operating through correspondence, p tions. It keeps a card index of expe furnish a systematic record of agricult a comprehensive list of station proje the country. This gives the stations f work that is being pursued in the va calls upon the Office for information are able to keep in touch with the worl science.

The Office attempts to stimulate national system in the several state station can accordingly advance som may not be attempted in any other i Jersey experiment stations might stud soils, while the Alabama institutions m and sugar cane, the University of M grain and dairy products, Colorado determine the potentialities of the irr University of California might develo these same institutions might investiga same research project. Combining th they contribute to the national develop minimum of duplication. For instan experiment stations gave special attent

n. Twenty-four stations were conprevention or cure of diseases of in bee culture. Eight stations exn stations made special studies of c conditions and meteorological

included the technology of olive tion of fruits, the manufacture of um, and maple, oyster culture, the nd the principles of road making. erations in forestry, and all of the tant crops.

ent Stations in Alaska. The five are distributed at least 250 miles ered agricultural population and to in the nearly 600,000 square miles imates. The main headquarters stally to horticulture. As to the branch n the Yukon Valley pertains to plant odiak experiments with cattle. The fortunately located on the railroad

ACTIVITIES

III

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 proIceeded 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.

cessful at the stations, seeds are o grow the grain, report on its tion a quantity of their crop equal they obtained. The seeds thereby zation, as hundreds of farmers ne work increases as the settlers mines and fisheries for agriculture activity, more than five thousand ar Fairbanks in 1919.

of community and sedentary life ghter foods. Consequently, early e what berries and fruits were tion was given to the strawberry. brid strawberry plants were conwild species of the interior and th some commercial varieties recouraging success. Thousands of vere cultivated in 1921, and some xty-five miles of the arctic circle.

bush berries were attempted. f wild and cultivated currants and ɔtations were made almost everysuccessful results were obtained

attempted. Coöperation with the ter amination of tubercular cattle is effe examined in 1920.

While extension work for the Alas not provided for in the Smith-Lever by the Office of Experiment Statio popularization of the results of expe in 1916, and efforts are made to incr work among the farmers, especially a erly miners or fishermen and have bu and might return to the States unless Coöperation with the Forest Servic experiments with basket willows, and Engineering Commission has been e had an unusual problem in the region which was in eruption in 1911, leavin land under ashes. It attempted to det ing crops of hay and cereals on th terrain in such a way as to achieve th Administration of Insular Experim insular experiment stations are in t is in striking contrast to that of t problems include not only the introdu