46 AGRICULTURAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1924. 



Mr. Jump. If a vital emergency should arise and the money woidd 

 need to be expended to protect (iovernment property we woukl be 

 authorized to deal with it as an emergency, and we would also have 

 the benefit of the 10 per cent transfer provision. • 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN ALASKA. 



Mr. Buchanan. AVhat are you doing in Alaska: are you getting 

 any results from these experiment stations^ I have heard various 

 things about them. 



Mr. Evans. The work at the Alaska stations divides itself up into 

 the work at different stations, where we have been carrying on in- 

 vestigations — at Sitka, which represents southeastern Alaska, hoiti- 

 cultural work prevails; at Kodiak, where live-stock experiments are 

 carried on; at Fairbanks. Avliich is in the interior of Alaska, grain 

 growing; at Kampart. on the Yukon. Kiver, where we have found a 

 place exceedingly well adapted to grain breeding investigations; and 

 at Matanuska, which represents the transition point between in- 

 terior Alaska, with its intense winter cold, and the coast region where 

 the temperatures are not so low and where the rainfall is much 

 heavier and foggy weather prevails. At the interior stations I am 

 very sorry to have to report to the committee this year that in spite 

 of the fact that there was a larger acreage planted to wheat and 

 other cereals than ever before, there will be but little grain, as a 

 severe frost on the 27th of August practically dehftroyed it all. The 

 year before — that is, the summer of 1921 — there were 6,000 bushels of 

 grain grown in the vicinity of ^Matanuska. 



Mr. Buchanan. What yield per acre? 



Mr. Evans. Various ranges are reported — in some places as high 

 as 35 bushels i)er acre, dei)ending upon the location, the soil. etc. 

 The average ranged fi-oni 25 to 35 bushels per acre. But the 3.500 

 bushels of wheat grown near Fairbanks in 1U2I was grown by the 

 farmers and not by the station. At the Matanuska station about 

 1,000 bushels of wheat was grown in 1921. The latest advice I had 

 from those stations was that they thought they would save enough 

 for seed purposes this next year, but that there would be very little 

 for milling. 



Mr. BiTCHANAN. Is that the first time you noted frost in August i 



Mr. Evans. That is the first time we have had anything like a 

 great failure of crops since we began work in the interior of Alaska 

 in 1907. There is an ordiiuiry annual average of lOS days without 

 frost. This year it was less than 100. 



Another thing that made the thing worse was the late spi'ing, 

 which was followed by an unusually rainy 'hdy, whii-h kept the 

 grain growing late into the season instead of letting it mature eai'ly, 

 as commonly. 



The other work we are i)utting in at Matanuska and Fairbanks is 

 prosi)ering very well. The development t)f our live-stock herds is 

 making it very essential that we shall have more nu)ney for con- 

 struction of l)uildings and for <'learing and fencing land for pastiu'- 

 a<ie and <rr<)\vin<j; forests. 



