to an important position. They now include upon their staffs nearly seven hundred persons, who constitute a body of organized scientific workers such as is hardly to be found in any other field of investigation. While they are laboring primarily for the advancement of applied science, they have made a quite large number of important contributions to the sciences, and their investigations are followed with interest by workers in similar lines the world over.
The past history of the stations gives every assurance of increasing strength and efficiency in the future. They have passed through the formative period of their existence, and year by year have secured a better equipment and more thoroughly trained officers. "The people generally have come to regard the stations as permanent institutions, and are convinced of the usefulness of their work. They will, therefore, enter upon the twentieth century with bright prospects for the development of their researches in scientific thoroughness and accuracy and for the securing of larger practical results."
The lastest addition to the list of experiment stations is the Alaska Station, which was established last year, with headquarters at Sitka. Some preliminary work to determine the practicability of conducting station work there was carried on the year previous. The report of the operations of the Alaska Station for 1899 has recently been issued by the United States Department of Agriculture.
It is only recently that Alaska has been regarded as possessing agricultural possibilities. Potatoes and a few other vegetables were grown in a small way by some of the settlers and at a few missions, but for more than a quarter of a century after Alaska became a part of the United States no effort was made to encourage agriculture. It was not until the discovery of gold in Alaska attracted a large number of people there and created a demand for foodstuffs that any interest was manifested in the study of its agricultural capabilities, or in the attempt to establish there at least sufficient agriculture to meet a considerable proportion of the needs of its population. The results of the experiments carried on by the Alaska Station have been a surprise to those who have regarded the country as suited only to the fisheries, the fur trade and mining. Professor Georgeson's report shows that vegetable growing in Alaska is no longer a matter of experiment. "It has been abundantly proved that all the common, hardy vegetables which are grown in the gardens of the States, such as potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, peas, onions, carrots, parsnips, parsley, lettuce, celery, radishes, turnips, beets and the like, in their numerous varieties, can be grown in Alaska to a high degree of perfection and attain a crispness and delicacy of flavor which is rarely equaled in the best farming regions of the States, because they are there very frequently dwarfed and toughened by drought and heat." He has also shown that in Southeastern Alaska and in Cook Inlet oats, barley, buckwheat and spring wheat will mature with careful culture. Flax has been grown for two years with marked success, indicating that the climate is particularly favorable for flax growing. In addition to the native grasses, which grow luxuriantly, a long list of forage plants have been successfully grown, and Professor Georgeson asserts that it is safe to depend on growing an abundance of feed for live stock every year, which leads him to believe that dairying, beef, mutton and wool production are assured of success. Thus far the experiments have been confined to the southern coast of Alaska, but the present season work will be undertaken in the Yukon district and at other places in the interior.
PHILOSOPHY.
The appearance of a book by the veteran Dr. Hutchinson Sterling, from whose 'Secret of Hegel,' published in 1865, the rise of the neo-rationalist
