94 HOi^TICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. 



ways becomes wood}'. I found it absolutely impossible to cook it into a 

 tender condition. 



TJic President — It is only a question of having a short season for 

 development. 



Dr. Evans — In the interior, yes. On the coast, they have a climate 

 not as vigorous as here. The fall temperature at Sitka is between that 

 at Washington and Richmond. Many people have an idea it is all snow 

 and ice up there. Last winter, the lowest temperature — the lowest since 

 we have had our station located there — was four degrees below zero. 

 That is, the lowest temperature, at Sitka, has been since 1898, between 

 tliis and ten degrees oi" more above that, but the long summer season 

 has hardly ever a maximum temperature in Sitka along the coast region, 

 of over 80 or 82 des^rees. In the interior, at Copper Centum, we 

 had maximum temperatures of 96^ degrees. We also had a minimum 

 temperature of 70 degrees below zero, but there was a fairly good cover- 

 ing of snow, and it did little damage. In the Yukon Valley, where there 

 is more moisture than in the Copper River valley, the snow has been 

 sufficient to protect the winter sown cereals every year.. The snow falls 

 ordinarily in October, and lays there until the latter part of April, when 

 it goes off with a rush, and then there is a succession of twenty-four 

 hour days of sunshine with an occasional rain to keep things watered 

 until the middle of September, when things begin to meet with frost, and 

 by the ist of November, it is frozen up again, and there has nearly always 

 been during the years we have been located at Rampart sufficient snow to 

 protect the winter cereals. 



The President — Of course, there is one thing that affects vegeta- 

 tion in the Arctic regions that we must always bear in mind, and that is, 

 when you get twenty-four hours of sunshine in a day, you have got some- 

 thing that is aflfecting things in a most potential way. You could not 

 get the vegetation that grows in the Arctic region without it. 



Dr. Evans — I perhaps should have been more conservative in the 

 matter of sunshine, but we do get twenty-two hours of sunshine and 

 twenty-four hours of daylight, from the early part of June until late in 

 Jirly. 



Tlic President — We sometimes, those of us who go up in Canada, 

 find the effect of sunshine which seems to us remarkable. 



Dr. East — I would like to ask what the effect of such an amount of 

 sunshine is on the plant growth, in relation to the amount of darkness? 



Dr. Evans — I don't know, as far as our station is concerned. No 

 investigation has been made along that line. There was one carried on 

 some years ago, in connection with the station in Finland, but the result 

 was rather inconclusive, but it is a subject well worth studying. We know 

 very little about why it is that this longer time will have any effect, 

 except that we suppose that if ten hours will produce a certain result, 

 then twenty hours will do twice as much, but whether it does or not, 

 we are not certain. 



