The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-05-12

 doned in Southeast Alaska, the U. s. Forest Service office of the United States Department of Agriculture, at Juneau, reports that prospective settlers should study their transpor- tation problems before undertaking extensive improvements.
 Wherever possible said We'll man Holbrook, Assistant Regional Forester, it would be wise for any, one intending to take up land to llve on the property in temporary quarters through one winter before spending any great amount of money
 Experience has shown that fami- lies have moved on to isolated pro- perties and clung to their holdings tor years, and then walked off and abandoned everything. It is rather difficult to make a success of a small farm that has only occasional contacts with the settled commun- ities.
 ScnOOling fTODicHiS
 "As children grow and no school is accessible, it often happens that the wife will move to nearby town with the children. This of course increases the familys expense and decreases the chances of the huS- band to operate the homestead at profit"
 MT. Holbrook listed a number ot the homesteads that have been taken up in Southeast Alaska, and outlined the histories of some that are available in the records of the Forest Service office.
 Most of the abandonments were on properties that had not been ex- tensively improved but one example is recorded of failure after nearly 10 years of cultivation and the eX- penditure of not less than $10000 in improvements. This property is on the north end of Duke Island. near Ketchikan, and was filed on in 1914 by L. D. Ryus, a surveyor.
 Drained Lake
 Ryus drained a shallow lake a short distance back from the shore, and raised garden vegetables there. the soil being quite rich. He had two barges and a gasoline launch, and Tn the fall would take the barges along the beach to shore meadows where he had cut wild hay, and in this way provided winter feed for his horses and cattle.
 He built a number of good sized structures, fenced part of the lanc and kept a number of pigs and some cattle, as well as horses. He found difficulty ploughing in the drained lake bed, as the horses would fre- quently get mired He planned to operate a small tractor there, but it is not believed that he ever brought one to the island, as the local forest service office had no information to that effect.
 Visited by Ranger
 In 1920 the homestead was visited by forest rangers, and to them By us reported that his experiences had been rather unsuccessful, and that to large extent he had sup ported his property by earnings from surveying. He had figured out another plan to try to make the place pay, and was then arranging to buy a quantity of calves and bring them from the mainland on barges each spring.
 Feed grows profusely on all these islands during the spring and sum- mer season, and Ryus estimated that before winter he could put enough weight on this young stock to make it profitable to butcher for baby beef. According to informa- ton reaching the Juneau office later. his tests were not entirely successful, as the unlimited green iced with no grain failed to develop first-class firm meat, and Ryus did not realize the price that he had hoped. He abandoned the place shortly after.
 The propel.y remained idle for 10 years, and in the fall of 1882, one of the Forest Bureau men was there and a family named Olsen, with two children, had moved on the property in February of that year. They made little effort to im- prove however, but had goats feeding in the ruins of Ryus' old garden They evidently moved off shortly after for six weeks after the visit of the ranger, man named Wheeler re-staked the homestead. No information has been obtained since, and Wheeler. never applied for patent on the property.
 Pointing to some of the more suc- cessful homesteaders, MT. Holbrook cited the Spauiding ranch near Ju- neau. and the homestead of John Dotson out on Lynn Canal about 10 miles beyond Tee Harbor. The Spaulding property is a compara- lively small holding, but it has been successfully farmed Tn the same family for more than thirty years, according to local records. Vegetables of the finest quality are produced, and with convenient
 -t1n