EXPERIMENTS.

Detailed accounts of the experiments at each station are submitted herewith. At the Copper Center Station the main aim has been grain growing. To this end all the hardy, early maturing varieties of small grain that we have been able to produce have been grown. Experiinents to ascertain the effect of fish guano as a fertilizer on the growth of these grains have been under way. Some grasses and forage plants have been grown, and also a small amount of the common hardy vegetables.

The experiments at the Kenai Station may be said to be in a transition stage from that of grain growing to dairy work. The summers are too cool at Kenai for grain growing, but stock feed can be grown in any quantity. We have four milch cows now at the station, and it is hoped that we can increase this number to a dozen or more and to supply the station with the necessary utensils to run a small dairy. Mr. Ross has made a little butter, which he reports to be of fine quality. The farm was seeded to grain under various forms of fertilizer experiments, but since the grain failed to mature and had to be cut for hay no conclusions can be drawn, except the broad general statement that fertilizers stimulate the growth in a large degree.

The Rampart Station has been and will be devoted wholly to the problems involved in grain growing, with such horticultural efforts as it may be practicable to undertake.

The experiments at the Sitka Station have in the main consisted in testing the growth of varieties of fruits which give promise of some degree of success. To this end nursery stock of many varieties and from several sources has been procured. The tests are confined to early maturing sorts, the stock selected being from nurseries in the coldest regions in the United States. An attempt is being made to propagate raspberries and currants for distribution, which have done well here. Several thousand apple seedlings, grown from selected hardy varieties, have been procured from the Minnesota Experiment Station. These will be used partly for propagation and partly to send out over the Territory before propagation to test their hardiness.

Fertilizer experiments proved that the soil needs lime, though they were inconclusive in other respects owing to the crops failing.

GRASS INVESTIGATIONS.

In compliance with the suggestion made in my last report that specialists in the Department could cooperate with us in scientific investigations, Prof. C. V. Piper, of the office of the Agrostologist, Bureau of Plant Industry, made a trip of two months' duration along

the coast region from Sitka to Unalaska for the purpose of investigating which species of grasses and forage plants are of practical value in that region, to determine the value of the grazing lands, and to make collections of the flora. Professor Piper's report is submitted herewith. It covers very satisfactorily the ground he has gone over. But there are still extensive regions in the Territory in which no investigations of that character have been made. Numerous inquiries reach this station about the grazing conditions in the Aleutian Islands. There is but little definite knowledge on the subject, and no one connected with the station can spare the time to spend a summer among these islands. It will take a full season's work, considering the lack of transportation facilities along the islands, and the work can not be done except by special provision for the use of a boat. If arrangements could be made with the Navy Department to secure one of the navy launches, used in connection with the building of the coaling station on Kiska Island, it would be very desirable. There are also stretches of pasture lands in the interior, which it will take two seasons to investigate fully. I therefore recommend that this work be continued and suggest that it can not be placed in better hands than those of Professor Piper.

ENTOMOLOGICAL WORK NEEDED.

No entomological investigations have been made in Alaska. The station receives frequent complaints of injurious insects attacking garden vegetables, and as there is no entomologist connected with the station it would be very desirable if arrangements could be made with the Department by which an expert from the Bureau of Entomology could be detailed to spend a season in Alaska.

INTRODUCTION OF CATTLE.

Professor Piper refers with some detail to the efforts that are being made at stock raising as a commercial enterprise, and it is not necessary to dwell on it further than to renew the recommendation made in former reports that an appropriation be made for the introduction of breeds suitable to the climatic conditions prevailing in the Territory. The cattle which are now here are not well adapted either to the wet weather of the coast or the cold weather of the interior. The writer believes that the Government would confer a lasting benefit on the Territory by introducing the Galloway breed of cattle and such hardy sheep as the Black-faced Scotch. For dairy purposes a strain of milking Shorthorns will be better adapted to the country than the Jerseys or Jersey grades, which are at present most common.

TEACHING GARDENING TO THE INDIANS.

The writer ventures to renew his recommendation that steps should be taken to teach vegetable growing to the natives of Alaska. They are slowly acquiring a taste for vegetables, and their demands for seed are yearly more numerous. They know nothing about the culture of plants aside from potatoes and turnips. Instead of feeding them with rations it will be cheaper to send an instructor in gardening to visit the principal villages, supply them with seed, give practical instruction in their culture, and perhaps maintain model gardens for a few years. It will cost less than to supply them with food, and the Indians will be better off in the end.

REPORT OF C. V. PIPER ON THE GRAZING LANDS OF THE SOUTH ALASKA COAST AND THEIR POSSIBLE UTILIZATION.

The following is a report of investigations made during the summer of 1904, in which the Alaska Experiment Station, through the Office of Experiment Stations, cooperated with the Bureau of Plant Industry, represented by the office of the Agrostologist.

ITINERARY.

Acting under instructions from the Agrostologist, I arrived at Sitka July 14, where three days were spent in consultation with Professor Georgeson regarding the scope of the proposed investigations and in acquiring such available data as would aid in the work. July 15 an excursion to the head of Skwashianski Bay made possible an examination of the small area of meadow lands there, which are said to be fairly typical of similar lands in southeastern Alaska. Leaving Sitka July 16, I arrived in Kadiak July 24, touching en route at Yakutat, Kayak, Orca, Ellamar, Valdez, Seward, Seldovia, Homer, Aurora, and Innerskin Bay, at most of which places opportunity was offered for a brief examination of the shore.

