EXPERIMENTS IN ALASKA. 91 



who, comparing conditions in Alaska with those of the great 

 Mississippi Valley or the Pacific Coast region of Washington, 

 Oregon, and California, see nothing possible for Alaskan agri- 

 culture. Should the comparison be made with Norway, Sweden 

 and Finland, which lie between the same parallels of latitude as 

 Alaska, and where dwell more than 10,000,000 inhabitants, the 

 contrast would not be so great and the possibility of agriculture 

 along similar lines would seem more probable. 



TJic President — The paper is now open for discussion. 



Dr. Britton — I am interested in Dr. Evans' discussion of the con- 

 ditions in Alaska. I would like to ask him in regard to the strawberries, 

 if they both belong to the same genus. 



Dr. Evans — I have not seen the one from the interior, but the one 

 we have has seven leaves instead of five leaves. In the ordinary form of 

 strawberry, there are five leaves. 



The President — This paper of Dr. Evans' is very interesting to me, 

 particularly for my sympathy with Alaska. I think it is a disgrace for the 

 United States Government, that Alaska has been so shamefully neglected, 

 and I hear with delight the work that Dr. Evans there has been doing 

 in the establishment of an Agricultural Experiment Station, because it 

 will lead to something more, and Alaska may be given, in process of time, 

 by our Congress, a regular territorial government. The neglect of Alaska 

 has affected all these interests in a great many ways. When we are 

 considering the subject that Dr. Evans has given to us, we run right 

 into Mr. Hick's field, of the thermal lines affecting the field of moisture. 

 When this country purchased Alaska from Russia, we knew, if possible, 

 less about it then than we do to-day, and the matter of the Pacific 

 currents was not understood at all, and it was all that far-off region 

 that nobody knew anything about, but the fact is that the Pacific current 

 affects the climate of Alaska' as the Atlantic current affects the climate of 

 Europe and every part of Norway on the other side of the Atlantic, and 

 we cannot judge by the latitude in this matter. I think, right along the 

 line of discussion of this conference, it is possible to produce a variety 

 of grains and of vegetables that will be adapted to that climate, or that 

 latitude and that climate rather, and Alaska with its vast forest interests 

 is worth a hundred times more than we paid for the whole territory. The 

 gold mines and other mining interests are of very great value, and they 

 should have an agriculture suited to their climate, as will assist all these 

 other industries, that they may have community of interests there, without 

 which you cannot have real development and progress anywhere. You 

 cannot hang people on one peg or stand them on one stick. They have 

 got to have foundations reaching around to every side, and this matter 

 that Dr. Evans has presented is a matter of vast importance to that ter- 

 ritory. 



