50 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REPORT. 
forage crops for cattle and sheep and swine, but the livestock in- 
terest aside from dairying is altogether too small in New York, 
and in the East in general. 
3. The growing of forests. It is to the forest crop that vast 
areas of the roughest, highest and most inaccessible lands of the 
State are best adapted. As near as I can determine, about one-third 
of New York is woodland. In some counties, even outside the Adi- 
rondack region, two-fifths of the land is reported to be in wood 
lots. This is a greater area than is devoted to any other crop, 
and it probably yields less profit per acre; yet in the census year 
New York led all the States of the Union in the value of farm 
forest products. We must re-orient ourselves to the subject of 
forests. The forest is or ought to be considered as a crop. Natural 
forests are not necessarily the best forests so far as the production 
of timber is concerned. Nearly all natural forests abound in un- 
productive acres, and in trees of very slight commercial value, which 
are as much weeds in the forest as Canada thistles are weeds in the 
corn field. Man can produce a better commercial forest than nature 
usually does. 
RECOMMENDATIONS AS TO STATE EFFORTS. 
I am convinced that the State in its own interest should greatly 
extend its efforts for the betterment of its farming industries. 
Several new policies or enterprises are needed, four of which seem 
to me so urgent that I propose to state them: 
1. A thorough-going survey of the exact agricultural status of 
the State should now be made. Such an inquiry made carefully 
and without haste by men who are thoroughly well prepared, and 
continuing over a series of years, would give us the data for all 
future work with local problems. We must have the geographical 
facts. We are now lacking them. We talk largely at random. We 
must discover the factors that determine the production of crops 
and animals in the localities, and the conditions that underlie and 
control the farm life. One part of this inquiry should consider the 
soil conditions. A study of these conditions involves a knowledge 
of the kinds, classification and distribution of the soils of the State 
and the relation of place and altitude to production of crops and 
livestock ; determination of the best drainage practices on various 
soil types; a study of the cultural experiences and manurial needs 
as adapted to the types; and other questions in furtherance of sur- 
veys and investigations now under way. Such a survey of the 
State should be broad and general enough to consider the status of 
