Article May 17, 1900 Issue

Farming in Alaska

Uncle Sam Making Efforts to Develop Its Possibilities.

Boston Transcript

"The future of Alaska as an agricultural region seems just now most promising," said Professor C. C. Georgeson, the government agent in charge of crop experiments in that Arctic province. "We have already made very interesting trials with various food plants at Sitka and Kenai; a start in the same line is being made on the island of Kadiak, and next year one or more stations for similar work are to be established in the interior, where, the conditions being different from those of the coast, special study and investigation are required.

"Agriculture, as the term is understood in the States, has never been practised in Alaska, efforts in that direction being confined to the cultivation of small garden patches for the growing of hardy vegetables—chiefly potatoes and turnips. Two years ago the government started experiment stations at Sitka and Kenai—the latter a small settlement on Cook's Inlet, consisting chiefly of Russians and Indians, which, on the maps, is usually called Fort Kenai, for the reason that United States troops were stationed there for a few years after the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Practically only one year's work has been done at these stations, the business assigned to them consisting chiefly of experimentation with every useful kind of plant that would be likely to grow well in that part of the world.

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