70 



of the visit had been accomplished) allow trips to regions far 

 from the beaten paths ; at Skagway, train connections afforded a 

 twenty-mile trip into the interior to the summit of the White 

 Horse road ; at Sitka, a walk to the Experiment Station, less 

 than a mile from the town, revealed some interesting plants in the 

 low ground traversed. 



This station — like most of those in Alaska — is a simple unpre- 

 tentious structure, Mr. Georgeson, the superintendent, lives in 

 a large frame house near the wharf, and this house serves also as 

 herbarium rooms and office ; but the station consists of a small, 

 frame house and two small greenhouses, with a few acres of 

 cleared and cultivated ground. The station supports but one man 

 beside Mr. Georgeson, Mr. De Armand, from the Kansas State 

 Agricultural College. Labor is high — the poorest type of 

 Indian demanding two dollars a day — and much of the actual 

 work is therefore done by the officials, who elsewhere would be 

 free to direct the work and plan new departures. The actual re- 

 sults, which at first seem disappointing, are lessened also by the 

 great cost of preparing land — about ^500 an acre ; for, besides 

 clearing and breaking new land, drainage and fertilizing are most 

 expensive processes in the preparation of the ground. A record 

 of 220 days with rain or snow to 95 clear days (^the rest of the 

 year being cloudy or partly cloudy) is not unusual for Sitka. 

 This means a minimum rainfall of 80 or 90 inches a year, and 

 gives a water-soaked soil that is difficult to plow or prepare early 

 in the year, and too wet for most plants much of the growing 

 season. The soil of this region — mostly volcanic ash — is poor 

 in humus ; seaweeds and fertilizers used so helpfully in other 

 countries are of little benefit here, because they do not decay 

 readily in the cool summers of Sitka. For, at Sitka, the great- 

 est limitation is due, not to short summers but to the lack of 

 heat during the growing season, the actual heat units of effective 

 temperature (above 43° F.) being less than 1,500, while Ottawa 

 has over 3,400 and Stockholm 2,700. The winters here are not 

 severe ; often, the ponds near the station do not freeze to allow 

 skating. Frost along the coast may not be experienced from 

 May I to October i, or even N"ovember i. The interior of 



