The Seward gateway., 1923-01-22
GOVERNOR BONE PICTURES ALASKA
 AS WONDERl !AND
SUMMER CLIMATE ALONG THE COAST VIRTUALLY SAME AS
 THAT OF PUGET SOUND

SEATTLE, Jan. 21.-Alaska was graphically described as a land vast in resources, a region of inviting aspect, mild in climate and with a people ernor Scott c. Bone last night, to 500 Washington state newspaper men, members of the newspaper association who gathered at the annual banquet in the great hall of the University Cf Washington.
 A. R. Garner of Kennewick was toastmaster, and Governor Bone was the principal speaker of the evening. The banquest was a typical Alaskan affair, with claims from CoGdova, crabs from Seldovia carrots sfrom Seward, and Valdez, reindeer steak from Nome, current jelly from Seward, potatoes sfrom Matanuska, and celery and strawberries from Haines. The Alaska cedar, the menu being printed on Alaska pulp.
 Governor Bone said in part:
 "Alaska is the least understood, the most generally misunderstood of all the civilized countries of the world. Tn the minds eye it is d frozen, ice bound, glacial upheaval unfit for hab- itation save by Eskimos and polar bears. In actuality and fact it is the very antithesis of that mental picture. The feast here tonight an Alaska feast in toto, attests the truth. Alas. ka is an inviting land in all it's as poets. It's summer climate along the coast is vir, ually the same as that of Puget Sound and the average winter temperature is comparable to that of St. Louis and the Mississippi valley. In the interior the summers are warm, often as hot as in western Washing ton, and the winters are no more Sc were than in the Rocky mountains and the northern states. Only in the A;c- tics is frigidity encountered and even within the Circle the mercury rises to the nineties in midsummer.
 !It should not be necessary to re state and reaffirm these fact, but un- truths as to Alaska have become SC 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 think can be grown in Alaska except cotton, corn, beans and melons. This statement does not do the Territory full justice in excepting beans and melons. Your Yakima and Wenatchee Valleys have nothing to fear from Alaska in fruit growing, but berries ot all varieties thrive amazingly and there is an abundance of soil near tidewater as rich and fertile as that of your famed Puyallup valley. Mir Paulhamus may not yet view with alarm the prospect of Alaska competi- tion, but the berry growing and berry
 canning industry of the Northland is certainly large in possibilities. Az
 ka vegetables are uneXceiled.S A coun try fair held in Juneau in September disclosed as fine products of garden and field as could be raised anywhere on earth. Native celery and letture are unrivaled in any cline. Wheat equal to tine best Minnesota grade is grown in the Panama valley. There has been but one crop failure in the twenty-five years of agricultural de velopment in Alaska. What state of the Union can equal that record.
 Sustain Population of Million Alaska can easily sustain a popu lation of million peOple-possibly ten million-out of products of it's so,' and waters and game of it's forests. Yet the strange anomaly is presented in this Twentieth century of that re sourceful domain today numbering a. scant 6O,000 souls! Moreover, save for fish foods, Alaska draws upon out side markets largely for the necessi ties of life. Only an infinitesimal fraction of the 100000 square miles of agricultural land is under cultivation. This is something for you gentlemen of the press to marvel over and con cidar ,,nOn VOLT return to yO,lr desks