Near by, on the southern shore of Afognak Island, is the largest settlement of the “old colonial citizens” in the Territory; three hundred and thirty of these people are living here in a very picturesque and substantial village; a large chapel, which is also used as a school-house, is the distinguishing architectural feature, while a number of newly-built row-boats for fishermen, on the stocks, in a miniature shipyard, point to an industry worthy of attention. The town is spread over a large landed extent, which in many places between the dwellings is devoted to vegetable gardens. More land is under cultivation here than all the rest so treated in Alaska to-day; the crops of potatoes, cabbages, turnips, and garden-salads, like radishes, etc., seldom fail except in very backward years. No ploughing[51] is done; the earth prepared for potatoes is thrown with spades, picks, and hoes up as small ridges or tumuli, into the surface of which the seed is planted. A few of those shaggy little bulls and cows, which we have noticed before at Wood Island and Kadiak, are also roaming about, and a great many domestic fowls, such as chickens and ducks, are raised by the women and children, who take the poultry into the attics or lofts above their living rooms during the inclemencies of winter. The desire of the Russians to have beef, milk, and butter, led to a very general importation of Siberian cattle from Petropaulovsk so that every post in Alaska, at one time, had at least a pair of these useful animals to start with. The greatest care was given to them at first, everywhere; they were especially fostered at Sitka, where the demand for their flesh and milk was most urgent, but at Kadiak and the Kenai mission on Cook’s Inlet, the only partial success in causing an increase to the stock was achieved. Impressed with an idea that certain sections of the Kadiak region would serve admirably for sheep-husbandry, a San Francisco merchant-firm shipped a flock of rams and ewes—one hundred and fifty of them—sheep of the hardiest breed, to Kolma, a spot not far from St. Paul’s Harbor, Kadiak. They were in charge of a trained Scotch shepherd; but while the flock did remarkably well in the summer, yet most of them perished during the following winter, not from exposure nor want of food, but the long-continued and frequent intervals when the sheep are obliged to be shut up tightly from the fury of wintry gales laden with sleet and rain and snow, causes their wool to “sweat” and fall from the skin in large patches, producing an emaciation and debility which the animal seldom fully recovers from. Also, the general dampness everywhere under foot during the summer season in many good grazing sections of Alaska, is such as to cause an abnormal increase of the hoofs, so that the horny toes turn and grow upward, destroying the peace and comfort of a sheep and literally confine its movements and destroy its thrifty life.[52]