The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-12-23

land-Wrong Ideas as to Its Gil
mate and Agricultural Possibilities
Going to be the Theater of Great
Developments in the Near Future.
In view of the scant popular knowl-
edge about Alaska some accurate infor-
nation will be of value: Alaska is eight
times as large as all of New England
Its coast line Is $4,000 miles. 1t has the
best yellow cedar in the world. 1t mas
the greatest salmon fisheries. it has
cod banks that beat New Foundland.
1t has the second largest river in the
world. The Yukon Is twenty miles wide
700 miles from its mouth. With It's trib-
utaries $500 miles. 1t discharges one
third more water than the MISSISSIPPI
Alaska has an area of 3"9, j29, 900 acres;
272, ,0O0.00 acres lie within the temper
ate zone. In 1867 the United States gov
ernment paid for this area S.2OOO0O.
One Alaskan company alone has paid
the United states government $I,OOO,-
900 in rental and royalties. The value
of Alaska salmon packed in 1901 was
over s7,OO00c0.
Misconceptions.
There never could be a greater mis-
conception in regard to a geographical
fact than the popular idea that Alaska
is a. snow-covered waste. AS matter
of fact, one can travel from one end
of the Yukon to the other in summer
and never see snow. On the contrary,
one will see tangle of luXuriant veg
citation. large forests and such delcacies
,,.s11 nr,tnc ynI n
hutl<la berries and cranberries in pro-
fusion. In places the grass grows as
high as mans shoulders.
Hardy vegetables are grown with
marked success all over Alaska south
of the Arctic circle. except on the coast
of Rering Sea. Fine potatoes, cauli-
flower, cabbage pale peas, lettuce and
radishes have been grown at the eX-
permental stations at Sitka and Kenai.
At Dawson the Chamber of Commerce
rooms Of that town display fine samples
of barley, oats and wheat in many va
rieties, perfectly normal in all partic-
u!ars. and grown there by a local ex-
permenter. At Eagle a luXuriant
growth of sweet peas, poppies. mignon-
ette and a host of flowers in full bloom
may be seen in summer.
Dawson truck growers now raise rad
ishes, lettuce, turnips, celery. caulif1ow-
er, beets, parsnips and all such stocks
in abundance and supply the market
and some have succeeded in maturing
potatoes. The vegetables enumerated
are finer than grown elsewhere in the
world. because the twenty-four hours Of
sun in summer rushes the growth so
that they have no time to harden or
grow tough, and are sweet and delicious
and almost melt in the mouth.
Alaska can furnish homesteads of 800
acres each to 100000 families. She has
abundant resources to support pop
ulation of at least 100000 people. The
development of agriculture would re-
duce the cost of living, make labor more
plentiful and give rise to better trans
portation facilities
When the fishing industry of Alaska
is developed it will engage the labOrs
of hundreds OF thousands of people who
must be fed in large measure from the
farms. The salmon is as yet the only
fish that has attracted attention. There
are thousands of square miles of cod
banks: the enormous halibut grounds
have not been touched, and the myriad
shoals OF herring go by unheeded. An
oil and guano factory has been estab-
lshed at Killisnoo, a little village near
Sitka, in which herring are used. There
is room for fifty such enterprises. The
guano sells readily for $50 ton.
With such facts as to resources, why
is Alaska not settled? Simply because
settlers cannot get title to land. To
get title the settler must buy soldiers
additional homestead scrip, which can
be located on unsurveyed lands. This
viii cost anywhere from S. to SIS an
acre. Then he must deposit in the sur
,veyor generals office an amount which
will cover the cost of survey. Deputy
surveyors charge $l5 to $40 day and
travelling expenses in Alaska. The re-
suit of all this is that a piece of raw
land in Alaska will cost him as much
as a good, improved farm in the states.
Such conditions are prohibtive and
Alaska will not be settled as long as
,they prevail.
One Congressman's Views.
Congre ssman Wooten, of Texas who
spent last summer in investigating
Alaskan conditions upon his return is
sued a statement from which we make
the following extracts:
1.-The American people and the gov
,ernment at Washington are wonderful
ly ignorant of the actual character of
that territory and of it's almost unlim-
tied possibilities. Ever since it was
acquired in 1867 the prevalent concep-
tion of Alaska has been that it is n
land of eternal winter, where perpet-
ual gloom enshrouds a. desolate land
scape of snow and icebergs, peopled by
q squalid and hopeless race of degrad-
ed Indians and Eskimo dogs, and pos
sessing a limited supply of gold, fish
and furs. 1t was and is still called by
those who are too ignorant to be sus-
ceptible of intelligent opinion or too
indolent to acquire accurate knowl-
edge. Stewards Ice-BoX,' and when
Charles Sumner proposed it's name, de-
rived from the Indian words meaning
Great Country, everybody sneered at
the irony OF the title.
"A distinguished United States sem
ator ten years after the purchase de-
;serlbed it as a place of nine months
winter and three months damnation
cold weather. Similar expressions were
once current in regard to the great
Louisiana Purchase and the masnifl-
cent domain acquired by the Mexican
war, and they suffice to show the slow
progress of intelligent knowledge even
among those whose business 1t is to
know and to promote the true inter-
ests of our great Republic.
Few people know or will credit the
fact that Alaska comprises a territory
as large as all of the United States
east OF the Mississippi river; that it
has coast line of 26,O00 miles, reach
ing with its outlying islands almost to