Seward daily gateway., 1932-03-21

experiment stations for the 35 years ending 1881, is $44,771.00 per year from which stations have been es- tablished at Sitka, Copper Center, Rampant, Kenai, Kodiak Fairbanks and MatanuSka. Shifts in popu- lation, industry and transportation facilities have made 1t advisable to abandon all of these stations for the present except Sitka and Mat anuSka.
 Two locations, Kenai and Copper Center, were found to be unSuit- able for general agriculture be- cause of frost and precipitation conditions and were abandoned for that reason. Matanuska, the sta tion now under conSiderat tion for abandonment, was established Is years ago. Two hundred acres of land have been cleared from a vir- gin stand of timber. One hundred thousand dollars worth of perma- nent buildings that would be a credit to any State have been erect ed. The past two years, only, have been largely devoted to experi- mental effort, though there are a few experiments initiated five and six years ago.
 The station is now complete. The last of the buildings of the build program were completed in Aug ust 1881. Complete buildings are erected to fill the needs of the work for the next 30 years; a full complement of equipment and ex- pert personnel is on the ground to pursue the numerous problems.
 The real value of the experiment station lies not in a commercial effort but in making experimental determination which individual farmers cannot afford to do. For instance, the work of the expert ment stations have more than jus tified their cost to date in the fol- lowing:
 1. The production of a hardy hulless barley which alone is worth thousands of dollars to settlers, and in time, will be worth more to the Territory than the total cost of the operation of the station to date.
 2. The production of a super for strawberry and a hardy rasp- berry is of great value and it's worth should not be minimized. 3. The successful introduction of hardy spring wheat of superior milling qualities has laid the foun- datlon for Sizeable industry when the population and economic con- dltions warrant expansion in that direction.
 4. The breeding of hardy dairy animal, an experiment. now some r years old, has produced individ- uals superior for Alaska in quality and hardness to any of the com monly used dairy breeds. There remains to be done the fixing of the type, the most important part or the work, requiring singleness or purpose, a comprehensive know leoge of genetics and livestock breeding, and the eye of an ex- pert to bring the work to an early and successful conclusion, all re- qulrement beyond the average farmer. It is estimated that the station could, if permitted to do so, accomplish in the next 20 years what will occur with the abandon ment of this project by the gov ernment in the next 150 years of community breeding in establish Ing a breed suitable for the region.
 In this connection, dairying ranks very nigh as a factor of prosperity in all of the more civilized and thickly populated regions of the world, and that all of the regions have produced dairy animal pe- culiarly suited to their needs be- fore their greatest prosperity was realized.
 To mention a few of the accept ed dairy breeds: the Jersey on the Isle of Jersey in the English Chan nel, the Ayershire in Scotland, the Brown Swiss in Switzerland, the Holstein in The Netherlands, and breeds in many other sections have
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