ALASKA. 



41 



the herds on Kadiak Island throve the best and becaine of real serv^ice in assist- 

 ing to maintain the settlement. Here there is a very fine ranging ground for 

 pasture, and in the summer there is the greatest abundance of nutritious grasses, 

 but when the storms of October, freighted with snow, accompanied by cold and 

 piercing gales, arrive and hold their own until the following May, the sleek, fat 

 herd of September becomes very much worn and emaciated. It has given its 

 owner an undue amount of trouble to shelter and feed. Hay, however, suitable 

 for cattle, or at least to keep cattle alive, can be cut in almost any quantities 

 desired for that purpose, but the stress of weather alone, even with abundance 

 of this feed, depresses as it were and enfeebles the vitality of the stock, so that 

 the herds on Kadiak Island have never increased to anvthing approximating a 

 stock grower's drove, rarely exceeding 15 or 20 head at the most. Notable 

 examples of small flocks of sheep which have been brought uj) since the trans- 

 fer and turned out at Unalaska, Unga, and elsewhere have done well. The 

 mutton of the Alaskan sheep when it is rolling in its own fat, as it were, is 

 pronounced by epicures to be very fine ; but the severe winters, which are not 

 so cold as protracted — when the weather is so violent that the animals have to 

 huddle for weeks in some dark, low shelter, cause a sweating or heating of their 

 wool, which is detached and falls off — -greatly enfeebling and emaciating them 

 by spring. The practice of the traders at some places now is to bring beef cattle 

 up in the spring from San Francisco, turn them out into the grazing grounds on 

 the Aleutian Islands, Kadiak, and even to the north, where they speedily round 

 out and flesh up into the very finest beeves by the middle or end of October, 

 when they are slaughtered. 



Horses, according to Mr. Petroff, have been kept on Wood 

 Island, Kadiak Harbor, for years. A field of 12 acres of oats is 

 regularly sown for their use. The oats grow and frequently head, 

 but never ripen ; the planters cut the green crop for haying pur- 

 poses. Mules and horses have no economic value, there being 

 little service for them on land. 



REINDEER. 



Dr. Jackson (Report on Introduction of Domestic Reindeer 

 into Alaska, 1896), says that the vast territory of central and arc- 

 tic Alaska, unfitted for agriculture or cattle raising, is abundantly 

 supplied with long, fibrous white moss, the natural food of the 

 reindeer. Taking the statistics of Norway and Sweden as a guide. 



