agricultural register for the benefit of the experiment stations. This register contains the names of scientists who are engaged in agricultural work or who desire to so engage. This assists the stations when they desire to recruit their staffs.

The growth of the agricultural colleges causes constant reorganization. Sometimes the reorganization does not keep pace with the increase of duties and the directors and deans become overburdened. This necessitates the appointment of inexperienced investigators. Consequently, the office is called upon to urge adequate provision for station administration and to take a larger part than usual in relation to the projects.

Coördination of a National System of Research. To conserve the federal appropriations, it is necessary to prevent needless duplication of research in the several state experiment stations. To achieve this end, the Office of Experiment Stations acts as a central agency for the advancement of agricultural investigation, operating through correspondence, publications, and direct relations. It keeps a card index of experiment station literature to furnish a systematic record of agricultural investigation, and issues a comprehensive list of station projects in operation throughout the country. This gives the stations familiarity with the research work that is being pursued in the various institutions. Through calls upon the Office for information upon special subjects, they are able to keep in touch with the world's literature of agricultural science.

The Office attempts to stimulate progressive research as a national system in the several state experiment stations. Each station can accordingly advance some project of research that may not be attempted in any other institution. Thus the New Jersey experiment stations might study the utilization of various soils, while the Alabama institutions might experiment with cotton and sugar cane, the University of Minnesota might investigate grain and dairy products, Colorado Agricultural College might determine the potentialities of the irrigated sugar beet, and the University of California might develop semi-tropical fruits. Or, these same institutions might investigate different aspects of the same research project. Combining the results of their studies, they contribute to the national development of the science with a minimum of duplication. For instance, in one year thirty-six experiment stations gave special attention to soils with particular

reference to their geology, physics, and chemistry, and their reactions to fertilizers. Twenty-one stations studied questions relating to such matters as drainage and seepage, irrigation in the field and in the greenhouse, and problems in connection with orchards and gardens. Thirty-three stations made analyses of fertilizers or conducted field experiments with fertilizers. Fortyseven stations investigated the composition of feeding stuffs, made digestion experiments, conducted feeding experiments for milk, beef, mutton, or pork, or studied different methods of feeding. Twenty-nine stations investigated subjects relating to dairying, including either the chemistry and bacteriology of milk, of creaming, or butter making, or the building and management of creameries. Fourteen stations studied the nutrition and metabolism of man. Fifty-two stations did chemical work. Forty-seven stations made botanical studies, with special reference to the diseases of plants, the classification of weeds, and the testing of seeds. Fiftythree stations worked in horticulture and tested varieties of vegetables and fruits. Thirty-six stations investigated injurious insects with a view to their destruction. Twenty-four stations were concerned with methods for the prevention or cure of diseases of animals. Five stations engaged in bee culture. Eight stations experimented with poultry. Ten stations made special studies of problems relating to climatic conditions and meteorological phenomena.

Miscellaneous investigations included the technology of olive oil and vinegar, the preservation of fruits, the manufacture of sugar from beets, cane, sorghum, and maple, oyster culture, the draft of farm implements, and the principles of road making. Several stations undertook operations in forestry, and all of the stations studied the more important crops.

Administration of Experiment Stations in Alaska. The five experiment stations in Alaska are distributed at least 250 miles apart so as to serve the scattered agricultural population and to develop the wide range of soils in the nearly 600,000 square miles of territory under the varied climates. The main headquarters station at Sitka is devoted principally to horticulture. As to the branch stations, the work at Rampart in the Yukon Valley pertains to plant breeding and grain culture. Kodiak experiments with cattle. The Matanuska station, which is fortunately located on the railroad

from Seward to Fairbanks, has the advantage of about seven hundred homesteads with which to coöperate, while the Fairbanks station is closely associated with the grain planters. In the future these stations may develop relations with the Alaska College, which was authorized by the territorial legislature in 1917 and established near Fairbanks in 1922. The principal activities of the stations relate to the improvement and adaptation to Alaskan environment of domestic animals, grain, vegetables, fruits, and flowers; and the development of extension work among the farmers, especially those farmers who have abandoned vocations in the mines and fisheries for agriculture.

Experiment Work of the Stations. The adaptation of animals and plants to Alaskan conditions is accomplished by testing introductions from other countries and by cross-breeding the hardy native stocks with the more productive cultivated ones. In this work the Alaskan experiment stations have disproven the popular delusion that Alaska is climatically and economically inhospitable for the settled occupations.

