ALASKA. 11 



aiy-line is dotted, springs up quite a different country again,, 

 higher everywhere from the sea-level by thousands of feet, dry, 

 ■with not one-tenth part of the rain-fall, vast rolling plains ot ta- 

 ble-lands and rounded uiountaiu-tojis, over which fire has swept 

 not many years ago, for the last time, as it has frequently done 

 before, utterly destroying the pine-forests, leaving nothing but 

 the blackened and bleached trunks piled upon and across one 

 another at the sport of iierce gales ; and springing up from be- 

 neath this desolation and shutting over it is a new forest of 

 young pine and poplars, with a large number of service-berry 

 and salal bushes interspersed. The valleys here widen out, 

 and contain large tracts of excellent ground for cultivation,, 

 with the significant objection, however, of being subject to- 

 frosts so late in the spring as June 10, and so early in the 

 summer as the 20th of August. This, of course, excludes the 

 question of agricultural utility ; and although the grass grows 

 everywhere here in the valleys in the most luxuriant manner,, 

 yet cattle cannot run out through the winters, which are here 

 bitterly cold ; widely diiferent from those a hundred miles only 

 to the westward across the Coast Eange. Here, under the pow- 

 erful influence of the great Pacific, winter is never anything 

 but wet and chilly, seldom ever giving the people a week's 

 skating on the small lake back of Sitka. Day after day there 

 are high winds and drizzling rains, with breaks in the leaden 

 sky showing gleams of clear blue and sunlight ; and here the 

 agriculturist or gardener has like cause for discouragement, 

 for nothing will ripen ; whatever he plants grows and enters on 

 its stages of decay without perfecting. It must, moreover, be 

 remarked that there is but very little land fit even for this un- 

 satisfactory and most unprofitable agriculture, i. e., properly- 

 drained and warm soil enough for the very hardiest cereals.- 

 There is not one acre of such tillable land to every ten thou- 

 sand of the objectionable character throughout the larger por- 

 tion of this area, and certainly not more than one acre to a 

 thousand in the best regions. Grass grows in small localities 

 or areas, wherever it is not smothered by forests and thickets, 

 in the valleys over this whole Sitkau district : its presence, 

 however, is not the rule, but the exception, so vigorous is the 

 growth of shrubbery and timber ; and even did it grow in large 

 amount, the curing of hay is simply impracticable. Although 

 the winters are mild, still there is not enough rangiug-ground. 



