are very much modified by being nearer to the coast; another, Fairbanks, is at the end of the railroad, where there are entirely different climatic conditions.

In southeastern Alaska, where there is the largest population, the Sitka station is supposed to cover that region, and the work there is mostly in the line of horticulture.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Mr. ANDERSON. What is the character of the problems that these stations undertake? Do they simply try to determine what will grow there?

Doctor EVANS. It is largely to determine what will grow there and to get earlier maturing and better suited varieties of different crops for that region.

Mr. ANDERSON. They are climatizing the crops?

Doctor EVANS. Yes; and developing them by hybridization and by selection.

Mr. ANDERSON. What do you do in the livestock station?

Doctor EVANS. The livestock work has been developed largely at Kodiak where we are undertaking to find some breed of domestic cattle that is suited to Alaskan climate. It has been found that the Galloway does exceedingly well, but the people in Alaska want something that gives more milk than the Galloway. So we are now endeavoring to get a hybrid cattle by making reciprocal crosses between Holsteins and Galloways; and the first of the second generation came into milk this year and gave approximately twice as much milk as her Galloway dam, and about half as much as the best of the Holsteins.

At the Matanuska station we have introduced the milking Shorthorn. We believe, and I think a great many others are led to the same belief, that the Matanuska country, as well as other parts of Alaska, will offer great dairy opportunities in the future. We are working in that connection, trying to find some breed of cattle that will do well at Matanuska.

In this connection, I would like to say a few words about some work that has been taken up at the Fairbanks station, where the winters are very rigorous and where we are working more for a hardy beef animal, one that won't have to be housed continuously during the long winter season. Doctor Georgeson, who has been in charge of Alaska stations for more than 25 years, has advocated for a long time that an attempt should be made to get a cross between the Siberian yak and some domestic race of cattle. We were unable to get the yak until quite recently.

Through the assistance of the Canadian Government, which had a herd on one of their reservations, we got bull and a cow two years ago. The cow died before any progress had been made in the experiment, and it was held in abeyance until this last summer, when we got two more yak cows and a young bull. We have those and have begun the problem of trying to develop a cross. The question of the desirability of making this cross has been sometimes questioned, but in Siberia, it was very common.

I have a letter here to Doctor Georgeson from V. Pisserev, who used to be in charge of the experiment station at Tulun, Siberia.

He recently made an extensive survey through Mongolia for the Russian Government, and this letter relates entirely to the question of yak hybrids. He sent some very poor pictures. They are very small and I had some enlargements made of them. This is what some of the Siberian yak look like.

The cross of the Siberian yak with the Siberian cattle is a very common occurrence, and a heifer calf produced by the cross with a yak bull is considered worth twice as much as either a female yak or a female cow. The crossbreeds are much higher in milk yield and the fat content of the milk approximates 15 per cent, more than double that of ordinary cattle.

Mr. ANDERSON. Judging from the looks of them, I should not think they are very desirable for use anywhere. I would be perfectly willing to keep them in Siberia.

Doctor EVANS. They are very hairy and withstand any sort of climate. We hope in time to be able to produce a race of cattle for the interior of Alaska that will be perfectly hardy and at the same time will be worth considerable as a milk animal.

Mr. ANDERSON. Are you going to have any population up there to use them?

Doctor EVANS. That is a question that remains to be solved. The population, of course, during the war diminished; but it is increasing, and I think that the development of the railroad is going to largely increase the population in the region served by the railroad.

Mr. BUCHANAN. What is the race of the farmers up there?

Doctor EVANS. Most of them, or many of them, are Scandinavians who went there more for fishing and gold mining. A great many of them are Americans.

Mr. BUCHANAN. The natives don't farm.

Doctor EVANS. Not very much. They have not taken to it, except in the way of cultivating gardens. Of course, in the gardens they grow vegetables. The natives now grow a great many vegetables, a thing that was almost unknown when I made my first trip to that territory, 26 years ago.

