22 BULLETIN 50, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



producing region, and from these ports there is water transportation 

 to Alaska. For the present, and probably for a number of years to 

 come, small grain crops will be more profitably grown for stock 

 forage, either cut green for hay or silage or ripened, than for grain 

 to be milled into flour. 



In southeastern Alaska, lack of clear weather will prevent the 

 proper ripening of grain or curing of hay, even if level land were 

 available for growing such crops on a commercial scale. 



The bench on the north bank of the Chitina, with its southern ex- 

 posure, is perhaps the most favored portion of the Copper River 

 drainage for grain growing. The Knik district is the best so far 

 tested in the Cook Inlet region. While the United States Agricul- 

 turalExperiment Station was maintained at Kenai, on the west side 

 of Kenai Peninsula, grains were grown at the station, but not always 

 without damage by frost. A large area of land on the west side of 

 the peninsula is available for grain and other lines of farming so far 

 as quality of soil and topography would determine. The Susitna 

 Valley contains a great area of land now covered with spruce and 

 poplar forests, which if cleared and dried out would be available for 

 tillage crops and probably grains, but no investigation has been made 

 as to the prevalence of permanently frozen ground under the present 

 growth of vegetation or to what extent the frost line will lower when 

 the land is cleared. 



THE REINDEER INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



The reindeer industry is by far the largest agricultural proposition 

 in Alaska at this time and it is calling insistently for consideration. 

 The native caribou, or wild reindeer, still exist in large migratory 

 herds on the Arctic Slope, in the Yukon drainage, and in the Alaskan 

 Mountains. These animals are unquestionably of large economic 

 importance to Alaska, and more stringent Government measures 

 should be taken to prevent their rapid destruction, that they may be 

 used as a basis upon which to build a great industry. 



Dr. David E. Lantz, in Bulletin 36, Biological Survey, United 

 States Department of Agriculture, speaks of several species and local 

 races of the caribou, or reindeer, that inhabit the northern part 

 of North America. These he divides into two groups according 

 to habitat. The more northern group, which ranges beyond the 

 forests, is represented by the barren-ground caribou (Rangifer arcti- 

 cus). The second group inhabits the forested area south of the other, 

 and is represented by the woodland caribou (Rangifer caribou). 

 They differ but little in habits and general appearance, Dr. Lantz 

 says, from the Old World reindeer, although no attempts to domesti- 

 cate the American reindeer seem to have been made. 