Six days were spent on Kadiak Island, mostly in the vicinity of Womens Bay, where a Seattle company has entered extensively into the raising of sheep and cattle.

Proceeding westward July 30, Unalaska was reached August 4. On this route, both going and returning, brief stops, varying from one to twelve hours, were made at Uyak, Karluk, Cold Bay, Chignik, Unga, Sandpoint, Bellkofski, Unimak Pass, and Dutch Harbor. Though these stops were brief, they enabled me at most places to make a survey of the neighboring lands.

August 10 I was again in Kadiak, and on the following day reached Seldovia, on Cook Inlet.

In order to examine the Kenai peninsula, and especially Kachemak Bay, the site of the proposed Finnish colony, it was necessary to travel by sloop, a slow but fairly satisfactory mode of progress. Eight days were thus spent, visiting Homer, Aurora, Port Axel, the Finnish colony site, Anchor Point, Ninilchuck, Kussilof, and Kenai. Leaving Seldovia August 23, Yakutat was reached on August 29, touching en route most of the places visited while going west. Five days were spent near Yakutat examining the surrounding region, and especially the flat meadow lands lying along the Ankou and Setuck rivers. September 4 Sitka was again reached.

INTRODUCTION.

The south Alaska coast from Portland Canal, its extreme southeastern inlet, in longitude 130° W., to Unalaska, in longitude 166° W., forms almost a semicircle, its diameter being the fifty-fourth parallel, and its most northern points, Valdez and Tyonook, lying just north of the sixty-first parallel. The total length of this stretch of coast, ignoring bays and inlets, is about 2,000 miles.

Officially, the region from Mount St. Elias, longitude 141° W., southeastward is designated southeastern Alaska. Westward of Mount St. Elias the coast region forms southwestern Alaska.

From a biological standpoint, Cook Inlet forms a much more natural point of division. Eastward from this inlet the land is for the most part densely covered with timber, while to the westward the lands are mainly grass covered and devoid of timber.

Of the islands to the westward of Unalaska little is known from the standpoint of agriculture, no examination with this end in view ever having been made.

The total area of the grass lands of the south Alaska coast approximates 10,000 square miles. Nearly all of this lies between Cook Inlet and Unalaska. Of this total area at least one-half would seem to be capable of utilization. Much of this last is covered with tall and rank grasses, often 6 feet high. The remainder, lying in more exposed situations or at higher elevation, produces grasses that are too short for hay cutting, but furnish splendid pasturage.

GRAZING LANDS OF SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA.

THE YAKUTAT PLAINS.

The only extensive areas of grass lands known in southeastern Alaska are those lying in the river valleys near the coast south of Yakutat. Inasmuch as these lands have been several times referred to in reports, and as they are now in part accessible owing to the building of the Yakutat and Southern Railway, a careful examination was made of them. This railway has been built primarily to tap the several rich salmon streams flowing into the ocean south of

Yakutat, it being impracticable to fish them by approach from the ocean. The railway, which is projected to be built to the Alsek River, a distance of 45 miles, at present is built only to the Setuck River, 10 miles from Yakutat.

Practically the whole of this region is an old glacial moraine composed of fine gravel, which slopes very gently to the seashore. The land close to the seashore is somewhat higher than that lying behind and is heavily timbered. Owing to this strip of higher land, most of the streams flow parallel with the coast for some distance near their debouchments. It is along the valleys of these streams that the grass lands lie, but owing to the flatness of the land and the slight elevation above the sea level they are very poorly drained, notwithstanding the gravelly nature of the soil.

Traveling along these rivers in a canoe one receives the impression that the grass is tall and rank on these flat lands. This, in fact, is the case on a very narrow strip just along the river banks, where there is fine growth of bluetop (Calamagrostis langsdorfii) and sedge (Carex cryptocarpa). This strip of tall grass is, however, nearly always confined to the immediate banks of the rivers. The great mass of the land is covered with a thin layer of bog moss, which supports but a scant vegetation of grass and sedges less than a foot high. It is a conservative statement to say that fully 80 per cent of these Yakutat grass lands are thus scantily grassed. Apart from this meager amount of grass, which practically precludes the cutting of winter forage, another serious difficulty presents itself in the fact that poison parsnip (Cicuta douglasii) occurs quite plentifully over all the land that is the least boggy, which, as before stated, is 80 per cent of the area. Thus, even if these meadows were used for grazing, great care would need to be exercised in the spring, when grass is scanty and the sweet but very poisonous tubers of this plant are frequently forced to the surface by the frost.

While the above statements are true concerning the Yakutat meadows as a whole, there are small areas which are exceptional. For example, along the lower Ankou occurs a narrow strip of several hundred acres well grassed with silvertop (Deschampsia cæspitosa) and beach rye (Elymus mollis) and free from Cicuta. Care would need to be exercised in utilizing even this, as the surrounding boggy lands bear an abundance of poison parsnip.

Again, the strip of land lying just within the ocean dunes is often well grassed with beach rye and red fescue (Festuca rubra).

A particularly good area of arable land lies along the railway where it reaches the Setuck River. This consists of 3 or 4 square miles of gravelly, well-drained, level land, at present looking much like a run-out meadow. It is apparently very well adapted to such cultivated grasses as smooth brome and tall meadow oat grass, It