The Nome Nugget

Land Management Head Believes
Another Matanuska Project Needed
For Alaska's Agricultural Economy

WASHINGTON, U.P. The director of the Bureau of Land Management believes it might take another Matanuska project "to build up Alaska's agricultural economy."

The statement was made by Director Marion Clawson during a general discussion of Alaska's land problems before the House Interior Department Appropriations subcommittee.

Clawson said he did not believe agricultural development would result through homesteading alone.

"I think they are going to have to have a measure of assistance in terms of finances and perhaps other assistance maybe a form of subsidy," he declared.

The Matanuska colony, which was established in Alaska, undoubtedly cost the government a lot of money, but it did result in an area of cleared land and farm land that is being farmed today. And it is the only area in the territory that has any substantial amount of farming going on.

Clawson expressed belief that if all the farmland that has been homesteaded in Alaska were cleared and put into production it would "far more than supply any potential market that Alaska now has."

There has been considerable homesteading in the territory since the war, he declared, but "very little of the land is actually going into agricultural production."

He blamed this on a variety of reasons: high cost of land development, prevalence of relatively good paying jobs and, to a certain degree, speculation.

In this latter connection, he cited Fairbanks as a good example of a city which is bounded on all sides by either military reservations or homesteads.

"The people have hung onto the land and there was no incentive to subdivide it, and they have been able to hold it without any cost to them at all," he declared.

"I'm sure that the same speculative aspect has reached some of the people who have been homesteading. I do not mean to be critical because I might very well have done the same thing if I had been a veteran."