“ABANDONED FARMS” IN NEW YORK. 
The Soil, Conditions, Possibilities. 
Xo topic that I have attempted to discuss has 
seemed to attract as much attention as the “aban¬ 
doned farms” proposition. Many questions have been 
put upon paper by various readers, mostly in the 
West, and I have no doubt that others are wishing 
they might get in a word, too. In this short article I 
want to answer some of the points raised. In the 
first place, we do not really admit that we have 
abandoned lands. We say unoccupied farms. By that 
we mean that no one resides upon some of the farms, 
but still the land is worked to some extent, and crops, 
especially the grass crop, are harvested. Regarding 
the price of the lands in this section of the country, 
i f is pretty clear to me that our farm lands are lower, 
considering value, than those of any other part of the 
country with which I am at all familiar, or of which 
I have any real knowl- « 
edge. This is the opinion 
of one of our State offi¬ 
cials, with whom I 
talked since this subject 
was first discussed on 
page 695 of The R. 
N.-Y. This official has 
traveled over the whole 
of this State many times, 
and has been beyond the 
State limits at frequent 
intervals. He asked, as 
I have frequently done, 
"Why is the price of 
land so low here?” 
1 have never traveled 
in the West, but it 
seems to me that a per¬ 
son who has always 
lived in a prairie region 
can hardly understand 
what we mean by a 
fairly level piece of land. 
We call the country 
here rolling land, and 
most of the farms, to 
which reference has been 
made, are on the up¬ 
lands. My own home 
is on one of these up¬ 
land farms. Our farm 
is not for sale at $10 an 
acre, nor do I think five 
times that sum would be 
very tempting. The rea¬ 
son that I should hesitate to sell at such a price is 
because of the home associations. Land adjoining 
ours has been offered for $10 without sale. Some 
one asks if a hen or a horse could be lost sight of on 
this land. I must say that they could. The land is 
not what a prairie State farmer would call level, I 
am sure. Of these rolling lands our own may be 
quite as favorably located as the average. As far as 
possible we have turned the steepest into pasture. The 
remainder has places of six to 10 acres so nearly 
level that a hen would hardly be lost sight of any¬ 
where on the lot, but there are other places where 
the descent is considerable. Very little of it is too 
steep for a hay loader, as we know by experience, nor 
do we consider it too steep for the use of a manure 
spreader. One would expect to take advantage of the 
slopes when using such machinery, but we use them, 
and an eastern-made sulky plow as well. There are 
other farms as level as ours, but there are others 
where I should consider it unprofitable to try to use 
a hay loader. Some of these steeper farms are well 
worth considering, however, and a good bit of money 
can be made off them. 
The soil of the unoccupied farms in central New 
\ork is not different from that of other farms in their 
vicinity, except that they may have been more neglec¬ 
ted. They are not unoccupied or abandoned because 
they are worn out. It should be understood, how¬ 
ever, that almost none of our eastern farms are pro¬ 
ductive without the practice of good farming methods. 
Under proper handling they produce well. I would 
hardly expect a man from a region where the use of 
fertilizers or manures is unnecessary to make a suc¬ 
cess of farming here, until he has first studied the 
problem of soil fertility as applicable to these farms. 
As a rule, the land is somewhat stony. On many of 
the farms, indeed on most of them, a good many 
stones have been picked off from the cultivated fields. 
On our farm we make it a point to pick off a few 
loads each time we plow a piece. Here the stones are 
not large. They are flat, and one picks up five or 
six as he stoops down, and throws them on the wagon. 
There are some larger stones, but we have none of 
the bowlder kind. On very few of the uplands is 
there any “leachy” soil. Along some of the creeks, 
and at certain places in the river valleys, there may 
be found occasional field? where manure seems to 
last but one or two years. On such places it is the 
practice to manure lightly and frequently. Those 
fields are easy to plow and till, and are not stony. 
The greater amount of the land referred to has a 
clay subsoil, and the soil may be clay or clay 
loam, or something akin to it. I should say that 
a clay loam would best describe the larger part of the 
soil. Practically all the land is plowable with a good 
team and plow, and a man who is determined to do it. 
But let no man, who is accustomed to let his plow 
run without having hold of the plow handles, as I' 
have heard of being done in some parts of the West, 
think that he can work that trick here. He may ride 
the sulky plow, cut one furrow at a time, and do a 
very creditable job with three fair or two heavy horses. 
In this vicinity our farmers are engaged in dairy 
farming almost to a man. General farm crops can be 
grown to advantage, and they are grown. It is hardly 
profitable to try to grow crops without fertilizers of 
some sort, either manure or commercial fertilizers. 
Perhaps one crop might be grown, but succeeding 
crops would suffer. The dairy business seems to be 
the most profitable, and the manure is used to grow 
such crops as are found to pay best under the condi¬ 
tions. Corn grows well usually, as do oats, and many 
farmers grow these two to some extent. Perhaps 40 
bushels of oats per acre may be a fair average, al¬ 
though we have grown 100 bushels on a single acre, 
and have averaged 75 bushels on a field of four acres, 
some very favorable seasons. Just now oats are worth 
60 to 65 cents a bushel. Corn sells at about 90 cents, 
but possibly that price may not be long continued. A 
good crop of corn may be considered 50 bushels shelled 
corn per acre. Oat straw 
and the corn straw are 
valuable on dairy farms, 
and practically all our 
farmers buy corn rather 
than sell, and not many 
sell oats, but feed what 
they raise. Wheat is 
grown very little, but 
some buckwheat is raised. 
Every bit of grain is in 
demand at a moment’s 
notice and at good prices. 
As for the dairy busi¬ 
ness, it promises well. 
The average price may 
be close to $1.45 per 100 
pounds; the highest dur¬ 
ing the past year was 
$1.90, and the lowest 95 
cents a hundred. There 
is a good market for 
butter at good prices. 
Just now the price is 
about 30 cents a pound, 
and there has been no 
time, I think, during the 
past year when it sold 
for less than 25 cents. 
It may have sold as high 
as 38 or 40 cents at one 
time last Winter. 
The chief crop of this 
section is hay. Good hay 
is worth $12 a ton now, 
and it has been higher at 
times. Little is for sale, as dairy farmers feed it to 
their cows. Counting hay and other roughage at 
market values, and grain feeds also, it costs probably 
$45 to keep a cow a year. Our best cows produce 
milk which is sold as high as $100, or even more, in 
a year. I know of one man who got quite a little 
over $200 worth of milk from a grade cow last year, 
but his feeds must have cost nearly $75. That was 
an exceptional cow. I can find another that did not 
produce milk enough to bring $40. It depends on the 
man as well as on tire cow. I know men who by 
working a somewhat large farm, doing without hired 
labor and paying no interest, are able to clear up five 
hundred dollars a year. This is not usual, however. 
I have in mind one farmer who is favorably situated 
who is said to save a thousand dollars. That is a case 
where “What is dad’s is mine, and what is mine is 
my own.” In other words, the father probably fur¬ 
nishes the farm and renders some assistance besides, 
although not a large amount. One farmer is thought 
to save $2000, but I will not recommend him. Al- 
