254 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



Juneau and Left to be forwarded to Sitka by the next mail boat. It 

 takes, therefore, two months to get a reply from the Kenai Station. 

 It would be greatly to the convenience of our work if the mail boat 

 could stop at Kenai on her return from Tyonek, and stop at Sitka on! 

 her way to Seattle. 



report of h. p. nielsen, superintendent of kenai station. 



Kenai Experiment Station, 



October 5, 1901. 



Dear Sir: I hereby submit my report for this season's work. 



The grain has not matured as well as it might have done, because its 

 growth was retarded by dry weather last spring. The winter grains 

 matured, however, as did also the barley and two or three varieties of 

 oats. The spring wheats did not amount to anything this year. 



You probably remember when you were here that none of the grains 

 appeared to be sown too thickly. Well, this fall when the wet weather 

 set in, for every straw there was previously, ten sprang up from 

 suckering, and now in each one of these bunches, especially in the oats, 

 there is the original straw in the center with ripe grains, and all of 

 these shoots are from 6 inches to 1 foot taller than the original stalk, but 

 green. And it has kept this up right along. All through the oats 

 and Manshury barley there were young shoots not headed out yet, 

 others just heading, some in bloom, and all the way up to ripe grain, 

 but the latter is but a small percentage of the whole. All the grains 

 suckered in this way until ii was thicker than hair on a dog's back. 



The flax also, as you will notice, from sample sent, acted peculiarly. 

 The seed which germinated early produced plants, which branched 

 considerably but were of no value for fiber, while that which came up 

 in July reached a height of 2 feet or a little over, and has very fine 

 straight straw. 



The ground is fertile; what it wants is cultivation and water. When 

 the rain came everything started to grow, and grew fast, so fast 

 that in fact it would not stop growing until the frost stopped it. 



I did not keep any record of the growth of the field peas, but all 

 the patches on which the stand of grain was not good were sown to 

 field peas June 21. On account of the ground being so dry they did 

 not come up until about July 10, and some as late as the 15th. They 

 then made a good vigorous growth, however, and were about 2 feet 

 high and in bloom when they were cut for hay September 16 and 17. 



BUILDING OF STATION HOUSE. 



1 started to cut logs for the house the latter part of last October. 

 Logs have been cut for building houses here in Kenai for a hundred 

 years, and all the handy timber has been cut away. By going back 

 about 2 miles, though, I found house logs, but they were scattering. 



