378 Repoet of Farmers' Institutes 



is the case at Yorktown, Westchester County, where what in 1900 

 was four farms now comprises the four-hundred-acre tract where 

 eventually the boys from Blackwell's Island are to be located. In 

 not a few instances wealthy men have combined a number of farms 

 into a great estate. This latter is to be deplored, for such agricul- 

 ture has usually been unprofitable from an economic standpoint, 

 however alluring the scheme may appear on paper — even more 

 deplorable from the fact that citizenship is destroyed. Where 

 there were a dozen or more farm owners — citizens more or less 

 vitally interested in all that concerns the best interests of the 

 community — their places have been taken by transients, or hire- 

 lings, who have little thought other than to eat and drink and 

 draw their stipend. 



The total land area of the state consists of 30,498,560 acres. 

 In 1900 there were in farms, 22,648,109 acres; in 1910, 

 22,030,367 acres — a decrease of 617,742 acres. The above 

 figures prove the truth of the reasons given for the decrease in 

 farms. In 1900, the size of the average farm was slightly less 

 than 100 acres; in 1910, somewhat over 102 acres. If we divide 

 the decrease in acres by the decrease in farms, the average would 

 be 55^ acres as the size of the absorbed farms. 



More important is the number of acres reckoned as improved 

 farm land. In 1900 it was 15,599,986 acres; in 1910, 14,844,039 

 acres — a decrease of 755,947. This decrease is accounted for by 

 the fact that many of the lands listed as improved in 1900 are 

 no longer being used for farm purposes. I am very sure a fuller 

 knowledge of the facts would show that, in the economic evolution 

 during the last decade in agricultural conditions, not a few acres 

 considered worth counting as improved land at the beginning 

 of the century were not so considered ten years later. Probably 

 in some cases this was because of bad farming — for it is bad 

 farming in the last analysis so to handle land as to decrease its 

 productive value — and in more cases because men have seen the 

 wisdom of putting their efforts on their best lands, which are 

 more economically tilled nearer centers of population, letting the 

 less desirable literally go to grass or to woodlands, of which more 

 anon. 