Mr. BUCHANAN. You do think the agricultural prospects of Alaska will become promising unless you can get some varieties of agricultural products that will prosper more than the ones we know of now?

Doctor EVANS. The development of agriculture in Alaska will depend on a great many factors. We have already produced a number of varieties of wheat, of good quality, that, with the exception of last year, have ripened every season. We have also through hybridization and selection, secured a number of varieties of oats and barley and the production of wheat in the Tanana Valley alone, two years ago, was something over 2,500 bushels. That may not. seem very large, but when you come to consider the fact that the town of Fairbanks at that time was isolated and that everything had to go around either to Nome, come up the Yukon River, or go to Dawson, and then go down the Yukon River, the ability to supply practically all of their breadstuffs was quite an important item.

In connection with Mr. Snodgrass's survey, he has sent me some figures of provisions imported last year to Anchorage, all of which he claims should be produced in the region contiguous to the rail

road. These figures are given in detail, but I wish to summarize them: 56 tons of butter, 147 tons of meat, 5,675 crates of eggs, and 6,319 cases of condensed milk. If they can produce and I believe it is possible all that material at home, they have saved that much, for the freight rate adds very much to the cost of anything that goes into Alaska, and makes the cost of living very much higher than it is any place in the States.

Mr. BUCHANAN. There are about 20,000 or 30,000 white people in Alaska, are there not?

Doctor EVANS. I think the last census give about 30,000.

DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL FRUIT INDUSTRY.

One of the experiments that has attracted a great deal of attention has been the development of small fruits, particularly berries. By hybridizing some of the cultivated varieties of strawberries with a wild species that grows in Alaska, there have been produced quite a number of varieties that are now extensively grown. One man alone produced and shipped to Fairbanks $180 worth of strawberries. The same thing is true of settlers at Haines where they have a good market at Juneau. They grow a good many strawberries at Haines and ship them to Juneau.

The station has also developed and distributed a good many thousand rooted currant plants, raspberries, and quite a number of other small fruits. All of them do exceedingly well at every place where they have been tried.

Mr. BUCHANAN. The success of your experiments up there would mean the supplying to the Alaskan people of the necessaries of life. The freight rate, etc., would be too prohibitive to ever serve any outside purpose.

Doctor EVANS. I have never thought that Alaska is going to be developed as a great agricultural country, to export agricultural products, but I do believe that Alaska has agricultural possibilities that will keep pace with any other development that ever takes place in the Territory.

There is no reason that I can see why Alaska should not ultimately have as large a population as Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Alaska has the acreage. It has a similar climate, and I do not see any reason why ultimately it should not have as large a population as those three countries in Europe.

ALASKA PEAS.

There is another thing relating to Alaska I should like to speak of before leaving the subject. They have been growing for many years, at the Fairbanks and Matanuska stations the variety of peas known as Alaska, which is considered by canners the best canning pea there is. There is a demand for seed of that variety. The station at Fairbanks began the cultivation of that variety some years ago and found that it did exceedingly well. It is grown as a field pea and is also used for plowing under for green manure.

A farmer near Matanuska this year grew 120 bushels of threshed peas, which he has for sale to his neighbors and others. The fact that we have had such success in growing this pea at our stations in Alaska

has caused one of the largest seed firms in the United States to request samples of those peas to see how they will behave as an early grown pea in this climate. That test will be made next spring, and if it proves a success, as it is expected it will, it will probably result in the growing of peas for seed purposes in Alaska to supply the very large demand that is now present for canning peas. The man who arranged this cooperative experiment with me said that he believed that at least two weeks' time would be gained by growing the seed in Alaska for planting in this country.

HAWAII EXPERIMENT STATION.

SEWER CONNECTIONS FOR LABORERS' HOUSES.

The CHAIRMAN. Let us take up the Hawaii item.

Doctor EVANS. The Hawaii station, for which there is an increase asked of $3,000, is in a flourishing condition and we do not have to tell about rigorous climate or frost damage.

