REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. LXIX 



COOPERATION OF THE STATIONS WITH THE DEPARTMENT. 



The number and variety of cooperative enterprises between the 

 different Bureaus and Divisions of this Department and the experiment 

 stations have greatly increased during the past year. Progress has 

 also been made in determining the principles on which successful 

 cooperation must be based and the best methods of arranging and con- 

 ducting such cooperation. Without doubt the Department and the 

 stations are now in closer touch than ever before, and through their 

 cooperation important investigations for the benefit of agriculture in 

 many parts of the country 7 have been greatly strengthened. Now that 

 the preliminary questions relating to the organization of these cooper- 

 ative enterprises have been largely settled and the funds which can be 

 devoted to this kind of work have been increased, there will be a 

 further extension of cooperative effort in the immediate future. By 

 this combination of forces the varied national and local needs of our 

 agriculture will be more fully met, and the benefits of agricultural 

 research will be extended to every part of our territory. Thus we 

 shall have a system of agricultural investigation more thorough in its 

 organization and more wide reaching in its scope than exists an} 7 where 

 else, and this vast system for the direct application of the results of 

 scientific inquiry to agricultural practice has been so constituted that 

 every farmer throughout the length and breadth of our land may easily 

 and freely avail himself of whatever information is gained through the 

 researches of this Department and the stations. 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS IN ALASKA. 



Agricultural investigations in Alaska have been continued, with 

 headquarters at Sitka and subsidiary stations at Kenai, on Cook Inlet, 

 and Rampart, in the Yukon Valley- The chief new feature of these 

 investigations during the past year has been the more thorough study 

 of the agricultural possibilities of the interior, especially the Yukon 

 Valley. For this purpose Professor Georgeson, the agent in charge 

 of the Alaska experiment stations, made journeys into the interior 

 during the summers of 1900 and 1901. As the result of the first of 

 these journeys a tract of land on the north side of the Yukon River, 

 directly opposite the town of Rampart, was selected for experimental 

 purposes, and field experiments with rye, barley, oats, wheat, and 

 vegetables were inaugurated. Rye seeded in the fall of 1900 wintered 

 perfectly and was ripe early in August, 1901. Barley sown in the 

 spring of 1901 ripened at the close of that season. Vegetables were 

 largely destroyed by rabbits, and even those which escaped did not 

 grow well in a new soil, confirming previous experience that it requires 

 two or three years in Alaska to get new soil in proper tilth for vege- 

 tables. Vegetables are, however, successfully grown at the Holy 

 Cross Mission and other points in the Yukon Valley. Professor 



