ALASKA EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 277 



competent to note facts and to interpret them as Mr. Brainerd has 

 done. Most people who go there have preconceived ideas of the 

 countiy and its possibilities. These ideas have as a general rule been 

 based on the well-nigh universal opinion that Alaska is a barren, use- 

 less waste, and they are unable to correct and readjust these ideas so 

 as to conform to the actual facts. Mr. Brainerd's article appeared in 

 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of September 29, 1901, and is as follows: 



YUKON VALLEY FARMS. 



Omne ignotum pro terribile — the unknown is a terror— was a common saying with 

 the Romans before the Christian era. So when I went up the Yukon four summers 

 ago and wrote to the Post-Intelligencer that what impressed me most was the luxu- 

 riant vegetation, the size of the timber, and the apparent agricultural possibilities, I 

 was not only laughed at by the incredulous, but was asked seriously, " How can any- 

 thing grow in that terrible frozen region?" Three short years have broadened the 

 knowledge of many, but still the doubters are more numerous than the believers. 

 I hope to show to their satisfaction that the ' ' agricultural possibilities of the Yukon' ' 

 are neither so visionary as the mirages nor so uncertain as the movement of the 

 auroras which are common in that country, and to-day I present the first photo- 

 graphs that have been made public of actually growing cereals. 



Let me first call attention to the fact that it is within the memory of men when 

 the rich and fertile States of Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado were marked on the 

 maps as the Great American desert. If the great American desert now blooms with 

 valuable wheat, if not with the beautiful rose, the watersheds of the Yukon may 

 yet be known as the seat of a thriving agricultural community. Of course, the pub- 

 lic is becoming familiar with the argument from analogy in the case of Finland, 

 which lies largely in the same latitude as Alaska. It is well known that that coun- 

 try, with only 50,000 square miles of agricultural land, sustains over 2,500,000 people; 

 that at their last report they raised 28,000,000 bushels of cereals, 4,000,000 pounds of 

 flax and hemp, had nearly 3,500,000 cattle and sheep, and exported butter, cheese, 

 oats, and live stock. If a stronger argument from analogy be sought it may be 

 found in the report for 1897 of Alexander Platonovich Engelhardt, governor of the 

 the Russian province of Archangel, which borders on the Arctic, extends to 71° 

 north latitude, and has by far the greater part of its area north of the sixty-sixth 

 parallel. 



A MATTER OF ISOTHERMS. 



Archangel, its chief town, has nearly 20,000 population, and is in the latitude of 

 the settlement of Nulato on the Yukon. In 1897 the population of the province was 

 350,000 persons, who in that hyperboreal region raised 60,000 tons of wheat, rye, 

 oats, and potatoes, owned 260,000 cattle and sheep and 280,000 domestic reindeer, 

 and exported over $1,000,000 worth of wood, cereals, butter, and flax. In all the 

 province, Governor Engelhardt says, there are only 216,000 acres of agricultural land 

 and 516,000 acres of pasture land. 



But the argument from analogy is often fallacious. If a man were to speak of 

 olives and oranges grown in the latitude of Denver, Indianapolis, or Philadelphia, 

 he would be jeered at by the unthinking, yet that is precisely what is done in Cali- 

 fornia in the latitude of these cities, while apricots and prunes are grown in the State 

 of Washington north of the latitude of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 



Agriculture is a matter of isotherms and not of latitude, and the isothermal lines 

 in the Yukon Valley, so far as is known, are more favorable to agriculture than those 

 of Finland, for while the winters are colder the summers are hotter. Coming to the 



