1G0 Seventeenth Annual Report of the 



By June, 1909, the bureau had secured reports from all the 

 milk stations, butter factories, cheese factories and milk con- 

 densing plants of the state, but owing to the insufficiency of office 

 heip it was impossible to do anything more than arrange them in 

 order and await the time when sufficient help could be assigned 

 to the bureau to prepare reports for publication. 



The gathering of statistics for the bulletin of agricultural 

 organizations and the preparation of the same for publication 

 was effected at the close of the fiscal year. 



STATE FAIR EXHIBIT 



The State Fair held at Syracuse, September 13-18, inclusive, 

 afforded an opportunity of making an exhibit which would be an 

 effective answer to the opinion which still prevailed in many 

 quarters, notwithstanding all the literature that had been given 

 out by the department to the contrary, that these old, unoccupied 

 farms were incapable of being brought back to anything like a 

 satisfactory condition of productiveness. It was decided to place 

 on exhibition at the fair samples of what had actually been pro- 

 duced on farms that had been bought during the past three years 

 at a price ranging from $5 to $20 per acre. Only farms that had 

 been listed in the various farm bulletins of the department were 

 to be included. The gathering of this exhibit necessitated a visit 

 to a large number of farms scattered throughout the state, for the 

 purpose of procuring the necessary material. Some of the very 

 cheapest farms, that two or three years ago were considered by 

 many people to be worthless for agricultural purposes, were found 

 to be growing crops that in many instances exceeded in value the 

 price paid for the farm. From these farms specimens of the 

 products were assembled at the State Fair and put on exhibition, 

 showing most emphatically that these cheap lands only awaited 

 intelligent and thorough cultivation. The excellence of the 

 samples of products grown on over GO representative farms, the 

 average cost of which was less than $12 per acre, furnished a 

 complete and practical demonstration of the fact that the cheap 

 farm lands of the state, against which so much has been said and 

 which have been classed as abandoned, worn out, exhausted and 

 unfertile, were capable of producing good crops under intelligent 



