Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1912 — ALASKA AS A GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALASKA AS A GARDEN

According to meteorological experts there was a complete change of climate in Alaska last winter, which may be permanent The change was caused by the switching of the Japan current toward the shores of that country.. This is likely to cause a great change in the raising of agricultural products and will, perhaps, open up new fields of endeavor. Records show that it was Alaska’s warmest winter. Capt. Harry S. Knapp, the government’s chief hydrographer, declares that the Japan current probably has been switched from its former course to a position very near the Alaskan coast by recent earthquakes in the Aleutian Islands. Scientists are now at work on the problem endeavoring to ascertain whether their suppositions are correct. The Alaska known to the tourist, says the Philadelphia Record, is a strip of land and a fringe of islands about 425 miles long by 100 miles wide. This extends north to Mount Saint Elias and is about one-twelfth of the country. The main territory, beginning at Saint Elias, stretches northward 'about 700 miles to the Arctic ocean and the same distance westward to the Bering sea. The total area is probably about 590,884 square miles. Heretofore, the climate of Alaska has varied in different parts of that country. The impression is general that the Alaskan climate is arctic in its severity, but this impression is misleading. There is no typical Alaskan climate any more than there is a typical European or American climate. The extremes of latitude and longitude in Alaska find their parallel in Europe between Norway and Sicily. Equable Climate. -

The Aleutian isles are favored by most equable- temperatures through the influences of the Pacific ocean. These modifying oceanic influences affect the northern Alaskan coast, to the peninsula, and at Sitka and the country thereabouts is found a northerly extension of the temperature conditions of the California and Washington. coast region. The Sitkan archipelago has a humid equable climate, with cool summers, warm winters and frequent falls of rain and snow. Of the coast stations Sitka is typical, its mean of 33 degrees for the coldest month, February, is practically identical with the January mean of Saint Louis. Extremes are rarely known there. In the Saint Elias region westward to the Alaskan peninsula the winters are usually considerably colder. Farther to the northward the coasts are washed by the Bering sea, a cold body of water with an average temperature of about 39 degrees. In consequence of the cold sea and its adverse winds, it is natural to find a harsher climate on the northwest coastL In the interior of Alaska the climate becomes continental, with great ranges of temperature between the short, comparatively hot summers and long, cold winters. W ithin 100 miles of the coast the oceanic influence largely disappears. Whether the greater nearness of Jhe Japan current -would change this interior is not known. The southwest coasts of the territory would be afr fected most. The agricultural supply, which would be influenced by a milder climate, has in the past been valuable only for supplying the local market Heretofore views of all kinds, optimistic and pessimistic, have been advanced on the possibilities of successful agriculture in Alaska. A number of successful farmers live there; all in well-chosen localities, in the vicinity of towns of considerable Size. On the outlying islands, such as Baranof, where Sitka is situated, and Kenai, grain has been a failure for the most part, except when cut for hay. At Sitka, where potatoes do well for some years they fall off in size and quality,.

and other vegetables are raised only with care and In favorable seasons. Farms Now Cultivated. As one enters the valleys of southern Alaska the agricultural possibilities Improve. Potatoes and other vegetables have done well in the past, but as a rule grains fail to ripen and are valuable only for feeding stock. Farther north, In what is known as Copper valley, conditions are more favorable for vegetables, and quite a number of good gardens and small farms are now cultivated. The growing season heretofore has stretched over six months or more in the islands and the inlets of southeastern Alaska. It decreases to five months at Skagway, and is about four in the interior. While the Seward peninsula and the arctic coast have no agricultural possibilities, yet considerable parts of the Yukon basin are suitable for gardening to a degree astonishing to the uninformed. The best-known instance of successful farming is that at the Holy Cross mission, on the Yukon, 62 degrees north. There cattle have been raised for 12 years and more, and the products of the land under cultivation excite astonishment in all visitors. All through the valley of the Yukon potatoes and vegetables mature when proper ground is chosen and skilled attention given. At Fort Gibbon, at the junction of the Yukon and the Tanana rivers, and at Fort Egbert, near the arctic circle, the military garrisons have raised large quantities of vegetables, potatoes being especially successful. Even at Coldfoot, within the arctic circle, at 68 degrees north, potatoes, cabbage, peas, turnips, rhubarb and berries are grown of large size and good flavor. Truck farming and hay farming are flourishing industries in the lower Tanana valley, where that more than 30,000 acres of land have* been homesteaded. While grain will ripen only under favorable conditions, •potatoes, with other vegetables, do very well, and the native and selected foreign grasses are productive of good crops. That the productivity of Alaskan agriculture is important, both in quantity and in value, is clearly indicated by the diminution of ’the shipment of potatoes from the United States to Alaska, which dropped in two years from 211,215 bushels to 167,033 bushels. In the same length of time the value of all vegetable shipments fell from $696,928 to $483,855, a decrease of more than 30 per cent. A warmer climate in Alaska would, no doubt, cause these figures to diminish rapidly and soon disappear. In fact, it Is not an extravagant statement, according to men who have investigated the subject, to say that the switching of the Japan current may mean that Alaska will forge ahead in its agricultural products until its exports will be the very things which in the past were Imported.