Seve:xty-Tiiikd Anxual Report 1169 



was; but nobody took advanragc of it. It lias g-ruwn, of course, 

 with the passing years. The town of Bedford is forty miles from 

 New York and lies outside of the strictly suburban region. It 

 has, however, a considerable population of city people who have 

 bought land there, and every year the tendency on the part of 

 these people to spend the whole year in the country becomes more 

 and more marked. This fact will enable you to realize that 

 northern AVestchester, in which my farm lies, is not a typical 

 agricultural country. It is, indeed, in a transitional stage. 

 Roughly speaking, about one-half of the land has been sold to city 

 peojile, like myself, except that most of these city purchasers have 

 bought simply to obtain a country home, and are not interested 

 in farming. The other half of the land still remains in the owner- 

 ship of the farmers who used to till it ; but because the country 

 is no longer entirely given up to farming, these farmers have lost 

 the market facilities Avhich they at one time enjoyed. As a con- 

 sequence, Westchester County has practically ceased to figure as a 

 part of the productive area of the State of Xew York. 



In 1880 there were 3,000 farms in Westchester County. At 

 that time these farms not only produced a considerable part of 

 the food used by the families occupying them, but they also pro- 

 duced enough cereals and other crops to be seriously taken into 

 account in estimating the agricultural production of the state. 

 The i^opulation in 1880 was 143,000. According to the census 

 of 1910, thirty years later, the number of farms had shrunk from 

 3,000 to 2,000. The population had substantially doubled, hav- 

 ing grown to 283,000. In the same period, the county had prac- 

 tically passed out of the productive area of the State of jSTew 

 York. I base this statement Tipon the fact that, in 1010, the 

 agricultural department showed for Westchester County both 

 very meagre production, and very incomplete returns. The 

 county covers an area of 3-10 square miles. A good deal of the 

 land is stony, and some of it is swampy ; but after all, it is, as a 

 whole, capable of producing good crops, if the land is intelligently 

 handled. Of course, much of the increase in population in the 

 last thirty years, is due to the growth of such cities as I^ew 

 Rochelle, Mount Vernon and Yonkers; and to the gradual filling 



