Shortridge   1  Farming

• Agriculture has always been miniscule in Alaska.
• Only some three hundred farms exist at preset and the total has never been above 623.
• The land was thought to be physically capable of of supporting a substsnial agriculuture and the nation as whole was assumed to re-quire a new pioneer fringe.

Shortridge  1 Farming

• The critical factor in the anomaly was a change in American attitudes toward pioneering that occured nearly simultaneoulsy with the expectation of Alaskan devolopment.
• A gap was created between the collective American mind and the individual on; the symbol and idealization of the yeoman farmer survived long after individ

Shortridge 2  Soil and Grazing Potential

• Good soil is a scarce and highly is a scarce and highly localized commodity in alaska.
• Steep mountainous terrain covers a large portion of the area, and lowland soil forming process are frequently retarded by poor drainage

Shortridge 2  Soils and Grazing Potential

• Despite all of the limitations it would be wrong to conclude that Alaska lacked soils suitable for cultivation.
• Brown forest soils of more southerly regions, and although both the name and the implied similarity have been great.

Shortridge 3 Farming in Alaska

• Two major reasons for the decline of pioneering can be seven examing the traditional economic rationale of the frontier farm.
• Cheap land and a fertile, virgin soil were important assets and in theory these outweighed the handicaps of long distance to markets and an abesence of many of the amenities of est. society