246 KEPOKT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



The experiment simply proves in an emphatic way a fact which I 

 have endeavored to point out in every report, namely, that new cleared 

 and broken land is unproductive unless it is fertilized. It seems to 

 lack available plant food, and it does not become productive until, by 

 cultivation and exposure to the air, the inert plant food becomes 

 available. 



Prospectors and others who clear a piece of new ground and scatter 

 a few seed are very generally disappointed in the result, and as a rule 

 the}^ blame the climate for their failure. The trouble lies in the fact 

 here noted more than with the climate. 



OATS AND PEAS. 



All the new ground which was cropped for the first time this season 

 was seeded to oats and peas. Fish guano at the rate of 300 pounds 

 per acre was sown broadcast after the ground was plowed, and the 

 grain was also broadcasted. Oats and peas mixed were grown, partly 

 because we have found that no other crop does as well on new, raw 

 ground, and partly because the crop was needed for feed. The crop 

 was uneven in stand and in growth, as it alwa} T s is the first year or 

 two on new ground, but on the whole it was quite satisfactory. The 

 seed was not of selected varieties, but common oats and field peas, 

 such as are offered for sale for feed. Seedings were made at several 

 times from the first to the middle of June as the ground was gotten 

 ready. We began cutting thef crop for feed in the middle of Septem- 

 ber, and from that date until the 2d of November it was fed daily to 

 the work oxen. The oats in the early seedings matured. 



BUCKWHEAT. 



Orenborg. — The station was supplied with a small quantity of seed 

 which had been imported from Russia by the United States Department 

 of Agriculture. A small plat was seeded May 22 on new ground. 

 June 15 there was a good stand, but it had made but little growth, 

 and the same applies to the condition July 1. On July 18 it was i2 

 inches high and blooming profusely. On August 1 the earliest blos- 

 soms had formed seed and it continued to bloom profusely. August 

 15 the first-formed grain began to harden. It was ripe September 5. 

 This variety of buckwheat and also a so-called Finnish buckwheat, 

 likewise imported by the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 can be grown successfully in Alaska. But Japanese buckwheat and 

 Silver Hull buckwheat, favored varieties in the States, have quite gen- 

 erally been failures at the Alaska stations. 



FLAX. 



Riga. — A small plat of new ground was seeded to flax of this variety 

 in order to test the soil rather than the flax. The same variety was 



