6 The Ohio Journal of Science [Vol. XIX, No. 1, 



their branches were still heavily laden with ash, bending them 

 down against the ground (see page 48). 



The officials of the Experiment Station and of the Kodiak 

 Baptist Orphanage were attempting to grow a crop of oats 

 to provide ensilage enough to keep their cattle alive over the 

 winter. We felt it our duty to encourage them in this effort, 

 but in reality the prospect seemed very gloomy to us. Well 

 do I remember debating with one of the citizens whether the 

 country would ever come back to its original condition. He, 

 with the vividness of his memory of things as they had been 

 before the eruption, was pessimistic, but I, with the knowledge 

 that the ash would probably be beneficial after it was incor- 

 porated with the soil, reassured him with the prediction that in 

 ten years vegetation would begin to come back in some 

 abundance. 



THE MARVELOUS RECOVERY OF VEGETATION. 



But during the second and third years the old roots sent 

 up new growth through the ash layer in such profusion as to 

 completely upset even the most optimistic of predictions. 

 When I landed in June 1915, despite the reports I had received, 

 I could not believe my eyes. It was not the same Kodiak that 

 I had left two years before. The mountains were everywhere 

 green with their original verdure. The character of the change 

 is indicated by the pictures on pages 4, 5 and 7 better than it 

 could be by any description. Where before had been barren ash 

 was now rich grass as high as one's head. Everyone agrees 

 that the eruption was "the best thing that ever happened to 

 Kodiak." In the words of our hotel keeper, "Never was any 

 such grass before, so high or so early. No one ever believed 

 that the country could grow so many berries, nor so large, before 

 the ash. " 



I had come to Kodiak to study the revegetation, but I found 

 my problem vanished in an accomplished fact. The revegeta- 

 tion which I had hoped to study at Kodiak had given place 

 to a remarkable recovery of the antecedent plants, transferring 

 the problem of revegetation proper to the more deeply buried 

 country near the Volcano. 



