Photograph by R. F. Griggs 



KODIAK FROM TIIF, SAMF POSITION FOUR YF,ARS LATFR, AUGUST 25, 1916 



Kodiak enjoys the unique distinction of having been benefited by a volcanic eruption. 

 The grass has come through the ash better than ever before. The whole hillside has come 

 up to grass as abundantly as the foreground. 



The eruption, of course, destroyed 

 these pastures, so that the live stock 

 nearly perished from starvation. The 

 herd of the Government Experiment Sta- 

 tion was shipped hack to the States until 

 it could be determined whether it might 

 be possible to grow forage enough to 

 support them on the ash-covered land. 

 When they were shipped there was scant 

 hope that they could ever be brought 

 back again ; but at the end of only two 

 years the pastures had so far recovered 

 that they were returned with full assur- 

 ance that they could be maintained with- 

 out difficulty (see page 22). 



Places which three years ago were sand 

 plains, with hardly a green leaf, have 

 now come up into luxuriant meadows of 

 blue-top grass. In some places the grass 

 is still in scattered bunches, but in others 

 it covers the whole ground in pure stands 

 six or seven feet high. Where the mead- 

 ows are completely grown up, the grass 

 is finer than ever before (see page 18). 



Of the berries, the most important is 

 the salmon or "Molina" berry (Rubus 

 spectabilis), which is allied to our black- 

 berries and raspberries, but somewhat in- 

 termediate between them, having much 

 the shape and appearance of a blackberrv, 

 but coming loose from the receptacle like 

 a raspberry. 



Salmon-berries were of course com- 

 mon before the eruption, but the ash pro- 

 vided such greatly improved conditions 

 for them that the plants have made un- 

 usually vigorous growth (see page 24). 



The ash also smothered and weeded 

 out the smaller plants which formerly 

 competed with the berries and apparently 

 acts somewhat like a mulch, protecting 

 the soil from excessive evaporation, for 

 the berries did not suffer in the unprece- 

 dented drouth of 191 5 as they are said 

 to have done in less dry seasons before 

 the eruption. 



But although the country is in places 

 clothed with vegetation as richly as be- 



15 