Three thousand dollars is requested as an increase for the Hawaii station and it is to be devoted to the supplying of sewer connections or sanitary closets for our laborers' houses on the station.

It is customary in Hawaii, in all plantations and farms to supply cheap houses for your laborers. The station has 10 or more of those houses situated along what is ordinarily a dry gulch, but during tropical storms the waters sweep down there with great velocity and overflow part of the lower portion of the city of Honolulu.

In addition to that, Honolulu is building up on that side and the board of health for a number of years has claimed that our station buildings, not being provided with sewer connections or sanitary toilets, are a menace to the health of Honolulu.

We have estimated that it may be possible either to make sewer connections if the water is available; if not, to provide sanitary toilets for all those buildings and remove this point of constant friction between the Board of Health of Honolulu and those in charge of our experiment station.

Mr. ANDERSON. Has this item been estimated for before?
Doctor EVANS. It was recommended twice before.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Has there been any typhoid fever in Honolulu ? Doctor EVANS. That is what they are afraid of, if there should happen to be a case of typhoid among our laborers.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Has there been any?

Doctor EVANS. There has been typhoid fever in Honolulu on various occasions.

PRESERVATION OF FOOD PRODUCTS.

The work of the Hawaii station in the last year has been very largely along the line of utilization of excess food products; that is, the utilization of food products by preserving them, by canning, drying, or any other way, so that the material will not only have a commercial value but it will be available at a later period.

Mr. ANDERSON. Do you have to have a different kind of canning in Hawaii than anywhere else?

Doctor EVANS. We have entirely different products to work with. There is nothing in this country that would give you any information as to how to take care of bananas when there is an excess of bananas. We have found a process of drying them that preserves them in excellent condition. They can be utilized later either by shipping them to the mainland and selling them, or using them in the household.

Contrary to the belief of many people, the Tropics are not regions where you always have fruit of all kinds. They have seasons of maximum production in the Tropics as they have any place else, and there are periods when there is a superabundance of fruit and other periods when there is almost none. It is to take care of that superabundant material and to provide for other supplies when there are less that we have gone through this work.

There is another experiment that was undertaken that begins to look as though it would terminate very satisfactorily. That is to determine rather a moot question as to whether Hawaiian vegetables contain the necessary mineral elements for human nutrition. The claim has been made repeatedly that they do not; that if you confine yourself to a diet of Hawaiian vegetables you will be lacking in iron, as well as other mineral constituents, such as the vitamins of which we hear a great deal these days.

Mr. BUCHANAN. There should be plenty of iron, with those volcanoes down there.

Doctor EVANS. Rather strangely, Mr. Buchanan, there is sufficiently high iron content in the soil, but it is not available on account of the fact that there is also a high manganese content.

it difficult for the plant to get sufficient iron for its use.

That makes

The influence of lack of iron is shown conclusively in experiments that were carried on by our station. The Hawaiian pineapples were subject to what they call pineapple yellows. We had a chemist working on that problem for several years, and he found that the pineapple plant did not get enough iron. Consequently, the fruit was small and did not develop into a good flavored fruit, if it ripened at all. All sorts of experiments were made to get more iron into those plants, following the orthodox method of putting fertilizers in the soil and putting iron solutions around the plant. But, for some reason, it failed almost absolutely to accomplish it. We then attacked the problem from another angle, which at the time was considered anything but scientific. That was spraying the pineapple plants with a solution of iron, and very much to the surprise of everyone that had anything to do with this work, the plants immediately turned green, the fruit developed normally, and there need be no trouble with pineapple yellows if they follow the line of that demonstration, which resulted after three years of experimental work. It costs only about two dollars and a half an acre to spray pineapples, and you are assured of a good crop, if you will do that.

Mr. ANDERSON. How often do you have to spray them?

Doctor EVANS. About four times a year. It costs about two dollars and a half an acre a year. They have invented a spraying machine that will spray, I think, 12 rows at a time; and it does not require very much of the iron solution.

The apparatus is hitched up with a long arm and the nozzles go over the different rows; you would drive down through the field