The sweets of agriculture.

• Author: Ess, Charlie
• Position: Alaska's agricultural history

Alaska's first ag researcher set up shop in a rented house, and began tinkering with various horticultural crops in gardens. He kept the station's oxen in a barn belonging to then-Gov. J.G. Brady. Agriculture in Alaska has made great and mighty strides since those early days.

Poke around Alaska and invariably you'll hear a yarn or two about discovering Alaska's riches, not the least of which includes its agricultural grounds. In the Matanuska Valley, one of the state's dozen or more agricultural areas, annals are riddled with accounts of settlers venturing up from the Midwest during the '30s, '40s and '50s, such as that of 75-year-old Patty Weisenberger:

"It was 1935, May 10th. We were in the Minnesota group, the first to arrive, and my dad, my two kid sisters and my brother Jack ... were standing on the back of the train when it pulled into Palmer. My dad said to Jack and me, Jump and you'll be the first colonists in the valley.'"

They both jumped, though there is a friendly dispute whether Patty or Jack hit the ground first. Nevertheless, with that roll down an embankment, agriculture in Mat-Su was disputably born.

Still, Alaska's governmental infrastructure, as it relates to farming, had been established decades before in Sitka. In fact, the Alaska Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station-an integral part of the School of Agriculture and Land Resources Management at the University of Alaska Fairbanks-celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

When the United States purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867, the seeds had been sown for agricultural funding. It began under the Morrill Act five years prior, set in place by President Abraham Lincoln to provide information and education in the science and economics of the nation's farming. The Hatch Act, which followed in 1887, made money available for experimental stations, and two years later Territorial Gov. John Strong accepted $5,000 in the hopes of finding room for a desk in one of the government buildings in Sitka, which was then capitol of the territory.

Though a suitable space never materialized in a government building, C.C. Georgeson, Alaska's first ag researcher, set up shop in a rented house, and began...