The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-10-15
NEWS OF THE FARMING WORLD.

Wnlle people are rushing 80 take
up land in Oklahoma, much more
profitable, if not much
FINER LAND, Is GOING BEGGING IN
ALASKA,
parts of which will be thickly set
tied before so very many years, if
the representations of the Agricul
tural Department come true. The
great cereals, such as wheat, barley,
ETC., have not yet been sufficiently
tested to make success with them
certain up there, but truck garden
ing seems to be already on an estab-
lished foundation. Of course, the
high prices make all crops pay very
we'll. A recent report to the Agri-
cultural Department. from Prof. G.
G. GeOrgeson, who is in charge of
the experimental station in Alaska,
says that the outlook is most encour-
aging. He has spent the summer in
the interior and along the Yukon
river, finding good gardens all along
the route, especially at Eagle City
and Holy Cross Mission. Although
the season was unusually late this
year, new potatoes, cabbage, cauli-
flower, beets, and other vegetables
were ready for the table before the
middle of August, and lettuce,
radishes, and turnips grown in the
open had been in use for some weeks.
Flower gardens containing a large
variety of ANIMALS grown from seed
furnished last year we're in full
bloom. At the station at Rampant,
rye seeded the previous fall wintered
perfectly and was ripe in July.
Spring seeded barley had ripened
about the middle of August, and
there was quite prospect for oats
and wheat to mature. Extensive
areas of excellent land were found
on the Lower Yukon upon which
there was an abundant and often
luxuriant growth of grasses over six
feet in height. The abundant moist
ure and long days during the sum-
mer months account for the surpris-
ing luxurianoe of vegetation in that
far north region. One of Professor
Georgeson's assistants will make a
trip overland from the Yukon Val
ley to Prince William Sound, taking
the trail from Eagle City. This will
afford opportunity for reoonnois-
sanoe of that region, which is re-
ported to contain large tracts of land
we'll suited to agriculture. A report
of this trip and of the seasons opera
tions of the Alaska stations as a
whole will be submitted to Congress
in the early winter.
The Department has continued it's
experiments in Rhode Island into the
value of
LINING SOILS THAT ARE MORE OR LESS
ACID,
a condition which, it declares, is
much more common than is generally
supposed. Nearly 200 different kinds
pof plants have now been tested in
these experiments. The principal
results of the experiments may be
briefly summarized as follows
Plants benefited by Hming-orange
ounce, black Tartarian cherry, early
Richmond cherry, Burbank Japan
plum, American linden, American
elm, rhubarb, Australian saltbush,
hemp, asparagus, red raspberry
(Cuthbert), red and white currants,
barley, oats, spring wheat, mangel-
wurzels, ohicory, onions, English
turnips, sweet peas, balsams and
poppy. Plants not benefited by linn
ing-Norway spruce, cranberry, COW
pea, and fax. Plants giving incon-
elusive results with liming-Concord
grapes, blackberry, raspberry (Ohio
Blackcap), spring rye, serradelia,
and carrots. While the soil condi-
tions under which the experiments
were made are believed to be quite
widespread, they are probably not
universal, and therefore the results
reported must not be accepted as ap-
plying TO all conditions, but merely
as indicating the crops most likely to
be benefited to a profitable extent
by lining. The action of the lime
will depend very largely upon
whether the soil is deficient in lime
or is acid, and this can be determined
only by chemical tests or by field ex-
periments. The first can best be
made by a chemist; the latter can