AGRICULTURE IN ALASKA 183 



up in various ways for winter use. The white population pre- 

 serve, can, and make jelly of the different kinds, while among 

 the natives the principal method of preserving them is in seal 

 oil, a vessel filled with berries preserved in this way forming a 

 gift that is usually highly prized. 



Numerous miscellaneous plants are used for food. Among 

 the more common are the Labrador or Hudson Bay tea (Ledum 

 grcenlandicum) ; wild rice or "koo,''the underground bulbs of 

 which are dried, powdered, and made into a sort of cake ; wild 

 peas are employed to some extent, and several species of mush- 

 rooms are collected for use. Quite a number of plants are used 

 as pot herbs, and the medicinal value of others is recognized. 



Cultivated areas in Alaska are, with the exception of one or 

 two notable instances, confined to kitchen gardens, in which are 

 grown many of the hardier vegetables of our own gardens, such 

 as lettuce, radishes, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onions, peas, snap 

 beans, celery, turnips, cauliflower, cabbage, rhubarb, horse-radish, 

 etc., in most places the local supply of radishes, lettuce, turnips, 

 and carrots being about equal to the demand. 



It is a subject of dispute whether or not potatoes mature in 

 Alaska. Under the methods of culture adopted in Alaska it is 

 very probable that a dry starchy potato is not secured, as potato 

 tops seen late in the fall were still quite green. In Cook inlet 

 and on Kadiak island, as well as elsewhere, the natives grow a 

 small round potato, the original stock of which is said to have 

 come from Russia or Siberia, and so far as could be learned it 

 is the same now as it was fifty or one hundred years ago. No 

 trouble was reported in securing sufficiently mature tubers so 

 that the seed could be kept over from one season to another. 

 Among some specimens of vegetables sent to the Department of 

 Agriculture by Mr Frederick Sargent, of Kadiak, were some po- 

 tatoes, specimens of which weighed a pound each. No doubt 

 these were larger than the average, but it certainly disposes of 

 the stock idea " that potatoes will not grow larger than walnuts 

 in Alaska." 



Complaints were heard in some places that cabbage and cauli- 

 flower would not head. There occasionally appears to be some 

 ground for this, but 16-pound cabbages from Killisnoo and 24- 

 pound cauliflowers from Wrangell would rather indicate that in 

 some places these plants do well. Local conditions may cause 

 failures of these crops, just as seems to be the case with several 

 others. Localities were visited where it was said that onions 



