The Daily Alaska empire., 1947-02-17
Room for $40 Families
 On Alaskan Farms Says
 Land Management Bureau
By VERN HAUGLANC

1 mated tOuay that aI least oto ieW farm families could make go of it. 1 in Alaska right now
 Almost half of them-3l0 famil- ies-could establish sort of little Matanuska project on the Kenai Peninsula, the Bureau reported. Simultaneously. the Bureau ot Mines estimated that Alaska has added also 2,ocOOo0,000 to Nation al wealth, in 30 years as U. s. l possession, and still contains vast uneXplored resources.
 Oscar L. Chapman, acting Secre- i tary of the Interior, said Alaska mineral resources are sufficiently varied to form the basis for a much more general industralization than has yet taken place.
 The Land Management Bureau, in a listing of Alaskan areas suit able for agricultural settlement said Alaska now has less than $50 | farms.
 The Land Management report es- timated that the GAO proposed new families would have reasonable ex- pectatioh of, establishing successful farm enterprises in specified local ities. It said that $40 is con servative minimum which under : favorable conditions in several ar eas might be doubled, and added: Assuming that each new farm i family would cultivate the minimum acreage required by the homestead ! law--20 acres of each l60-acre tract "a total of 12,800 additional acres would be brought into production,
 This would mean at least doubling of the present cultivated acreage, reported to be about ll,00o acras. of which less than 7500 acres were harvested In the Mines Bureau report, form CT Bureau Director H. Foster Bain said that since the U. s. purchased | Alaska in 1867, fur trapping and fishing have contributed about Sl, i coo, ,000,0O0 and mineral interest al- most $l.000 100000 to the nations income.
 l Mining Decline
 Mineral production declined from i $28, ,724 ,221 in 1940, and 26,809 ,380 in l94l to $7032 900 in 1944. the low est since the turn of the century, the report said.
 Gold production, formerly two thirds of the annual value of min erals, declined to one-fourth of 1 the total in l944 Copper, form erly second to gold in production value, since 1889 has heen produced in Alaska only incidentally in the mining of other ores.
 Of BIO families which the report estimated could be established on Kenai Peninsula farms, 100 would settle in the vicinity of Homer 100 at Kenai, 75 at Kasilof, 20 at Ninilchi and IS in the Anchor Point area.
 The report said there is much good agricultural land" on Kenai Peninsula
 The other proposed settlement areas:
 Matanuska Valley-75 families; some flair" agricultural land west of the colony toward Wasila, and Goose Bay; very little of it in large contiguous tracts, The re- port said the public lands in the Anchorage area are insufficient for additional group settlement
 Panama Valley-160 families. in- cluding 25 along the Steel Creek road and elsewhere within a To- mile radious of Fairbanks; 50 along the railroad from Fairbanks to Nenana, particularly in the Dunbar area 50 truck and poultry farms along the Richardson Highway. 20 in the Cinema River area, and l5 in the Big Delta area, where the land is suitable for livestock and limited cultivation,
 The report said the upper part of the Tanana Valley offers little prospect for group settlement
 Other Areas
 Kodiak Island-25 families on Kodiak and Afognsk principally to produce livestock processing and marketing plants required before any material expansion feasible
 The 40-mile area, near the Yukon border northwest of Fairbanks-l0 families Mining area. largely un- surveyed for agricultural possibil- ities.
 Haines-l0 families; limited acre age on the peninsula south of Chilkoot Barracks.
 Ruby-Nulato area on the Yukon. Nakanek, on the Alaska Peninsula. and McGrath on the Kuskokwim- 10 families each; relativesly isolated sections.
 Southeastern Alaska-20 families. chiefly near the Stikine River mouth.