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84 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
up, fresh meat may be had for tlie taking,
as nowhere is game of all kinds and sizes
so plentiful. Homesteading is no more
difficult there, as a rule, than it is in
timbered, isolated sections of the continental
United States. Timber is plentiful
so that, with tools, the settler may
hew his home from the forests.
Many homesteads have been entered
since the beginning of the government
railroads, and each year will see the
number increasing rapidly. Claims
should be taken up as close to towns and
settlements as possible, in order to have
a market for produce. When transportation
is more common, homesteads may
be taken up anywhere, and the choice
claims brought under the plow.
Alaska now has many fine farms, and
the government has established four or
five big experimental farms to show
Alaskan farm folk the way to success.
The experimental farms have produced
nearly everything grown on the average
American farm, and some of the
crop specimens, in size and quality,
were prize winners. Of
course some crops do better in
Alaska than others, and as soon
as it is determined what these
crops are, they are specialized in.
Near Fairbanks, about 350
homesteads have already been
taken up. There are 250 homesteaders
in the Matanuska and
Susitna valleys. The value of
farm produce raised near Fairbanks
in a recent year, within
120 miles of the arctic circle, was
$150,000. The government has
surveyed and sectionized more
than 200,000 acres in the
Susitna, Tanana, and Copper
River Valleys, and all this vast
plain is open to homestead entry
in chunks of 320 acres. Prospective
farmers must not picture
miles of waving grain fields, as
at home. Contrarily, they must
seek for diversified crops, so
that they may feed themselves
and others without depending on
imports. Thus, to begin with, gardening
should be the main thing. Vegetables
of nearly all classes do well in
Alaska.
Pasturage is so promising on many of
the off-shore chains of islands, and along
the coasts, that capitalists are acquiring
holdings on which to found immense
cattle ranches.
Alaska's fishery products are to food
what the country's gold is to the world's
mineral wealth. It is but recently that
the succulent clam found its way into
cans here at home, but hot on the heels
of home industry, Alaska is now canning
clams. All the world knows of her
salmon wealth. To this may be added
a never-ending supply of herring, cod,
and bountiful halibut banks. More than
two hundred fifty kinds of edible fish
abound in her waters, besides trout and
grayling in the lakes and streams. Large
numbers of whales are found, and these
are butchered and prepared for shipment.
Main Street, Skagway
This town is a real boom center.