Pitting on Alaskan Farm Lands

C ERTAIN areas of cleared land in central Alaska have, in the course of time, changed from smooth-surfaced tracts to pitted, pocked, or honeycombed surfaces. The exact cause of the change has not been adequately investigated, though there is need for such a study. A more detailed knowledge of the potential and actual frequency of this phenomenon is important because of the persistent efforts that are being made to promote agriculture in this region. Pitting of his land would bankrupt any owner whose livelihood depended to an important degree on returns from that land. It therefore behooves the federal government to determine the exact cause or causes of pit and hummock formation and by subsequently mapping the land to withdraw from homesteading those areas favorable for pitting. The feature here referred to as pitting can best be visualized by study of an aerial photograph (Figs. i and 2), supplemented by a detailed description of the surface and soil conditions. The writer's observations regarding this phenomenon were made in I938, I939, and I940, mostly on one of the cleared fields at the Fairbanks Agricultural Experiment Station. The field is located four-tenths of a mile north of the station superintendent's office, along the west side of the road that leads to the northernmost clearings on the station lands. This field was cleared of heavy alder timber about twenty-five years ago. The soil was deep and rich, the land sloped uniformly and gently northward, and the field appeared perfectly suitable for cultivation. It was used for various crops and gave good returns during the first years. However, after a number of seasons (opinions differ regarding the length of time involved) a part of the field began to show surface irregularities that were suggestive of a relationship to cultivation, though they apparently were not directly caused by it. In the annual report of the Alaska Agricultural Experiment Stations' for I926 this field is briefly mentioned as follows

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• The World of Underground Ice

  J Ross Mackay, Jenny Mackay•Annals of the Association of…•1972

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