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<br />30 miles. The continual grazing and trampling by the inmense herds of buffalo <br />Probably accounted for the openness of the understory. <br />By 1863, the users of the old Santa Fe Trail had removed practically all <br />of these trees. The resulting cover probably remained herbaceous or shrubby <br />because heavy grazing and other uses would tend to preVent development of a <br />woody tree or shrub cover. <br />In 1913. salt cedar was first reported (7) near Lamar as growing wild. <br />The flood of 1921 started the first extensive spread of this exotic species. <br />After a study of aerial photographs. Bittinger and Stringham (1) estimated <br />an average of 128 acres of phreatophytes per river mile between La Junta and <br />Las Animas in 1936. 154 acres per mile in 1947, and '183 acres per mile in <br />1957. The probable spread of phreatophytes is shown graphically on Figure 1. <br />Field Inspection Trip . <br />On September 26. 1973. Messrs. Beise. Thomson. Horton and Erickson. <br />representing the District; and Mr. Mendenhall. counsel for Shelton Farms, Inc., <br />visited the Shelton property and examined the areas included in the subject <br />application. <br />Examination of the cleared areas and inspection of the 1964 aerials indicate <br />that the vegetation cover was very similar to that described by Bittinger and <br /> <br />Stringham (1), even though that report covered only the area from La Junta to <br /> <br />Las Animas. and did not actually include the Shelton property. <br /> <br />Type Classification <br /> <br />Using the classifications of the Bittinger report (1), the CO'ier tIllS des- <br />cribed in the Augmentation Plan for Shelton Farms of August 23, 1972 as follows: <br />TYPe I - 33.8 acres <br />TYPettI - 68.0 acres <br />Open Water & Marsh ~ 28.0 acres <br />The average vegetation cover for Type I. according to Bittinger and Stringham, <br />was composed of 38...4' salt cedar and 13.9' cottonwood, with sane willow (see <br />Table 1). TypeUI has more salt.cedar (46.S\) with scattered trees (cotton- <br />wood 8.8'). <br />Some areas of the She 1 ton property, from inspection of the aerials, <br />should properly be classified as Type VII, *ich is composed of open herba- <br />ceous cover on bare ground. <br /> <br />-2- <br />