ami yit'lil more fruit than thoy do in rojrions oast of tho Rocky 

 Mountains. It is planned to test as many varieties of these as can be 

 obtained at sli<rht cost, in order to determine what sorts do best. 



Stra\vi)erries have been only a partial success at the Sitka Station. 

 The cultivated varieties so far introduced have been winterkilled, 

 not, indeed, as the result of cold weather, but by repeated freezings 

 and thawin<rs. which caused the plants to be hea\i'd out of the -oil, 

 even when protected l)y a covering of spruce boughs. In some places 

 strawberry culture is (piite successful, as, for instance, at points on 

 Prince of Wales Island, at Killisnoo. and in some gardens at Skag- 

 way. The native Alaskan strawberry has been brought under culti- 

 vation, and though it grows well it is found to produce vwy little 

 fruit. Ktl'orts will be made to produce hybrids between this native 

 berry and some of the cultivated varieties. In this connection I will 

 mention that we succeeded last year in cross-fertilizing the cultivated 

 raspberry with the salmon berry {RnhuK s-pecfahil/s) . which grows 

 wild throughout the coast region. The two plants do not bloom at 

 the same time, the salmon berry being out of bloom before the rasp- 

 berry begins. To overcome this we planted raspberry bushes in 

 boxes and kept them in the greenhouse, and the periods of V)looming 

 of the two wei«e thus adjusted to correspond to eacli other. 



In the line of vegetable growing efforts were directed chiefly to 

 potatoes, cabbage, and cauliflower, though small beds of all the hardy 

 vegetables were grown. The work will be continued. The soil on 

 which these tests were made is new and raw, the best soil having been 

 given over to the nursery work. A piece of new ground in front 

 of the cottage has been grubbed and drained. This has, how'ever, 

 only proceeded when time could be spared from the cultivated 

 ground. It is not completed and will be continued as time and 

 means may permit. 



BURNING LIME. 



For the purpose of procuring lime to apply to the land at less cost 

 than it can be purchased in the local markets, we have tried the 

 ex'periment of quarrying limestone from a ledge of that material 

 located some 14 miles from Sitka. The launch and scow belonging 

 to the station were used for hauling the rock home, where it was 

 burned. It w^as impracticable to burn it at the quarry because the 

 frequent rains would slack the burned lime, and it was out of the 

 question to build a rain-proof shelter. The experiment was a suc- 

 cess so far as it went. Good, active quicklime was made, and the fuel 

 used consisted mostly of roots and stumps from the clearings. The 

 labor involved is considerable, however, and in the absence of a lime- 

 kiln, which it would not pay to build, only a little over half of the 

 rock w^as burned sufficiently each time. Two methods of piling the 