Without trespassing upon the work of the Reindeer Service, the stations have introduced the hardy Galloway cattle and crossbred them with the milk-producing Holsteins; and attempts have been made to cross them with the native yaks. The stations must segregate the chronic tubercular subjects and breed calves from the slightly tubercular cows by hand rearing the calves on pasteurized milk. Experiments at one of the stations has proved that tuberculosis may be eradicated under Alaska conditions. The acclimatization of various breeds of sheep to Alaska has been accomplished; hog raising and poultry raising experiments were begun in 1913; and the introduction of Toggenbury goats has proceeded with some success.

Coincident with the adaptation of animals to Alaska must proceed the adaptation of those cereals upon which the domesticated stock must subsist. The experiment stations have accordingly attempted to ascertain whether hay and grain can be grown in the interior of Alaska. Both Siberian alfalfa and Turkestan alfalfa have been introduced. The breeding qualities of grain is tested, and successful crosses have been made with certain varieties of barley. The growing of rye and of wheat has been successful in localities where the normal growing season is only about 110 days.

Oats have been an important home grown crop. These experiments in the adaptation of grains proved so successful that a threshing machine was introduced in 1912, and a coöperative flour mill was later purchased in 1921 for erection at Fairbanks. Through a coöperative arrangement with the Tulon Agricultural Station in Siberia, many exchanges of seeds have been made between the Alaskan and Siberian stations, their problems being common to a great extent. Most of the Siberian grain seeds have been tried out at the interior Alaskan stations.

Due largely to the work of the Office of Experiment Stations the native food for the population of Alaska is no longer limited to meat and cereals. Sixty varieties of potatoes have been tested, and the commercial possibilities of these crops have been investigated. Other acclimatization tests have been made of such vegetables as turnips, radishes, and sugar beets, as well as of the more delicate plants like cabbages, cauliflowers, and peas. When experiments in the acclimatization or the development of new varieties or strains of cereals prove successful at the stations, seeds are distributed to the farmers, who grow the grain, report on its adaptability, and return to the station a quantity of their crop equal to the amount of the seed which they obtained. The seeds thereby obtain a wide trial in acclimatization, as hundreds of farmers cooperate in this matter, and the work increases as the settlers increase or as the men leave the mines and fisheries for agriculture and stock raising. Through this activity, more than five thousand bushels of grain were grown near Fairbanks in 1919.

Corresponding to the increase of community and sedentary life is the need of fruits and the lighter foods. Consequently, early efforts were made to determine what berries and fruits were adaptable to Alaska. Much attention was given to the strawberry. In 1910 nearly two hundred hybrid strawberry plants were constantly under observation. The wild species of the interior and of the coast were hybridized with some commercial varieties received from the States with encouraging success. Thousands of other hybrid strawberry plants were cultivated in 1921, and some of them proved hardy within sixty-five miles of the arctic circle. Experiments with the larger bush berries were attempted. Studies were made of varieties of wild and cultivated currants and gooseberries, and successful adaptations were made almost everywhere that they were tried, and successful results were obtained

with hybrids of raspberries and salmon-berries. Attempts have been made to introduce the cultivated cherries and to hybridize the native crab-apple with the early varieties of apple from the Northern states. Samples of these bush fruits and grafted apple trees are distributed to settlers who apply for them. To render this work more effective a horticultural nursery has been established.

The farms of Alaska are afforded an additional tone of permanence by the development of esthetic plants. Among the flowers that have been gradually adjusted to the northern environment are the Tartarian honeysuckle and the Japanese rose.

In this work of acclimatization of animals and plants, the experiment stations are in constant coöperation with the local inhabitants, with various other government services, and with foreign agencies. To the farmers are distributed thousands of fruit trees annually, besides fruit bushes, small plants, and great quantities of seeds. Prevention of cruciferous plant destruction by root maggots is attempted. Coöperation with the territorial authorities in the examination of tubercular cattle is effective; over six hundred being examined in 1920.

While extension work for the Alaskan and insular stations was not provided for in the Smith-Lever Act, efforts have been made by the Office of Experiment Stations to foster it locally. The popularization of the results of experiments was begun in Alaska in 1916, and efforts are made to increase the amount of extension work among the farmers, especially among those who were formerly miners or fishermen and have but little knowledge of farming and might return to the States unless they succeed in agriculture. Coöperation with the Forest Service has resulted in successful experiments with basket willows, and the assistance of the Alaskan Engineering Commission has been effective. The Kodiak station had an unusual problem in the region near the Mt. Katmai volcano, which was in eruption in 1911, leaving hundreds of acres of good land under ashes. It attempted to determine the possibility of raising crops of hay and cereals on this land, and has treated the terrain in such a way as to achieve that end.

Administration of Insular Experiment Stations. As all of the insular experiment stations are in tropical climates, their work is in striking contrast to that of the Alaskan stations. Their problems include not only the introduction and adaptation of plants