i 



VII. 



Agricultural Resources. 



In regard to the agricultural resources of Alaska, Mr. Petroflf 

 says that it has been settled by patient experiments that cereal 

 crops can not be grown. Nor can the fruit trees and small fruits 

 of the United States be cultivated with success, unless it be the 

 strawberry and the cranberry. He continues: 



Taking up the subject of the vegetable garden, it is found that there are 

 localities in Alaska where for the last eighty years, or even more, up to the 

 present date good potatoes have been raised, though I should say, perhaps, that 

 the raising of these tubers is not a certain success year after year, except at one 

 or two points within the Alexander Archipelago, namely, at the mouth of the 

 Stakhin River, at Fort Wrangel, and on Prince of Wales Island. The potato 

 grounds of Alaska, however, can with due care and diligence be made to furnish 

 in the Alexander Archipelago, in Cook Inlet, at Kadiak Island and islets con- 

 tiguous, and at Bristol Bay a positive source of food supply to the inhabitants. 

 It is not generally known that on Afognak Island there are nearly lOO acres of 

 land, dug up in patches here and there, which are planted by the inhabitants and 

 from which they gather an annual harvest of potatoes and turnips; but there 

 are no fields spread out, squared up, and plowed anywhere in Alaska. The 

 little openings in the forest or the cleared sides of a gently sloping declivity in 

 sheltered situations are taken up by the people, who turn out with rude spades, 

 of their own manufacture principally, for the purpose of subjugating and over- 

 turning the sod. Many of the gardens, noticeably those at the Kadiak village, 

 are close by the settlement, while others are at some distance. 



The potato crop at Kadiak in 1880 was a total failure, and this happens at 

 intervals of from four to six years. The winter preceding the planting in 1880 

 was an unusually cold and protracted one, and the season, short at the best, 

 was cut off by unwonted early frosts during September and the latter part of 

 August. The usual growing season, however, opens early in June, from the 1st 

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