Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-04-25


the engineering STATS of half a dozer
or more factories. and promise is giver
OF the early design of light, powerful
| generator that can be driven by the
engine of any car
Educators are predicting far-reach-
ing results from the Department OF
Agrfculture's movie" work. The farm.
er who Is from Missouri when mod
no longer be problem in their opinion
He will be taken to the nearest school.
house and shown in pictures whose
vivid reality will sink deep into his
or a thousand miles away. beat him
hands down at his own game by fol-
lowing the governments advice.
| What the building of the govern
ment's Alaskan railway will mean to
| the future development
| Alaskan Of the great northwest
p.;1 ern territory Is indicated
| way in figures as to resources
| the volume of freight and the present
| round about travel routes of the coun-
| try which the Interior Department. as
| sisted by other government agencies
| has gathered over against this very
| time.
/
| lance of the railway following the de-
cision to locate it from Seward through
| the Alaska mountains to Fairbanks
! Secretary Lane of the Interior Depart
ment pointed out that In addition to
| opening up the valuable coal deposits
near Cook Iulet, the line will furnish
| easy access for the first time to the
great Tanana and Yukon valleys. where
| is situated the most promising land Tor
| agricultural development to be found in
| the territory. The establishment IN
| these valleys of settlers engaged In
bringing the land to a producing stage
| will be of comparable economic impor-
lance, he pointed out, to the develop
ment of the mineral resources.
The need of the road when the open
| ing of the coal fields alone Is consid-
cred is shown by the fact that in spite
of the existence near the coast of album
dant deposits of high-grade steaming
and coking Goals more than a million
and half tons of coal. much of 1T in
ferior to the local supply, has neen
shipped into Alaska since the territory
became American property. Another
sidc1ight on the situation is that with
all it's wealth Of coal Alaska must con-
tend with exceeding high freight rates
on ocean and river steamers. These
high rates, transportation companies
say are due largely to the high cost
of fuel.
The governments railroad will fur
nish a 471-mile modern freight trans
portation system to FAIRBANKS, lts
northern terminus, which will replace
the 1.100-mile trip by river steamer up
the Yukon and Tanana rivers to that
point and will also eliminate the eX-
Yukon's mouth. Another existing route
that will be replace extends overland
from Valdez on the southern coast OF
Alaska to Chitina. near Fairbanks. BE,
of approximately the length Of the pro-
posed railroad has been constructed by
the War Department. Traversed by
sled stage line. this road serves as the
winter route between the great Ianan mana
valley and the outside world. Only
passengers and the highest classes OF
freight can be carried into the interior
in this way owing to the necessarily
high freight charges. A 2.SGo-m ne
White Pass railroad and the Canadian
Yukon will also be displaced by the
governments short extent OF track.
The freight shipped into the interior
annually in the last few years by way
Of the Yukon has been not far from
Sc, 900 tons About half of this. 1T Is
estimated, has gone to the country
about Fairbanks. With the completion
of the railroad this terminal city will
uting point for a large part OF the In
terror Carriage costs will be greatly
reduced, the population Will be mucn
increased and the volume OF inEoing
freight-which economists consider
measure Of the development OF new
country and the comfort Of Its people,
will, from every indication, be multi
piled many times.
How Uncle Sam, who. through his
forest rangers, Is a trapper of preda-
tory animals, at the same
Chestnut time goes trapping with
other of his workers for
BugnL. inflnitesimal spores. Is
shown by recently completed work OF
experts in the bureau of forest pa
thology. The investigators. who set
out to discover how the chestnut blight
fungus is spread. reached the conclu-
sion. after catching spores of the dis
ease in variety of traps" set in a
chestnut grove. thatl air currents car
rying the floating disease seeds are
chiefly responsible for the rapid ad-
vance OF the destructive fungus.
The surrounding air. 1t was shown.
is bombarded for hours after warm.
bark-wetting rains by thousands OF
spores that are forcibly shot out from
canker spots on the chestnut bark. TO
find out the facts as to the rapid spread
of the malady the tree-disease experts
placed glass traps over some OF the
canker spots so as to learn when erup-
tions were in progress. and at varying
distances from the diseased trees placed
other traps consisting of culture plates.
dishes of sterile water and prepared
tubes through which air was mechanl-
cally drawn. BY these means spores
were Captured" as far as three and
four hundred feet from the infected
trees. The fact was revealed In this
way that the disease goes forward
much as a forest fire advances by the
raining down of sparks among sur
rounding trees. When a spore lodges
in a crevice in the bark Of a healthy
chestnut the fungus grows and soon
kills the tree.
The chestnut-bark blight is said by ex-
perts in forest pathology to be probably
the most virulent of all tree diseases 1t
is Of Asiatic origin, and was brought into
New York nursery stock, as far as
can be learned. in the early ninetles
Since that time it has eaten its way In a
steadily growing fan-shaped area north
into New England, west almost across
New York and Pennsylvania. and south
as far as the District of Columbia.
AS a result of the studies the bureau
practically impossible to combat the
spread of the disease because of the ex-
pense of destroying all trees for several
miles in front Of the infested area, not
to mention the impossibility of impressing
the need for the work on scores OF legis-
lators and hundreds of thousands OF land
owners in dozen states. The disease.
therefore, in the opinion Of some Of the
bureaus experts, means the death knell
of the native American chestnut.
Though baked by social and practical
obstacles from checking the march OF the
disease toward the western limits OF chest
nut growth near the Mississippi, the gov
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