return for his labor. The 
valleys still furnished a fair quantity and quality of bunch-grass. 
We leave the country between Georgetown and South Park out of the 
question for agricultural purposes. There were, as usual, some beautiful 
summer ranges for herds. One especially, along a tributary of the Snake 
River, was covered with a luxuriant crop of grass. ° The soil, too, was fertile, 
and, but for its altitude, would have produced large crops of the ordinary 
cereals. 
South Park, 8,800 feet above tide-water, so far as known does not 
promise much in the way of grain raising. It has frequent frosts during 
the summer months, and the temperature at the same time is so low as to 
almost inevitably destroy all the cereals. On the morning of July 3, 1873, 
the ground was covered to a depth of two inches with snow as low down as 
the level of Fair Play. Its utmost will probably be accomplished in the way 
of agriculture in the production of turnips, cabbages, and possibly potatoes, 
with other vegetables equally hardy. It will, however, be an important 
grazing ground. Large herds of cattle now roam at large over it. In 1872 
and in 1873, the experiment was tried of wintering the stock in the Park. It 
is asserted that it was successful, and that the herds kept there were in 
better condition in spring than those that had been driven for the winter to 
the valley of the Arkansas. 
The bunch-grasses in the smaller parks toward the mountains are of 
wonderful luxuriance, and will furnish abundant food for many thousand 
head of cattle. Sheep do well on the more level portions of the Park, 
among the shorter grasses. 
The valley of the Upper Arkansas, as we first saw it, twelve miles 
above Twin Lakes, certainly looked like anything but a land of promise. 
Along its central axis, the soil appeared absolutely unproductive, and seemed 
fit to raise nothing but “prickly pears and sage-brush”. Yet we have 
