grown in Alaska. Tastes differ, and a man may speak only as he
finds. For my part, I have eaten native potatoes raised in almost every
section of interior Alaska, and have been glad to get them, but I have
never eaten a native potato that compared favourably with any good
"outside" potato. The native potato is commonly wet and waxy; I have
never seen a native potato that would burst into a glistening mass of
white flour, or that had the flavour of a really good potato.

There has been much misconception about the interior of Alaska that
obtains yet in some quarters, although there is no excuse for it now.
Not only the interior of Alaska, but all land at or near sea-level in
the arctic regions that is not under glacial ice-caps, is snow free and
surface-thawed in the summer and has a luxuriant vegetation. The polar
ox (Sverdrup's protest against the term "musk-ox" should surely prevail)
ranges in great bands north of the 80th parallel and must secure
abundant food; and when Peary determined the insularity of Greenland he
found its most northerly point a mass of verdure and flowers.

No doubt potatoes and turnips, lettuce and cabbage, could be raised
anywhere in those regions; the intensity of the season compensates for
its shortness; the sun is in the heavens twenty-four hours in the day,
and all living things sprout and grow with amazing rankness and celerity
under the strong compulsion of his continuous rays. Spring comes
literally with a shout and a rush here in Alaska, and must cry even
louder and stride even faster in the "ultimate climes of the pole." If
the possibility of raising garden-truck and tubers constitutes a
"farming country," then all the arctic regions not actually under
glacial ice may be so classed.

Any one who visits the Koyukuk may see monster turnips and cabbages
raised at Coldfoot, near the 68th parallel; from Sir William Parry's
description we may feel quite sure that vegetables of size and
excellence might be raised at the head of Bushnan's Cove of Melville
Island, on the 75th parallel; he called it "an arctic paradise"; Greely
reported "grass twenty-four inches high and many butterflies" in the
interior of Grinnell Land under the 82d parallel; and if gold were ever
discovered on the north coast of Greenland one might quite expect to
hear that some enterprising Swede was growing turnips and cabbages at
Cape Morris Jessup above the 83d parallel, and getting a dollar a pound
for them.

In fav