The Alaska daily empire., 1923-01-22
CONSERVATION IN ALASKAUNKNOW
 SAYS coy. BONE.
Conservation Politics Blight ing, He Tell Washington
 State Editors.

SEATTLE, Jan. 22.-"Real con- servation is a stranger in Alaska and has been unknown from the date of the Seward purchase" Gov. Scott C. Bone told 400 guests assembled at the Alaska Products Dinner at the University Commons last Saturday night. The dinner was the closing feature of the State Press Associa-l tion's annual convention dnd was at tended by State editors and their wives and prominent citizens of both Washington and Alaska.
 The menu was composed entirely of Alaekan products. Included on itI were blueberries from Juneau, bread from grain grown and millod in the Panama Valley, reindeer meat, vege- tables, strawberries, salads built around red salmon. The dinner was, arranged under the auspices of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
 Alaska Is Misunderstood.
 Governor Bone addressed the guests in part as follows:
 Alaska is the least understood, the most generally misunderstood, of all the civilized countries of the world. bouLd, glacial upheaval and iofma- tion, unfit for habitation save by Es0imos and polar bears. In actual ity and fact it is the very antithesis ot that mental picture. The feast here tonight, an Alaska feast in toto, attests the truth. Alaska is an in. yiting land in all its aspects. It's summer climate all along the coast is virtually the same as that of the Puget Sound and the average winter temperature Is comparable to that of St. Louis and the Mississippi Val. ley. In the Interior the summers are warm, often as hot as in Western moro severe than in the Rocky Noun tain and Northern states. Only in the Arctics is frigidity encountered and even within tle Circle the mere. ury rises to the 90s in midsummer.
 Untruths Firmly Implanted
 'It should not oe necessary to re. state and reafiirm these facts, but nntruths as to Alaska have become so firmly implanted in the public mind that iteration and reiteration become necessary to dispel fancy and supplant it with fact.
 Tt is a common saying that every thing can be grown in Alaska ex cept cotton, corn, beans and melons. This statement does not do the Ter raory full justice in excepting beans and melons. Your Yakima and We natchee Valleys have nothing to fear from Alaska in fruit growing, but berries of all varieties thrive amaz ingly and there Is an abundance of soil near tidewater as rich and fer. tile as that of your famed .Puyallup Valley. 4 MT. Paulhamus may not yet view with alarm the prospect of Al. askan competition, but the berry growing and berry-canning industry or the Northland is certainly large Tn possibilities. Alaskan vegetables are unexcelled A country fair held in Juneau in September disclosed as fine products of garden and field as could be raised anywhere O. earth. Native celery and lettuce ar, unrvalled in any cline Wheat equa 10 the best Minnesota grade is grow 'n the Tanana Valley. There hai been but, one crop failure in the 2: years of agricultural development !, Alaska. What state of the Union can equal that record?
 Sustain Large Population
 Alaska can easily sustain a popu 'ation of a million people-possibl, .en million--out of the products of its soil and waters and the game o
 ts forests. Yet the strange anomaly IS presented in this 20th century c that resourceful domain today mum bering scant 60,000 souls! Nor )ver, save for it's fish foods, Alaska traws upon outside markets largely tor the necessities Of life. Only an infinitesimal fraction of the 100000 square miles of agricultural land i. under cultivation. This is something for you gentlemen of the press to marvel over and consider upon your return to your desks. Efforts are now under way to bring about a transformation of the Northland, and l crave your support and aid toward that end. T am a conseryatienist. I be lieye in conservation of an our national raaourcao on, ap .h~